"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!
