Anyway, it has been cold here. I’m not whinging as it is winter. And it snowed today. Again, I’m not whinging as it is winter.

Nora was so excited about the snow but all kids do. I was more worried. We were planning to go to Nate’s house for a playdate and I know that it would be a longer walk in the snow and cold.

She slipped twice and just as she got the hang of walking on a bit of ice, I heard a voice behind me. The woman was mumbling, or having a conversation with her guide dog about going to St Boniface church. We were going up a residential street and I know for a fact that there are no churches up the street and I stopped her and told her so. I told her that if she went back to the main road and turn left, there are two churches down on the main road.

Then I thought, why am I giving a blind woman directions. Nora was getting a bit jumpy about the woman’s guide dog plus she was starting to say she was cold but I can’t just leave a blind woman going the wrong way.

I took her to the first church, which was of course the wrong one as it’s St Nicholas. So, I took her to the second church and was confused about the entrance. But I delivered her to the right place in the end.

That was our good deed for the day.

It it ours as poor Nora was freezing and confused about the whole thing but she was patient as it took quite a while. On the way up hill towards Nate’s place, I explained to her that the woman was blind, which means that she cannot see. She had a dog, which was her guide dog, but helpful as the dog is, it cannot know where the woman wanted to go. So, if we know that a vulnerable person is in trouble, we have to help them.

I think she understood what I was trying to tell her… even in the frozen state she was with the wind and snow blowing into her face and that a half an hour walk (usually without the snow) became an hour.

Poor Nora… in the end she said that she doesn’t like snow. But it didn’t stop her from throwing snow balls at me when we left Nate’s… though she was miserable when we first got there, she was OK again when she warmed up.

No, I’m not fond of snow either. I like being indoors looking out. It is mesmerizing, but it means it is cold out there, and the next day it will be slippery, and then it will turn into slush. Yes, it is only nice when it first settles.

So, I’m not looking forward when we have to go out tomorrow as Nora has ballet and I need to go and do some grocery shopping.

Last Friday, we met up with Liz and Nathaniel at the library as there was no Friday Frogs. When Nora and I got to the library we saw Andrea with Ella and Baby Lucas. Nora and Ella started playing and choosing books while Andrea and I chatted. Our little Toots get together completed when Liz arrived with Nathaniel.

As the moms chatted, Nora started jumping about. Not the quietly jumping but seriously loud stomping kind of jumping. Ella and Nathaniel must have decided that it was fun and funny and joined in. So, we had three toddlers jumping up and down and the moms trying to shush them to no avail…

Until…

The librarian came over and told us to keep it down as the floor is not really sound proof and people down stairs can actually hear the stomping.

Oh dear… the last time I was told off by a librarian was in University and trust me that was a long time ago.

That did the trick and they stopped but didn’t stop them from redecorating the library with books everywhere.

Sigh…

Well… I’ve signed Nora up to do ballet and maybe… just maybe she’ll stop stomping around!

Yeah… I can hear you say ‘Wishful thinking…’

Maybe we’ll make another trip down to Portsmouth one day… when I’m not fasting and have a bit more energy to do things.

But it was a lovely day out anyway. Jules bought Nora a bucket and spade set. However, it was pebble beach and it was a bit hard for her to build a pebble castle Another trip to the sand pit in the near future I think.

We then decided to go to Fara, a secondhand baby/toddler/kid stuff shop. I made a mistake of letting Nora out of her buggy. She was trying out every single toy and then pointed to a pair of black shoes to me. I told her that we’re just window shopping and not getting anything. I asked her to get in the buggy so we could leave and she threw the biggest tantrum ever!

That was the first time she threw a tantrum in public! I was at a loss! I seriously did not know what to do. I kept on trying to calm her down. Just kept on and on saying her name. In the end when she did calm down, and I agreed that she could walk and not get in the buggy but we are not getting that pair of black shoes. She walked out of the shop holding Liz’s hand as she was still upset with me.

