We also made a trip to Stodels so that Grace could be more helpful with the watering – a definite improvement from her tiny watering can. I enjoy watering the garden with Grace – it is nice to have her running around with me and helping – although I think the thing that she loves most is watering her hand.

While we were at Stodels we walked through the petting zoo area (mandatory) and came across some noisy roosters. Grace really dislikes noisy birds – for some reason they seem to just freak her out a bit. I am not too sure why (although the noisy bird that gave her a fright in the Jeffrey’s Bay pet store did not help), but I did decide to work with her to teach her to cover her ears when there is a noise she does not like. Grace is definitely sensitive to noise in general, so being able to cover her ears will be a good skill to have.

It was really interesting how the noisy rooster stuck with her though. When she was bathing and going to bed she spoke about the rooster over and over again, “Come round corner, noisy rooster, mommy take away, put down at goats.” She went through the story over and over again, sometimes reenacting the distressed emotion. What made me laugh was when she told me she was going to dream about roosters tonight 🙂 Friendly, quiet roosters that is.

This afternoon while we were playing she said a really long sentence, “Mommy jumping on Gracie’s trampotine, Gogo and Gramps bought.” A nearly fully formed sentence! Really proud of our little noodle for doing so well with her language.

Grace has also started using the word “very” quite a bit, mostly to say, “very sore.” The other way she uses it is when something is, “very funny,” and we had two of those today. Moving the sprinkler and having it flick around and float through the air while spraying water was “very funny” and the snake and toilet roll rolling down a hill at the end of a Richard Scarry book elicited lots of laughter.