We’re working away in our new office today and there comes a knock on the door, and two children burst in with a bowl overflowing with cut banana pieces, “Would you like some banana?” Okay, interesting, seems like the children are making snacks. After some banana pieces disappear, off they go.

Time passes.

Knock, knock! In burst the same two children, this time with a bowl overflowing with pieces of peanut butter bread, “Would you like some peanut butter bread?” Fewer takers this time, with me taking some out of courtesy. Hmm, let’s follow these two and see what is happening in the kitchen. Two super happy children, making snacks, cutting up bananas, buttering bread and all smiles.

Only one small problem with this: as Donné says, it looks like they’ve made snacks for a class of 30 and there are only two of them…at least they are happy and being productive, and keeping their tummies full.

After supper tonight there was the sound of happy playing, with Grace and Eli having lots of fun together as they tidied up the playroom, and pushed each other around on a rolling chair. Eli has turned a corner with his pink eye, fever and general unhappiness, and was much more himself again tonight. Grace was actually able to make him laugh again rather than cry just for looking at him the wrong way.

It is easy to forget how much they actually play with each other, but to hear them playing, laughing and having fun was a wonderful heart lifting sound – one that we’ve missed over the last week.

Grace is generally an early riser and she can be up and about for quite a while before any of the rest of us stir. She usually goes off to play while she waits for us to awake, and her current game is to get all her dolls into a circle (or birthday circle) and have some fun with them.

Like a few mornings ago when she carefully put them all out on the bed, and made sure each had their own snack (note the fruit, mushroom, etc. that each of them has).

It can make things a bit crazy, but at least she is playing, having fun and being creative.

Our poor boy has been suffering from a bad bout of pink eye since Tuesday, running a high fever at night and just generally being sensitive and cranky. Fortunately he has his “pink monkey” to sleep with.

After some visits to the Doctor we’re hoping for some significant improvement by tomorrow.

Eli has been wanting to go with me to Hex for a little while now, and we decided to take him for a visit today along with some birthday cake. One of the things Hex has is a large work area filled with motobikes, which to Eli are, “Scooterbikes.” I think if he could have sat on each one, he would have.

Happy little man zoom, zooming away/

Grace joined Daniella to celebrate her 5th birthday, and had some fun riding a pony.

Grace has her monkey – her well-loved, cuddled and night time soft toy friend who she holds close at night (as well as many other times of the day). Eli has never really been interested in soft toys, preferring to hold his mom’s hair over taking a soft toy to cuddle, until recently when he did start to want something to cuddle through the night.

Way back, close to when we bought Grace’s monkey, we decided we needed to have a backup in case something happened to monkey and we bought a pig soft toy that is very much like monkey. We call it Oinky, and Eli has decided that Oinky is the perfect night time companion.

A short while ago Donné was struggling to understand what Eli was talking about, with him saying, “Want pink monkey, pink monkey.” I managed to crack the code and figure out that he was looking for Oinky, his “pink monkey.” He clearly sees how his Oinky is like Grace’s monkey – let’s hope that he won’t be quite as attached as Grace is to hers.

Following the theme of the week, I guess today’s occupation would be male model after his haircut.

Grace was lining up the animals for the start of their race – everyone on your starting blocks!

It seems to be career week for Eli

It has been two weeks of school for Eli in his new class, and he is definitely settling in. In the past week we had,

Monday: Crying, asking for mom, having to be taken into class
Tuesday: All seemed fine till the moment of going in, then asking for mom, but did manage to walk in
Wednesday – Thursday: No tears, no looking back, hardly even a hug for dad.

We seemed turned a corner on Wednesday, and he seems to be getting engaged in the new work and classroom. We’ll see how tomorrow goes…if he is healthy enough to go that is.