With the family

It's a time of change for Stella. This week she leaves her nursery after three happy years and heads off for big school. Stella is really excited about this change in her life, but not without a little sadness to be leaving Jocelyn, Christine and Valerie behind. She says she's particularly going to miss Jocelyn. But at nursery, the children her age have long moved on to big school and so I think Stella will be delighted to have some new peers to play with.

Last week we went to school to meet her teacher Rachel and her nursery assistant Farrer. They both seemed lovely and very committed teachers. I feel happy that she will be in good hands. It's a very big school though with about 650 pupils, so I'm nervous too.

The photo is of the four of us from the birthday party of Stella's cousin Martha who was eighteen at the beginning of December.

Halloween!

A busy few months

It’s been a busy few months since I last wrote. We had summer holidays in Cornwall and Italy. Stella and I went to Berlin together to see our good friends Aino, Hubert, Alvar and Ingmar and we’ve all had a couple of trips to the Lake District.

Stella absolutely loved staying in a caravan in St Ives, even though it rained every day. She especially liked the fact that she could see out of her bedroom window!! She loved playing in the sea and bravely came swimming with me one day in an unheated lido in Penzance, which was really quite chilly.

Italy was much warmer and Stella learnt how to swim in the Cergallina pool. This seemed like a really big milestone and was very exciting for all of us. She also really enjoyed just spending time in the garden in her own little world. Most fun of all was playing with cousins Rafael and Joy for the first few days and then Molly for another few days. She also had some time playing with Fabio and Massimo and their cousin Luca, who she loves!

Stella is now the biggest girl at nursery as the final few of her friends of her age went to school. She still seems happy enough but she is looking forward to school immensely. I’m much more nervous about the big city school Millfields which she’s going to which has 650 pupils! Quite different from my own school experience in Poulton-le-Fylde. I’ve met a couple of the children who will be starting in January and heard of a few more. They all seem nice so hopefully it will be fine. For now I’m enjoying the fact that Stella is home on Wednesdays and Fridays to do lots of fun things together that will be much more difficult once we’re tied to school holidays.

We’ve been visiting a lovely farm in Essex which only takes about 35 minutes to get to. And we’ve been doing a few nice walks. Last weekend we went to Epping Forest, also in Essex. Also taking the opportunity to visit friends outside London. Stella seems keen to play with almost anyone whose house we turn up at, which makes it very easy for me to go and see old friends. Flying to Berlin just the two of us was a real treat though and Stella was just brilliant. It was so easy to travel with her and I look forward to more of that in the future.

Here are a few photos from the last few months as it’s taken me so long to get around to blogging:

Stella is four!

Tomorrow Stella will be a big four! She started the celebrations tonight with a pre birthday tea with the family. Tomorrow all her friends from nursery are coming over in the afternoon and on Saturday she's having a party with her non-nursery friends.

She's such a big girl these days. This weekend was Tim and my fifth wedding anniversary and we went away for the night while Stella and Affy stayed with Aunty Carina and Uncle Mark. Stella had such a lovely time playing with cousin Molly that she really didn't want to leave when it came to Sunday evening.

She's very excited about starting school but has to wait until January for the pleasure. She's got a place waiting for her then at the local primary school Millfields. She's really enjoying her swimming lessons at the moment and last week surprised me by saying, watch this mummy, and swimming a few strokes without her floats. This was a first! She's also enjoying ballet classes on Saturday mornings especially now her friend Mercy has started coming along too.

Her favourite pastime is still without doubt reading books. She also spends hours telling little stories to herself with figurines.

Easter Fun

This is Stella relaxing on the sofa at her friend Abbie's house. Abbie has a brother Joseph who's just the same age as Affy so we like going over there to play. Stella loves playing with Abbie's dolls house and Abbie's dad, Ben, is always good at organising the girls to do art projects when we're there, so that Abbie's mum, Natascha, and I can chat and have a cup of tea!!

