This morning Grace and I spent some time in the garden painting while Donné and Eli got some more rest. I've always been loathe to paint with her because of the mess and the potential clothes destruction, but a recent discovery has been the joy of powder paint – it is super easy to clean! Today we had lots of fun mixing colours and seeing what we got.

Bath time may be easier with Eli – I have a willing helper who would love to be in charge of washing her brother. Grace loves to help wash Eli, first cleaning his feet, then his legs, a little rub for his tummy, cleaning each little arm and finally a rub for his back. He was even quite laid back about it when she decided to turf a cup full of water over his tummy.

Grace has been given various ballet clothes through her life – tutu's, tights, leotards and pumps – but today she got to go and buy her first set of ballet clothes for herself. Tomorrow is her first ballet lesson of the term and she is really excited. It is fascinating how certain things – like ballet – have grabbed her totally. I am looking forward to seeing and hearing how the term goes.

School's back, which also means back to swimming, and Grace as usual was excited. No one is sure what happened, but when I collected her from school today she seemed to have hurt herself somehow and was exercising her lungs a bit with a good cry. She settled quickly and off we went to swimming. Grace was fractionally more sensitive when she got in, but was having the usual fun through her lesson until her instructor put her foot in it. There was a little foam crocodile stuck to the wall and as they swam over there she said, "Look, there are crocodiles in the pool." I thought, "Ooh, I hope that is going to be okay," and it seemed to be. They did some monkey walks (moving through the water using hands and the side of the pool) and I noticed Grace stretching as far as she could to move as fast as she could. They started going the other way and suddenly Grace was the traffic jam, making micro moves. And then the tears came….she didn't want to go back that way because of the crocodile. Whoops. And she never really recovered until she got a sticker after swimming and a fizzer from the shop next door. Oh well. Charlene did say that she realised her mistake as she said it.

If I were a cat…

Today was a big first for me…..a child who slept through an entire nappy change! I was certainly surprised.