The ever smiling boy (except when he’s grumpy)

It was the first swimming lesson of the year for Grace today, with a new instructor, and it went really well.

Some friends – André, Suanne, Hannah and Tyler – made the arduous journey from down the road (literally) for an awesome Sunday afternoon visit. It is really super-awesome to have made friends with some really lovely people, whose daughter is in school with Grace, who Grace loves to play with, and they live in our street. Great combo. It is also just so lovely to see Grace playing with such gusto, having fun and going for it full on.

One thing that Grace wanted to do was to go and see the pirate ship. There is a new pirate song they are singing at school and Grace has been asking about pirates. Me (having a daddy fail last night) starts answering the questions and telling her about real pirates – the kind that steal your stuff and kick you off the boat. Her tears showed me the errors of my ways and from now on I'll just speak about the fun arg-matey type of pirates. Fortunately that was all in the past this morning and she was excited to see the ship, as well as the pirate tatoo artist sitting on the dock.

Eli loved walking around in the moby checking out the world, Grace loved having some gelato, and we all just enjoyed taking it slow with too much of an agenda.

Back home, some chilling and reading inside, and then out into the garden for some water fun in the shell, some chops on the braai and a peaceful end to the day.

The first few days of school are done, and the start to the new term has gone really well. Grace seems to be enjoying school and her friends, which is great to see, as last term was a challenging one. I'm excited that she is excited for school – let's see where this term takes us.

There is Eli who is relaxed, happy and smiley, to the point that he was laughing at Donné today when she was speaking and playing with him ("Are you SURE you don't want me to eat you up?" giggle, giggle, giggle).

Then there is Grace. She is happy and seems to be enjoying life and school, but she pushes and tests us continuously. There is screaming, moaning, gnashing of teeth and such likes….and she is spending quite a bit of time in time out as a result. The basic principle that we're following is screaming goes to time out.

One of the things I would like Grace to learn is that screaming does not result in getting what you want. So if she screams, then whatever she was after is denied until another time. It is a good life lesson to learn – "Screaming hardly ever helps you to get what you want – there are better ways to get what we want." I'm just hoping that she learns the principle sooner rather than later….

May this term be a wonderful one for her, and may she flourish.

Eli (who weighed in at 7.115kg yesterday) really likes the Big Ears that Gogo made for him. I don't think he has figured out that Big Ears is not a real person yet, as he will lie and talk to him for quite a while.

Grace is entirely unwilling to share anything about her day when we ask her about it. She'll say, "No!! Don't want to talk about that," in a huff if we ask her what she did at school, so we have to just wait and see what she decides to tell us on any given day. On the way back from school today she says, "Made a new friend today, Danika." The new children had an orientation day today, and Grace made a friend – good for her.

Grace started asking for dessert after a few mouthfuls of her supper tonight, and just couldn't quite let go. "Want dessert, want dessert, want dessert…" and on she went.

She was eating poorly. being rude (asking for dessert over and over again, moaning with her mouth full, and being generally defiant). Eventually we had had enough and the consequence of all her naughtyness was that there would be no dessert for her.

And then all hell broke loose – kicking, screaming and gnashing of teeth. It went through cycles, something like, 

"Want dessert! Want dessert!" 

"Grace, stop saying that or you're going to go to timeout."

"Want dessert!" screaming this time.

"Okay, let's go to timeout."

Shrieking, as loudly as possible, after which she would mostly calm a bit.

Out she would come and it would all start again. At least as this went on we managed to find it amusing rather than infuriating. And then it got to bath time and it seemed to sink in that dessert was really, really not happening.

At least we stuck to what we had said would happen if she kept behaving so badly, and after her bath it all seemed a distant memory….but I'm sure she'll have a sore throat tomorrow after all that screeching.

Parents 1 : Grace 0……this time at least…..

There is, quite simple, no other mould that can be more awesome than this one.

We found this in my folks house over the Christmas break, and I remember it so vividly from my childhood (the reason we looked for it was because I had told Donné about it before). In my mind (at least the way I remember it) this was a must at birthdays, and I can remember making jelly in it as a child. When I spoke to my mom she could only remember making jelly in it once…..oh well, I am forced to believe only my version of events. Regardless of what actually happened, I have very fond memories of the car jelly mould so I'll hang onto those.

The jelly tasted awesome. How else would it taste when it's shaped like a racing car?

Eli had his first outside swim this afternoon while Grace was having some slip 'n slide and water fun.