Grace and I had a rough start to the afternoon. She had decided that it was time for a haircut…right now….and she does need one, so we decided to embrace the moment and get to the hairdresser. After the hairdresser we were going to go to the gym for a swim. Bags packed, Grace fed, off we go. 2 minutes from home and CRASH. Oh bother. Fortunately we and everyone in the other car are fine. Unfortunately Bob has taken some shots and has bits of car scraping along the front tyre.

It’s group time! Let’s find out what everyone has been up to…

group_time.mp4
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(In case you didn’t get it, Pink Panther went to the beach, Simba – I don’t know, Apollo – aquarium, Scrumpy Bear – Italy, Santa Bear – I don’t know, Bunny Rabbit – did the rods (I think).

Let’s sing the skeleton song!

skeleton_song.mp4
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Big boy, little boy

Granny arrived for a visit today which had Grace jumping with excitement. Keren came along for the ride too which just meant even more excitement. And the excitement turned into group time….

Eli has started smiling. Just a few smirks and some real big smiles, and every time he does it it warms your heart. Sweet boy. I'm looking forward to getting to know our boy and his personality.

The Child Magazine gets distributed through school, so Grace regularly comes home with copy which Donné likes to read. While we were eating supper Eli woke up to feed, so Grace and I were at the table and Donné was on the couch reading the magazine. Grace says, "Mommy, don't read that, it's my magazine. You can get your own magazine from school." Then a short lesson in sharing commenced.

One of Grace’s school friends lives literally just down the road, so we made the arduous five minute journey (by bike, foot and pram) to spend a lovely afternoon getting to know the family better. We all had a great time, and Grace just absolutely loved it, playing at full speed for pretty much the whole afternoon.

Maybe it is because they are both girls, or maybe it is just that they see each other regularly at school, but they engaged in such a lovely way together.

It is always beautiful to see Grace playing with such gusto, probably because there was such a long time that she would tend to come to us whenever other children tried to engage with her. Today she really required very little from us. It is also nice to see how she plays with another girl, as most of her friends up until recently have been boys.

Just before we left Grace and Hannah started bouncing and singing “Jinga, jinga, jinga” (and who knows where that came from).

jinga.avi
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There was a special little moment as we were leaving. We had walked across the road and Hannan said, “Goodbye Gracie, see you tomorrow,” and Grace turned around, waved and said, “Goodbye!” with such a sense of, “Bye my friend, it was so nice to see you today and I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

We often have croissants on a Saturday morning and part of that process is to egg brush them just before they go into the oven. Grace always wants to do this and while doing it today says, "This is my favourite thing in the world!"

Donné was helping Grace choose clothes and get dressed this morning and suggested a certain dress to wear. Grace responds, "I tried this dress on the other day and its too small – it got me in the crack." Those pesky dresses.

Grace says to Donné, "Mama, I want a sister. Eli is too little, and he throws up in the bath and everywhere. If I have a sister, she won't throw up in the bath and I can play with her."