But she was soon in her buggy again and all is well when we got back to our neighbourhood, especially when we stopped at Primark and I got her a new sun hat and sunglasses… not that we need them now as apparently the weather will return to the norm instead of the summer sun we had of late… but they will be handy for our trip to Malaysia

Anyway… Nate will be away for 2 weeks… so she won’t have her usual Friday playmate for the next two Fridays

The first one was at the park. Nora wanted to go on the big kid slide and I’m never worried about her being on slides… but when she sat down on the slide, she zoomed down so fast that totally surprised me that I could not handle her doing it again… which upset her but I really was too scared! Maybe it’s her jacket… it is pretty smooth… so maybe next time we’ll try again.

The second time, we were in Sainsburys. She pointed out Kermit on a milk bottle and I was just deciding whether to get that bottle of milk rather than the usual one when I turned to look at her and she was not by my side! The aisle was empty apart from me! I just started to call out for her over and over again… it was the longest 20 seconds of my life! When she did come over, around the corner, I just hugged her and told her never to do that again! All it took was two seconds for her to disappear from my side!

Actually, that reminds me of our trip to Malaysia last year when she decided to go to the neighbour’s house and I thought she was with my mom and my mom thought she was with me! We went around the garden screaming her name for what felt like hours (5 minutes tops) and she poked her head out of the neighbour’s door with ‘what’s going on’ look on her face.

So what will happen now? No, I’m not going to put a harness on her. No, I’m not going to stop her free spirit. I guess I should just let her be and be more aware… and grow eyes at the back of my head.

Part of me can’t believe it’s been 2 years 6 months since the first day I held her.

But then part of me thinks ‘Has it only been 2 years 6 months?’

She is growing up so fast.

Today, as she’s still recovering from a bout of fever, I took her out for some fresh air. First to the farm with Nate and his mommy and then we went to the National Trust park to meet up with Maya and her mommy.

She enjoyed her time out… but was unwell again when she got home.

She’s resting now.

2 years 6 months… I wonder if I ever stop worrying about her.

Probably never…

When we were walking through the park to the garden centre yesterday, I noticed a play area, so today, we went it is really lovely! Everything is natural wood and they seem to encourage the kids to explore and even build little teepees with the branches they find as I noticed a few around. I think we will be visiting here often as they have done a lot of work to the park and it is really, really lovely.

We stopped at the garden centre again and I bought some daisy and wild flower seeds.

When we got home, Nora and I swept the front garden. Then, I cleared one of the raised beds in the back garden where I’ve decided will be dedicated to the wild flowers for the bees. Nora sprinkled the seeds… hopefully some will grow.

A little robin red breast kept us company while we (I) was clearing the back garden (while Nora played with the worms that I found), so we got pour some bird seeds in a plastic plate and left it for the robin.

I hope this year we will be more active with the garden. It’s been neglected for far too long.

It looks bad today but I think we made a mistake by putting the antiseptic cream on her wounds and bandaged her up. Her wounds were then wet and now it looks pretty bad. So I’ve wiped them up again and bandage her dry. Hopefully it will get better and there won’t be too many visible scars

To cheer her up, today, I took her to the farm and also the National Trust park near by. It was full of muddy puddles and jumping in them and getting all messed up cheered her up considerably.

I bought her a wheelbarrow and some plants… and gloves to protect her little hands…

I don’t think she’ll be able to do much gardening this weekend as I don’t want her wounds to get infected… but I know she will try

Oh… it’s a ticketed system and I think they give out 50 tickets. Maybe less but it does feel there must be at least 50 kids/toddlers/babies in there!

Anyway, this week as I needed to take Nora to the library as some of her books were due back, I didn’t have the energy to do that, go to the playgroup, and then swimming lessons… on top of doing household chores and cooking her meal. So, we dropped the playgroup.

When we get to the library, I return the book at the self service counter and Nora then put it on the trolley next to it. She then runs to the lift as she wants to make sure that she’s the one who press the button and we go to the kids section. She then picks her books to read at the library as I go through the shelves and choose the books to take home. I build my little pile and kept on looking.

After about half an hour at the kids section at the library, we’ll go back downstairs and again I go to the self service counter. I just count how many books I have and make sure that the same amount comes out on the screen. We then leave for home.

This time, after she had her lunch and we got ready for her afternoon nap, I took the books out from her library bag and we picked three books to read… that was when I noticed… there were two of the same books!!

Little madam must have added that book to my pile of books! Oh well… she seemed to like the book of ‘Scaredy Cat and Boo!’