Sunshine and hurricane

It’s about time to turn back the spotlight on my baby girl.
I just realised I have only a couple of months left before she shoots off eagerly to school next year.

Of course I’ll still have her home with me on her non-kindy days, but it somehow feels like the beginning of the end of another era. A beginning to yet another stage of that continued striving for independence out of my arms.

For now, her strings, though they are beginning to stretch out, are still knotted tightly to mine.

Here are a few funny anecdotes and conversations we’ve had lately…

Grace had been reprimanded (quite mildly actually) by her daddy one afternoon for  some infraction. She’s an expert at turning on instant waterworks in cases like this. Immediately afterwards she hopped up to me and asked sweetly “Mummy, please can I have a lolly to sweeten my tears?”.

One night during one of our usual bedtime talks, Grace was trying to string our talk out for as long as possible. I usually set a quota of how many topics they can each talk about that evening (otherwise we’d probably be up all night). And this one night Grace surreptitiously attempted to extend her quota as she moved on to her next topic of conversation: “Okay mummy, my next talking is stuck to my first talking…”

She loves carrots and particularly enjoys eating them raw. And she can recite the names of all the Marvel Avengers characters. She comes up with her own unique and funny word tenses like “I brang my teddy to my room just now…”. She also has this adorable way of sticking a her tongue out just a wee bit when she’s concentrating hard on something. And oh, her eyes still have this uncanny way of making your heart skip a beat each time she looks right into yours.

She seriously dislikes being told what to do or having her mistakes brought to attention. One morning as we were all heading out the door over to the car, Nathan turned to Grace to remind her to shut the door behind her. She yelled back a wildly disproportionate response, “DON’T TELL ME!!! I ALREADY KNOW!!!”

And one night as we were driving home, Grace spotted the new moon through the car window…
“Look Nathan, I can see a banana moon!”
“Yes I see it, but actually it’s called a crescent moon.”
Disgruntled silence.
“Well I want call it a banana moon, Nathan.”
“Okay, it’s up to you, but I’m just telling you that it’s actually called a crescent moon.”
“I KNOW OKAY!!! BUT I WILL CALL IT A BANANA MOON!!!”

It’s a good thing her big brother’s patience and composure runs deep. And in her heart of hearts, she knows it, and is unswervingly devoted to him…

“Grace, who is your favourite boy in the whole world?” I asked her one evening as we were getting ready for bath time.
“Erm… maybe Prince Eric from Little Mermaid?”
“I mean a real boy.”
“OooooooOh… well of course it’s Nathan, mummy. You KNOW!”

And that’s my girl…
“Sunshine mixed with a bit of hurricane”