Monday 8 July 2013

First Swimming Lessons

I mentioned in a previous post about how Missy absolutely loved being thrown around the pool on holiday in Portugal.  She has no fear of the water at all and could play in it for hours.  So I decided to take her for swimming lessons.

It was her first lesson last week and for half an hour she had a permanent smile on her face.  She wasn't exactly swimming as such but her confidence in the water meant she was happy to be there and without arm bands.  In the lesson they use floats and those long bendy things, no idea what they are called!   There are only 5 kids in the lesson with the teacher in the pool too plus a teacher out of the pool.  As with gymnastics, Missy needs to concentrate more  - actually that reminds, we were watching the tennis yesterday and Murray was 4-1 down in the second set when Missy shouts "Murray, you need to concentrate". And he did just that!  :-)

Back to swimming.  We've only had two lessons but there's definite potential there.  Legs are going the wrong way and she's swallowing rather too much of the pool but the smile on her face for the whole lesson tells me she is thoroughly enjoying herself.   I was really proud of her last week.  Not sure yet if swimming and gymnastics will be too much for her - I suspect so at the moment so we'll see how she fares next term.

In other news, Missy is still wetting herself.  Haven't cracked this one yet.

Friday 5 July 2013

Our gorgeous cats

I am a massive animal lover.  Cats are my main thing but over the years I've had smaller pets including rats, gerbils and hamsters.  My cats keep me sane, they offer unconditional love.  My first cat Floyd (which actually was my ex's cat) loved me, I was the first lap she'd ever sat on.  She was a grumpy thing too, demanding and liked her own way - hmm who does she remind me of I wonder?  I looked after her like no one had before, I combed her and talked to her.  For logistical reaons, she actually lived with my parents. My Dad and her got on fantastically and when my Dad died, she went searching for him and would often sit under his electric keyboard in their spare room.  She died 6 months later.

My second cat started life at my brother's but moved to mine when she was 2.  She was my best friend when I lived alone - my eyes are welling up now thinking of her.  She always said hello in the morning, she was my rock.  When I had depression back in 2002, Lulu was the constant for me.  If she could talk, well ....  Sadly she died a few years ago, I was devastated, her photo is still the screen saver on my phone.

But now we have two cuties.  We adopted them, of course.  They are brothers, Badger & Jersey, who are mainly white with black spots, although as brothers they couldn't be less alike.  Jersey is fluffy and a home cat, very cute and doesn't mind being picked up.  Badger is slim and short hair, he likes adventure and will be gone for the whole day, coming back after a day of micing in the fields.  He hates being picked up but always comes for a hug in the evenings and loves having head rubs.  Our boys.  We love them dearly.

When Missy arrived, we hoped she'd like them and they would like her.  In the very early days, our concern was for the cats when she was having a screaming fit.  Both cats ran the other way when they heard or saw Missy and we were worried, we didn't want our cats upset!   But a few weeks in, an amazing thing happened.  The fluffy home cat saw Missy with the cat hair comb and immediately went up to her. That was that, friends for life.  The strange thing is he always knows when its storytime, wherever he is he will come into her bedroom when we are reading the story and sit on her bed until lights out.  If Missy is crying, he'll come and see what's up.  He's so cute.

On the other hand, Badger the adventure cat still hasn't really warmed to Missy.  He doesn't run a mile, but he's not that happy about being in the same room as her.  He likes to be alone, he likes the quiet life.  He'll tolerate her and Missy doesn't take that much notice of adventure cat now.

Cats are an integral part of the family.  They are our de-stressers.  I can't imagine life without them.  I've even contemplating writing a children's book about our cats' adventures.  Watch this space!

This post is being linked up to #WASO





Wednesday 3 July 2013

An Obstacle Course

It was Missy's PE Day at school today and one of the things she did was an obstacle course; some of the part of the course were easy for her and others not so easy but she got to the end.  Life is like that at the moment; some whopping great obstacles in the way which are tough to get past but with persistence we get there.  It's tough and it stretches us but on the whole we are moving forward.

Missy is up and down at the moment.  As another adopter put it so well, she has "Reception-year-itis".  The routine at school is being interrupted with PE Days, school trip, moving up day, supply teacher this week and arts week.  The thoughts of moving to Year 1 is no doubt in her mind.  She is still wetting daily.

In contrast, she absolutely loved her first swimming lesson and I saw that relaxed, smiley happy little girl that appears every now and then.  She was awarded Badge 7 in her gymnastics and her counting and recognition of numbers is improving.  We've been talking about Dream Boards and she has chosen a couple of things to put on hers.  We'll do these in the holidays (which I need to plan!) and post them here.

Missy loves the word 'no' and tries to outsmart me by saying things like "If you don't do (xyz) then I won't ever draw you a picture again".  Recently though she was darker and said "If you don't play with me then I'll stab you".  Slightly disturbing and I can only think she's heard that phrase from her birth mum.  The next day she commented that she didn't mean it and when she said she hated me she said she was only pretending.

One minute she is delightful, funny, in the moment, the next she is in fight, flight or freeze mode.  It must be so tiring for her physiology.  It's blimmin tiring for me keeping up with her mood.  I try to stay as calm as possible whatever mood she's in and several people, whose opinions I really value, say how calm me and Daddy are.  And breeeeeathe.

We've got our Adoption Review this Friday, our third.  Oh joy.  No doubt they will ask us about putting in the Adoption Order.  I'll update on that after Friday.

In other news, I've lost 8lbs in weight! Yeehah!
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