Party Animal

Concentrating hard on closing his eyes

Adding spots and whiskers

We are more or less recovered from jet lag.  Still seem to wake up at 4am with a ping, but we are able to get back off again. Tom stayed quiet in bed until 7.30 this morning which is great.

We were busy social bees today.  First of all Tom's nursery had a Summer Fete with a pirate and princess theme and then we had a BBQ to celebrate Errol's birthday at the Zielkes.

Happy tiger

Roar!

As you well know, Tom came along a lot in Japan, with confidence, talking and general development.  This is showing up in surprising ways, including for the first time ever, Tom said that he wanted his face painted.  Hurray.  There was face painting at the nursery party.  So, we got there early, hoping that if it was quiet, then he would go through with it.  We were pretty much the first people to arrive so we took him straight to the face painting table, he still wanted to go through with it and he wanted to be a tiger (Matt was very proud) and he sat still and did what he was told and became a tiger.  I won't say he enjoyed having his face painted, but he did what he was told and stuck it through.  What a beautiful tiger he became.  He was really proud of himself too.  Then he was straight outside playing on the bouncy castle without hesitation - it is so good to see him so confident and enjoying himself.  Peppa Pig came to visit as well, he ran straight over and had a cuddle and his photo taken.  Fab.

With Peppa

We ended up being there for 2 hours, it flew by.  We had burgers for lunch - Tom ate a whole one, then he just played wherever he wished.  He ended up playing with Nate one of his little friends from under ones for quite a while which meant that we had a good chat with Suzanna (Nate's mum) who is lovely.

Lollies in the cold and rain - must be a BBQ in the UK Summer!

At 2, we left the party and headed over to the Zielkes for a BBQ.  Even though we were late, we were the first to arrive (Errol and Rachel had laid bets on us being first!)  We had to explain why there was a pirate tiger in the back of the car, luckily he was allowed to stay.  Gradually everyone arrived and before too long the children were playing together (usual groups - Tom, Mae and Olly in one group and Seren and Jessica in the other)  they all played really nicely - it was really nice to see them together.  Tom did really well, playing hard, he kept going much longer than we thought he would.  He even managed to eat another burger.

Looking back, he didn't cry at all for anything today which is really good - the first cry free day since we got back.

We finally left at 6.30, Tom was asleep within minutes, once we got home we quickly cleaned his face with wipes, whilst he whimpered, and then a quick story and bed.  A good day, we are thinking of taking him swimming tomorrow morning.