Jo Jingles Party

Last Saturday Lara went to her nursery friend's birthday party. It was our first chance to see her play with those friends she spends all day, 5 days a week with, and it was great. Both Olga and I can be shy in group situations, and I did worry that Lara would be quiet and clingy to us, but she joined in all the games without any fuss, and really enjoyed herself. I don't know why I was worried, we always hear about how much fun she is at nursery, but it was just nice to see in person.
There was a children's entertainer and then they all had a nice kids' tea party, here are a couple of photos:

When we showed Lara the top photo, she went along the line and named all the kids for us, which helped us, we didn't know all of them. The lad in the second picture is James, the birthday boy.

Strange Dreams and Time Changes

Lara surprised us on Monday morning (I had a lie in on Sunday morning, so didn't notice what time she woke) and this morning, by sleeping through until we wake her up around 6.30am, which would be 7.30 for her body clock. Not that we're complaining! We had a couple of trick-or-treaters visit on Sunday evening, but only after she'd already gone to bed.  She was a bit spooked by our pumpkin, but only a bit and Peter Pumpkin has hung around for a few days since then, and now Lara likes seeing him lit up.
She also delighted us by telling Olga about a dream she had yesterday morning, although the subject wasn't quite so nice - about a frog who was sick after eating strawberries! But it was interesting to know that she can remember her dreams.

"When's December?"

It's properly chilly now, and Lara's new hat and gloves have come out, which doubles the time it takes to get her out of the house in the mornings, while we get each finger into its own "house" in each glove.Other than a runny nose, she's fine now, all over whatever was bothering her last week. At the moment she's obsessing about her birthday party - fortunately Olga and I are invited, but she's asking the awkward question of "When's December?" - answers on a postcard to me about how to respond to that! It'll only get worse after Saturday, when we're going to the 3rd birthday party of one of the boys in her nursery class (her former beau, James).

Last Saturday was her first trip to the cinema. Olga took her to the Kiddies session in the morning, where she could play with toys (I believe she drove a ferrari) before watching Space Chimps 2. It didn't seem to matter that she'd not seen Space Chimps 1, and it was only 75 minutes long, which was just about long enough for her to concentrate on a film at the moment. Whilst she still loves Peppa Pig, she has graduated up into watching Toy Story 1 and 2, although she's seen them both a few times now and it'll occupy her for half an hour before she gets bored. We've taken to putting The Simpsons on while we eat tea now, and she loves that, so the makers can feel vindicated that they've created a cartoon that appeals to all ages!

Mishka didn't escape attention last weekend, it was time for his quarterly strip. It's a pain (for us and him) but everyone feels better after it, although he might not be so grateful at the moment when it's zero degrees outside in the morning when he goes for his walk:

It'll be Jackson's turn next, but at least his strip won't take all day.  Mishka did provide enough fur to stuff a large pillow, or make a medium sized jumper, but we just threw it out.  Perhaps I should save it and use it to lag the loft? It'll keep a lot of heat in.

Finally, here's a photo I took from my office window on Tuesday afternoon, before this cold, clear snap hit. It' a good sign for Waitrose - those portacabins at the end of the rainbows house the workmen building a new Watirose next to our office:

Under the weather

Obviously that's not Lara, but it represents how she was on Monday morning. She's had a bit of a cough over the weekend, and on Monday wasn't quite herself, but she went to nursery anyway. Olga got a call before lunch that Lara had been sick, and she dashed there to collect her. The poor luv was sitting on the floor on her own in her room , still wearing her sick-stained clothes, hugging a bucket the staff had given her. She just burst into tears when she saw Olga and went for a big hug. At the time Olga didn't question why the staff hadn't cleaned her up and given her some comforting, but we'll be asking that tomorrow. Anyway, it seems to be nothing serious at all, and Lara was her normal self by Monday afternoon, but has had to stay out of nursery until tomorrow afternoon.
Olga herself isn't on tip-top form after having some back teeth out on Friday, so it's TLC all round on Deeds Grove at the moment.

Sleepyhead

Lara had a restless night, interrupted by an annoying cough, although Tixylix helped. She woke at 6.30 but didn't do enough over the monitor to convince me that she was ready to get up - if she's ready, she'll shout "It's morning! I want to get up!", but this was more of a mournful, tired "Paaaaappaaaaaaa", so I left her alone and indeed she went back to sleep. After letting the boys run about in the garden I went in to wake her up at 8am, opening the curtains and window, and turning on the TV, and this was the result:



Sorry about the brevity but my ancient phone only allows me to shoot 15 seconds of video at a time.