To get away from the hustle and bustle of shops and people this morning, we took a drive to Zevenwacht Wine Estate.  It had been raining, but when we arrived it stopped and we went for a beautiful walk around the grounds.  Grace has lots of fun walking up the embankment and then “running” down it, watching the ducks and doing a monkey swing / walk holding onto Duncan’s hands.  It really was lovely to enjoy the tranquility and the freshness in the air.      

We have quite a few books which came from my gran and were a part of my childhood. One of those books is "Little Black Sambo," the slightly politically incorrect story of a boy who goes walking through the jungle and meets some tigers on the way. At one point in the story the tigers are fighting and going "grrrr" and Grace has now started doing a kind of throat gurgling "grrrr" whenever the tigers growl. It is very sweet and brings a smile to our faces.

I have a story to share following on Donné's post about sleep. On Tuesday Grace was hassling to go to sleep, even though she was quite tired, and Donné needed to take a break and get out of the house a bit. We have been rocking her (after 30 minutes) but when I took over I just started talking to her to calm her down, something like this,

I love Grace with all my heart and for the most part of the day I think she is extremely cute and adorable.  She makes me laugh and I definitely have many aaahhhh moments, but at around nap time everyday I seem to lose that sweet child.   Grace is an angel at night, we say goodnight to her, she grabs onto monkey and teddy and provided she isn't hot / cold / or need the toilet she puts herself to sleep and sleeps until morning.  

Day naps on the other hand are an entirely different story, we go through our little nap time routine, book, toilet, check to see if we can see any neighbours out the window, neighbours washing on the line or birds. I then usually tell her that all her friends are sleeping, so I list a few kids names and then she tells me its her nap time. So I put her in her cot, put on some music (which she requests), set a timer for 15 minutes and tell her I will be back in to check on in 15 minutes if she needs me and exit the room.  

We have been following this routine since the 16 April.  Before that she would go to sleep nursing, but since the milk factory has now shutdown that isn't an option.  The first 3 days were VERY bad, lots of unhappy Grace, mommy and daddy, but then it got better.  She started putting herself to sleep some days, but it always kind of feels like the planets have to align for it to happen.  So on every other day she usually lies there for about a half an hour (little bit of crying – nothing serious though -, talking to teddy, throwing teddy and monkey out the cot and my all time favourite unzipping her sleep sack, taking it off and then proceeding to take off her pants and panties – one sure way to get my blood pressure up).  During this time we would have gone in at least twice, sometimes more depending on how unhappy she is and then usually after the 30 minutes she gets rocked for 5 minutes and goes to sleep.  

This process makes me GRUMPY and I certainly don't look forward to it.  I know I could just leave the nap and she would fine, she's that kind of a child that has never needed much sleep in the day, but the reality is I still need / want that time to put my feet up or run around getting things done and she definitely functions better in the afternoon having had a nap.  

So if any of you reading this think you may have the answer to, how to get Grace to sleep in the day, please share.

I think the thing that always stands out for me is that when Grace drifts off to sleep in my arms I look down at her and all I see is my beautiful little girl and I'm filled with love and warm fuzzy's 🙂     

We have been continuing with the programme the speech therapist gave us and in the past week and a half Grace has learned to say some new words (rough pronunciation in brackets) – sock, chair, book, ball, bear (baa – similar to her sheep sound, but slightly different), there (dare), bump, bag (baa), roll (oll), boo, bowl. Sock and chair she has only said a few times, but she has been using the rest fairly consistently. Currently her favourite word is “Shoe!”

It is great to see the improvements she is making, as well as how her confidence is growing – it is very encouraging.

With all the puzzle building going on (Grace has started working on a 50 piece puzzle now), Donné's puzzle bug has bitten and she has started building some of the puzzles we got her for Mother's Day….with a little help from Grace 🙂

A trip to our local Woolworths now involves an extra step. Grace has decided that she should always make a visit to the kiddies section and give a fluffy dinosaur a big hug, and then give the Ben 10 bubble bath a big hug too. Today she took all the Ben 10's off the shelf and packed them in a row – which I thought looked like a wonderful row for the dinosaur to bowl over….which Grace thought was very funny. She then proceeded to help the dinosaur flatten Ben 10.

Grace didn't feel like participating in any of the songs at Clamber Club today, but did enjoy dancing and hugging the lion.   I think if she had had her way, Mr Lion would have come home with us this afternoon 🙂