Well, that was the theme of the day, colouring really. She did ages this morning, found a colouring book we bought in Italy earlier this year, sat down witht he pencils quietly and coloured away. This book had coloured pictures and matching blanks, she seemed to really like that, as she copied all the colours (and made a fuss when she didn’t quite the right shade of yellow etc.)
She has suddenly really developed the pencil control here. For ages colouring wasn’t one of her fortes, she didn’t really seem to make much effort/be interested at all and it was typically quick scribble of colour ‘ done’. Now she is much more controllled, keeps teh colour moslty inside the lines, is much more careful, concentrates much more on and spends much longer doing it. And seems very pleased witht the result.
So , other than colouring, we went swimming later on, SB wanted to cycle, but the pool isn’t very near (nearest 6 miles, this one 8 miles), so bit of big round trip just yet. SB easily managed to kick a width with a float in front and she almost managed to swim/doggy paddle a width as well, did about 80 %. sdo she was on about swimming lessons again – Helen had said that she could have them once she could swim a width, BB bobbed about, gurgled, almost floated, kicked her legs and chuckled at SB. There was only me, which frustrated SB a bit, as she likes playing with in the pool, and it’s bit more limiting when i Ive got BB as well. At the poolwe went to in Leeds it was at private gym and was lovley, there was seperate kids pool with squirty water things, slide etc. so she could entertain herself more a lot as well.
I guess it is an under 5 session so they just ahve variosu floats etc. around. What she’d really like I guess is one of those big inflatables (or visit to Centrparcs….) We all had fun though.
On return BB slept for about 3 hours solid – bit worn out I think 
So me and SB had nice easy lunch together. After that there was a bit more colouring, then we went and gave BB’s high chair a good wash We used the pressure washer as it has too many nooks and crannies and is a pain to clean, hence it doesn’t get done properly often enough, so gave that good going over, cleanest it’s been I think since we bought it.
Then she wanted to get the Happy Street out, I did want to go and harvest all the shallots and onions, butr she wasn’t having any of it. So we built a nice Happy-tropolis and played with that – every time I tried to sneak off she complained.
BB woke up when it was almost her dinner time, so sat on the sofa feeding her, and doing more colouring with SB. I was just about to start dinner when Helen came home, so she spent time with the girls while I did dinner, a little bit of Hama-ing went on, but SB not entirley ahppy, and tipped what she had started back into the bowl. she doesn’t like Helen working so much (well none of us do) and then sometimes gets frustrated when BB gets in the way as well. She even commented at dinner time on why Helen was at work more – and the last couple of weeks ahve not been good workwise time anyway.
She fell asleep quickly though once in bed
Then did a pitta bread, hoummus, olives, salad, corn-on-cob type thing for the adults, plus the kids to eat bits of as they saw fit Sat muncing on this under the gazebo on the lawn whilst children swirled around us back and forth.
Stringbean was keen to do ‘some making’ and keen to raid the craft cupboard. But agreed with my suggestion of breakfast first. So yet another bowl of Cocopops (she will need to go cold turkey when this box is finished) was consumed.