Thursday, May 13, 2010

MAY 2010 UPDATE

These two beautiful girls continue to delight, amaze and tire us!

MILLIE

The other night Millie said with great seriousness: 'I'm only allowed to eat one sweet thing at dinner-time or I'll go crazy!' When she's tired after an energetic day (she's our 'non-stop' girl) her diet has to be monitored carefully, as sweets cause her to be even more hyper-active!

Last Monday night the little family came out to dinner with us, and I sat next to Millie. At (Knox) FoodStar smorgasbord restaurant the girls can choose small amounts of their favourite foods, and they tend to be more relaxed than at home (where there's pressure to 'eat up all the food on their plates' when they're tired). Millie and I had some beautiful conversations - especially when she described a game with arms and hands and fingers she'd learned from our neighbours, and taught to her classmates.

Millie's also proud of herself doing the 'splits' - from standing upright to sitting with legs wide apart on the floor: what a lithe little body she has!

Last week I had the enjoyable task of minding Millie upstairs, and she got an idea for making sweet biscuits. Half a dozen dry biscuits on waxed paper on a small tray, plus a dab of slightly melted icecream on each, another biscuit (cookie) on top of each, then we put the tray into the freezer. In a couple of hours we had a tray full of nice sweet cookies, which Millie and Bella (one each!) enjoyed, together with the adults. Where did she get that idea? 'Oh, I just made it up!'

BELLA

The big question about Bella at the moment is 'What school is best for her next year?' A private school, but without government-assisted special help, or a public-school which specializes in helping children with special needs? Her parents are leaning towards the latter.

Bella is a non-socializer, unless she knows a little friend very well: so our prayer is that she'll make good friends, and also catch up with speech, spelling and numeracy skills. Jan is giving her some 'homework' most mornings, and we are careful to encourage her to speak clearly. This little one gets so frustrated when she can't be understood.

The other morning she wanted to play with 'Charlie', the little dog we bought her, but Charlie was nibbling a bone and growled when she came near. She crumpled into Grandma's arms in tears - until I suggested we go for a walk to look at the ducks in the nearby creek. She immediately brightened up, and we had a lovely 20 minutes together - with Lockie, our border collie.

Please pray for our little ones!

Grandpa/Rowland