A small boy’s love

T is back in swimming lessons again, this time as a dolphin. He loves it! Splashing, jumping, and diving. He’s working his way up because he wants to be a killer whale (next step), then a sea monster (ogopogo) and a sword fish (marlin). For his first lesson last week he confided his hope that he would have Melissa as his teacher again. She was his teacher for Minnows and he had a huge crush on her. When were waiting for T’s lesson to begin, we saw Melissa in the pool so T got very excited. But when the time came for T’s lesson, Melissa told T she was teaching Minnows. T briefly struggled with staying as a Minnow, but I introduced him to his dolphin teacher, Sophie, and she lead him off for class. I spied him jumping, splashing and giving Sophie high-fives and on the way home he said, “Sophie’s very nice. I like her. And maybe when I’m in killer whales I can get another nice teacher.”

As I’ve mentioned before, T is a big hugger. A few weeks ago we were out for dinner with his little friend C and all through dinner she wanted to go give T a hug. And yesterday, T was petting Gretel (our cat) while she was in her basket – scratching her head which she loves, so she was purring away. T was apparently so overwhelmed with love for our kitty, that he crawled into her basket to give her a hug! (I did ensure the hug happened without flattening the cat.)

One night last week, while I was cooking dinner, T appeared by my side and handed me an envelope addressed “to my Mommy”. Inside was a sheet of paper that read “I love you Mommy. T xxoo”. (He had a little bit of help with the writing from Daddy!)

I don’t know how our boy is so big-hearted and full of love with a reserved dad and prickly mum but I hope he always is and that the world doesn’t change him too much.

trucks and cats

This is our kitty cat, Gretel. She is 16 now - originally she was D's cat. Yes, there was a Hansel but he was killed when only a year old. Then came Daisy, but she disappeared after a couple of years so Gretel's been an only cat for a while and she likes that just fine. She is a big chicken of a cat - pretty much any form of wildlife in our back yard will have her scrambling for the door yowling (her let me in noise) - squirrels, bees, birds, neighbourhood cats, etc. I think she's finally starting to forgive us for bringing T into the house after 4 years.

She's still not sure about me though. Initially she liked me because I added kitty treats to her diet and the occasional tidbit of tuna or chicken but I also stopped her from sleeping in our bedroom as I got annoyed with Gretel's 5 am wake up calls - face patting and then standing on and licking my hair - yuck! But she has her own room aka the laundry room, complete with ensuite, food bowl and luxurious bed with her own handmade blanket (thanks Mona!)- what more could a cat ask for? Quite a lot it would seem!

She and T have little cuddle fests once in a while and T tells her "I can't pet you for very long, Gretel. I have to go play construction." T this week was all about writing love letters. The other night he wanted to write a letter to Gretel to tell her he loves her. Aw.

This morning has been a busy morning of construction, which means Mummy has had to connect the low-bed 6,531 times. So maybe that's an exaggeration - maybe it's only been 531 times. You see, T likes to load the trucks onto the bed trailer using the feet and to do that he has to disconnect the trailer.

D keeps telling him he can load the trucks using a ramp but there are 2 issues with that - 1 is that T likes using the feet (I like feet, Mummy) and 2 there is no ramp made at present. So the trailer gets disconnected, the trucks are loaded and then it is "Mummy, can you connect my low bed?"

Or occasionally something else, "Mummy can you fix my tractor" and so I have to put the engine cover back on the tractor.