Tap your heels together and say the words! (Eli was having some fun with Ethel’s shoes)

When I woke up this morning Donné says to me, “Do you realise you wrote this long blog post yesterday, but forgot to tell the funny part of the story?” Hmmm, quite right…..kind of like forgetting to tell the punch line.

We all went along to watch Grace’s last swimming lesson. Grace keeps her eye on us to make sure that we’re always watching her. I said something to Donné and Grace says, “Mommy, daddy! You’re supposed to be watching me swim, not talking.” Yes, ma’am. That had her instructor giggling away.

Monday was Grace’s and Eli’s last swimming lesson with Lizel and Charlene (at Quicksilver Swimming Academy). That is now the end of the road with them as we move to Somerset West. It has been such a wonderful journey with both of them, and we’ve all learned lots along the way. We’ve gone from Grace not even wanting to go in the pool with Charlene, to her being a confident swimmer loving every moment that she can be in the water.

I am personally very grateful for the parenting lessons I got from Charlene’s process with Grace when she was little. Through that I learned that we make choices that we believe are good for our children (like learning to swim and going to school), and even though it may be tough to deal with that process upsetting our children it really is for their benefit. The process with Grace and Charlene changed the whole way that I approach these things, and I’m really grateful for that piece of insight and wisdom. Charlene has been great with both of our kids and has a great sense of humour.

Lizel has been amazing, gentle, patient and loving with Grace in the water. With her help Grace has grown massively in her confidence in the water, and it has been wonderful to see her taking leaps and bounds as a swimmer. Fortunately we’ll be keeping contact with her, as it turns our we’re moving in next door to her sister in law.

Charlene and Lizel are great and I highly recommend QSSA for swimming lessons in Durbanville – lovely people and great facilities. Thank you to you both, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

We’re busy getting ready for Grace’s birthday party and there are cowboy(girl) hats around…

We had a lovely breakfast with the Parker’s this morning, ranging from poached eggs on wilted spinach through to Italian meringue, which all really just sandwiched lots of good time talking and catching up. Grace and Caleb played together making paper planes, building Lego train sets, and exploring the Goldiblocks. Good times with good friends.

Eli has been enjoying exploring new things, or just engaging for longer periods of time with toys. He was having some fun looking at the Goldiblocks today

Eli loves playing with the Fredricks’ lock puzzle. He drifted off while Donné was visiting, and when she went to find him he was having some fun with the locks.

I said to Grace, “Gracie, we need to practise the “th” sounds tonight,” and she said no, she is not going to practice them. So I say to her, “Grace, we’re not going to read stories until we’ve practised out sounds.” She thinks this is very unreasonable and frustrated says, “Dad, you’re a brick.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be cross, but given her behaviour leading up to it she didn’t get the benefit of the doubt and there were no stories at all tonight, and a lesson on how calling people names is rude. I’m not sure where she picked up the “brick” from, but she did think it was very funny and hearing her say it was rather funny.

I smiled when I was watching Eli yesterday. He picked up one of the plastic eggs, gave it a good whack, whack on the counter and then tried to crack it into a bowl. It is just not as satisfying with a plastic egg. He didn’t get to crack real eggs, but he did get to peel a hard boiled one today.

Grace ate her supper really well and Donné said she could have some dessert when Eli was finished his supper. Eli was taking his time and cruising around and Donné said, “Just one more piece of pasta.” Grace picks up the pasta, grabs Eli by the head and tries to feed it to him saying, “Do it for Gracie!”