Poles, small and large (I mean stick-like things not Polish nationals)

Here is Hafsah successfully placing a ring on a ring-thingy (can't think of its name right now). OK, it's a plastic Fisher-Price ring going onto an IKEA wooden toy ring holder, and the rings are going on in random size order, but I am impressed! I saw a little boy at playgroup, slightly older than her, completing this sort of task no problems, and then I realised I should actually try to resurrect all the pieces in the set so she could have a go. My long-term ongoing project is to just get things in sets so the kids can actually have something to play with when the 'I'm bored phrase' comes out. The only toys that stay unmixed up on a regular basis is the Lego, everything else just tends to demonstrate the laws of chaos. This can result in some interesting imaginary play, but things such as jigsaw puzzles just don't hit the mark with half the pieces stuck behind the radiator or wherever they've ended up. I finally got round to buying the trampette. The beds are not likely to last much longer, the amount of bouncing they endure, despite my urgent pleas for them to stop. Lack of space and cost put me off, but it was a special offer, and what's a bit more clutter?! I do however catch myself about to shout out 'Stop bouncing' when I hear that familiar noise, and remember that it's only the trampoline and try to relaaaaaaaaax. We had a bar-b-q last week when the weather was quite warm (it's gone really wet now but the rain's needed). Here is one of the many flag-poles just by the grilling area, typical of what one might find around and about in Sweden. This ones quite a whopper and if there's a strong wind it's a bit scary being near it. However there's rarely a flag on it. I think just on Nationalistic occasions. Can't imagine that a huge Union Jack up on a huge pole, in so many numbers, would be quite so welcome in the UK.

H has allowed us to show his nursery teacher a clip of him speaking Swedish on DH's phone. I was surprised and pleased he agreed. Still no signs of him wanting to speak in the flesh though.

At home he was playing with the 'pop up farm' toy, now very appealing since Hafsah likes it a lot, and when he did the pig, he said to himself 'not allowed to eat'

Hafsah is being quite cute saying 'Mama' 'or 'Mimi' with the final syllable going up to an extremely high tone. Her routine has been quite disrupted recently, not quite sure why, although she's had a cold and another bottom tooth has arrived. The 5 pm nap has tried to return and subsequent late bedtimes, meaning no child-free time in the evenings, equals Mimi (me, mum) goes crazy. Also the short (almost summer) nights means I give in to 4 am feeds as it's time to pray anyway. Anyhow tonight, she was in bed by 8pm so able to finally get on the computer after chucking S off. He's been into reading the exo-force Lego magazine stories on-line. I didn't want to stop him as he so rarely wants to read any text. Oh and he's started learning the Chinese characters, inspired by his Lego, and of course M also wanted to do this. They spent quite a good deal of quiet time copying out pages of characters. Wondering if there are any special pens/ paintbrushes used for writing these characters. I remember students studying Japanese at Uni having something special to write with.