Three things that stood out from my day:

1. I asked Grace to pack her bag this morning for our breakfast outing with Mel and when I went to see what she had packed I found the following: 2 puzzles, 3 books, a bowl, water bottle, juice, hairbrush and her slippers. She seemed very pleased with her packed bag.
2. Grace and I backed cupcakes today.  I asked her what colour icing she wanted and she said she wanted pink and blue.  So I agreed to make both, but while looking for the the blue food colouring Grace managed to empty the whole bottle of pink onto the floor and herself (it only took a few seconds of not looking).  This resulted in some panicked screaming, trying to reduce the damage to clothing and then trying to figure out what to wipe the floor with – with me saying “I don’t know what to do?” and Duncan saying “roller towel, roller towel” Yay for husbands who can think clearly.
3. While icing her cupcake Grace was standing on her chair and well who knows what happened but she fell off, grazing her chin on the kitchen counter before landing on the floor – so Grace is now Grazie Grace!  

Blowing two whistles….notice the red stains on her jacket. I guess those won’t be coming out.

Today was Grace's first swimming lesson after the school holiday break. She has now begun with individual lessons where it is just her and the instructor in the water, with me watching from the side. I was not really sure how she was going to be today after the long break and without me in the water, but it went incredibly well. Over the last week we have regularly reminded her about the upcoming swimming class, and today we kept running her through it. She seemed to be really excited before the time, and it turns out she was. What I thought was really cute was Grace sitting waiting for her lesson, pointing at the girl in the water and saying, "Done," as in, "Okay, you're done – it's my turn now."

Donné got Grace some princess sunglasses today….and she loves them.

Dear Donné,

We now know what the first extensions to the jungle gym will be. Grace had a chance to swing on Caleb’s rope swing today and absolutely loved it. The swing is a rope with a log tied onto it for a seat, and a smaller stick tied a bit higher for a hand hold. It was hard work swinging on it, but Grace just wanted more and more.

I finished the book Outliers today which I really enjoyed, I think it has significantly impacted my thinking. I would say it can be summed up like this: if you want to be successful work hard doing meaningful work and make use of the opportunities that present themselves to you. Those two factors are at least within your control.

Get some cream

Everyday I watch Grace learning new ways to shape the world she lives in to get what she wants.  She has discovered that if she wants me to get off the swing (she always says "no no no" if I sit on it, which is usually followed by a "It's good to share," conversation), she then indicates to me that she wants to hang on the monkey bars, but as soon as I get up from the swing and go over to her she says "no," goes down the slide and climbs on the swing.  Grace has done this 3 times in the last 2 days so I know she has it all figured out – "I want mommy off my swing, so pretend to want to climb the monkey bars, because mom said no climbing unless there is an adult present, mom gets up, I say no no I don't want to climb the monkey bars, quickly go down the slide and I get my swing back"  

Grace fancies herself as quite the music connoisseur. She is very particular about what she likes and dislikes – if we put on some music and it is a song she does not like we are sure to hear, "No, no, no." Switch to a song she does like and there is usually a nod of the head with a "Mm." We were on our way to the library today and a car drove past us with his music playing quite loudly. Turns out his music did not make the cut, with Grace saying, "No, no, no." in the back seat.

Cape Town is having a mini summer in the middle of winter and Grace is loving it. It means hours of fun on the jungle gym. I put the umbrella up over the jungle gym and she loved playing in her little house.

Grace saw Spice poop in the garden yesterday and it made an impression because she made her first two word sentence when she saw Spice, “more poo” – she is definitely a Drennan