It was a bit of a rough day for my girls today. Grace was clearly feeling pretty terrible (still not better), and Donné has come down with a cold and is feeling pretty muck (fortunately I seem to have managed to have only a couple of off-ish days over the weekend, but am feeling mostly better).

Grace helping to crush the nuts for breakfast muesli

I really do feel blessed that even when Grace has "a grumpy, I'm still not feeling great day" I can hang out with friends who love me and love my little girl – thank you Karen.  

Grace loves her little people…she really loves her little people. They have a little bag that they travel around in and they get involved in most of her activities. Yesterday the family of little people grew as we welcomed Jess & Jake into the family (along with their slide, seesaw and merry-go-round).

Kitty trying out the new slide. The family even seems to have gotten a dust bunny for a pet.

There is also a nightly ritual of putting the little people to sleep. Duncan lines them all up and Grace puts the "blankets" (nappy extenders) over them. Just before she goes to bed they are all given an excited good night wave.

The "pee-pee" under their blankets 

So it turns out that I quite like Dora the Explorer. Maybe it was just growing up with and loving cartoons, but it has grown on me and I enjoying interacting with Grace while we watch together. Oh, and Grace likes it too, particularly the episode about waking up the sun. And her favourite characters? Bennie the Bull ("moo") and Swiper the Fox ("tay," for tail, and then after he is gone, "more"). She likes the songs the most, particularly the "We did it!" song at the end of the episodes, which she asks for by saying, "did, did." She always dances with monkey or kitty during the song.

I really enjoy playing with Grace. Before we became parents I always used to feel a bit awkward around children and not really sure how to interact with them, but now I really love it when I get a chance to just spend time playing with Grace. We had some time this afternoon, playing hide-and-go-seek, pushing Grace around on one of the couch cushions, diving onto the cushions and just generally having some fun. There are certainly many times that I don't make full use of the opportunity to play, but some days it just works and is loads of fun and laughter.