…you have clown fish photos!

And you know you have great friends when a phone call to say that they’re nearby turns into a braai and an awesome visit – great to see you again Bradshaws!

Cate came for a play date yesterday and the girls were making rice cakes and tea

Eli discovers the joy of rice play

A few days ago Grace hurt her foot somehow at school. It looked like she had stood on something, and that there was possibly a splinter in there. The next day Donné had a closer look and some muck came out of the wound which appeared to dislodge whatever was there. Grace continued to walk with her foot raised, and the wound hasn’t really been healing properly, but Grace has been super sensitive about touching the foot and letting us see what is going on.

With no progress, today we had to have a proper look, which meant breaking the skin (on a super sensitive foot, on a super sensitive little girl, who was also not feeling very well today).

Donné held Grace is a hug bear hold, I fought with the crazy kicking foot. Grace was traumatised to be held down and put through some pain while I broke the skin and checked for foreign objects. Donné and I were traumatised by her crying, screaming and shouting, “Let go of me! I don’t want you to look at it!” Eli also decided to join in the crying to encourage us to work faster.

Fortunately, after a lot of kicking and screaming, I did manage to find a shard of glass in her foot. With that out hopefully it will start to heal up properly. Luckily she calmed quickly afterwards. I think that piece of glass was poking her every time there was any touch or pressure around it (I know that feeling), and with it out the discomfort was alleviated.

We are all okay.

Noshing some breakfast toast at the counter

I went to observe in Grace’s class yesterday and it was really awesome to have the opportunity to watch her in the environment, as well as see how some of the work material fits together.

Grace’s day went something like this,

Play outside. Group time (including some misinformation about thunder from a book). Snack time! (with some mild consternation over someone taking her seat, as there is limited snack table seating). To the culture room to look at a book at glaciers. Let’s water the plants! Gather watering cans and off to get water. Return with a friend and filled watering cans. Repeat….quite a few times until everything is watered. Wash up a practical life task (a shoe which gets covered with toothpaste using a toothbrush, then polished off with newspaper, and then washed). Clean up after the washing.

Washing up the practical life task

Jump on the trampoline for five minutes. Inside and to the work task area. Work on the teens board with Pauline, while demonstrating it to her friends. It was cool to see the hierarchical material and bead stair are used to form the numbers.

Doing the teens board

Treasure hunt! Find the correct number of items on a sheet from the garden (stones, sticks, leaves, petals). Bring that all in and then stick them to a piece of paper to form a garden collage.

Sticking down the treasure hunt items

Paint a picture. Do a practical life task (moving beads between bowls with a spoon). Kindermusik! Tapping sticks together, swaying with scarves, castanets, learn a bit about piano’s and Johan Sebastian Bach (the take home for the kids on Bach seemed to be that he was fat and should have eaten a bit less). End of day group time. Home (but always the “just two minutes” of playing outside first).

I met with Janine (the head directress) last week, and one of the things she said was that Grace is always busy, “she is like a busy little ant around the classroom,” and it is certainly true – at least on the day I visited. Grace was just always busy (in a productive way) with something.

It was a really lovely experience for me to see her, and to see how a Montessori class works.

Eli tries out the wooden swing

We were having dinner and I was having a blank so I asked Donné, “What did we do yesterday?” Hmmmmm….silence. “Oh yes,” I said, “we went to Makro.” Donné says, “Yes, but that was only an hour.” Some more thinking ensues. Then I say, “We also painted, and played games…” and Donné added, “And went for a bike ride in the street after supper.”

Sometimes we measure life in events, like birthday parties and holidays and a trip to the shops, but life (and love) is all the things that happen in between the so-called events, like running around the garden playing “goose, goose” with Grace and watching the neighbourhood kids pushing Eli around on his little fire truck.

That’s what this blog is all about – remembering the glue that binds our lives together.

Sister cuddles

We had tortillas for dinner tonight and Grace looks at Donné’s and says, “Your one looks like Africa,” and then to hers, “My one looks like the like the country next to Europe…..Asia!” (she did actually say country, although she meant continent).

My girls