Yesterday we had a lovely day after visiting Abbie we went kite flying with Fabio and Massimo on Hackney Marshes. The boys and Stella all went on their bikes. Stella's getting really good at balancing on her Likabike now, and hopefully she'll be able to move onto a proper bicycle soon. Kite flying was a bit crazy because it was so windy. Tim said it was the first time he'd flown a kite too. We must do it more often as it was lots of fun.

This is Stella and Abbie


This is Stella and Massimo and Stella and Tim kite flying:

Three and three quarters

This is Stella hugging a tree in the lake district where we visited Grandma and Grandad this weekend. It was so cold while we were there, we didn't really get to go outside much, although Stella is always delighted with Grandad's big TV anyway so she didn't mind that much.

Stella's really looking forward to being four. I'm not sure if it's the birthday presents, the party or the fact that I suggested I might build her bunk beds once she was four. I'm now beginning to regret this promise as Africa is a real climber and her history of accidents makes me very nervous about building such a tall object in their bedroom.

We're still waiting to hear which school Stella is going to go to, but in the meantime, in spite of my worries about her being the oldest at Little Buds she still seems really happy there.

Stella's getting really good on her likeabike and can balance quite well so I'm wondering if we might graduate to a proper bicycle soon.

In Springfield Park

We had a lovely afternoon in Springfield Park last week with friends, Tash and Jovin and their daughter Frieda who is the same age as Africa. It was a really warm afternoon for February and Stella had lots of fun running around and rocking on the wooden animals there.

Stella is getting really interested in writing now. She can write her name and recognises most of the alphabet. I have to admit to not having spent much time pushing this, but they do help her a lot at nursery and I can tell that she will start to get the hang of reading very soon, whether I like it or not!!

Daddy has been busy the past few weeks with his book tour but Stella has really enjoyed watching where he's been on a big map on her wall. She also likes watching video clips when he appears on TV, although the messages are not always age appropriate...

She's being a really lovely big sister these days too. She doesn't like to sleep in her bed but on the floor next to Affy. Affy seems to like this too and they both sleep better as a result. Finally, I've got them to go to bed at the same time too, which is a result!

Why?

"Why?" questions have been Stella's favourite for quite a while now, and they are not always easy to answer. To take a sample from the past couple of days (about as far back as I can remember!) "Why did I grow out of my coat?" "Why is fire hot?" "Why do people have to die?" "Why did the Lion King's Daddy speak from the clouds?" It keeps us all thinking! Unfortunately, I rather misjudged the power of the Lion King over a three year old and Stella got very upset by it. I'd like to put this down to her emotional maturity rather than parental incompetence, but fortunately Tim was able to pick up the pieces before bedtime and hopefully there won't be too many nightmares tonight!

What other news does Stella have? To my delight her nursery, Little Buds, has moved onto our street and so now in the morning it takes us about three minutes to get there. Stella keeps suggesting that she could get there herself, which she probably could, but I suspect I might be getting more than a visit from social services if I were to allow it!! I admire her independence though. I'm still trying to get her into the local school nursery as she is now one of the oldest at Little Buds and I'm worried she's getting bored there. She keeps telling me she is, but I'm hoping it's just a three year old thing and she's experimenting with the words rather than it being a real concern.

We're filling in our school application forms at the moment, and wondering whether or not Stella will get into the school of our choice, Millfields. It's only about 5 minutes walk away, but it's had some great reviews and so everyone is trying to get in there... We can but wait and see. I'm trying not to get too stressed about it as there's nothing we can do really other than move house, and currently we're not likely to move more than two doors down the street.

Stella is still a big fan of being read to, and looking through books. She's started writing her name now and some numbers too and she seems very excited about that.

I'm trying to involve Stella more in the cooking in the hope that she'll start to be a bit more adventurous with what she eats. Default response to a new dish is "I don't like that" and except for a few favourites (avocado, green beans, carrots, sweet corn..), vegetables are a bit of a struggle. She'd eat pasta every day if I let her!

Stella loves her bed time DVD watching session and is currently (at least prior to the Lion King experience) addicted to The Grinch. She has been watching it for days and now knows the song "Where are you Christmas" off by heart and sings it with surprising similarity to the original!

Life is busy and it's almost impossible to capture her and Africa together, but here's an attempt!