Two hours in the park

Two hours in the park is enough to wipe out a 5 year old.  Not that I'm cheering that we've got an extra half an hour to ourselves or anything, of course not ;-)

We had lunch in a local cafe earlier, to which I shall definitely return.  I'd always thought it was a greasy spoon type of cafe but there wasn't an egg and chips in sight. In fact it was quite posh. Very nice.  Whilst here I learnt another thing I need to carry round with me - coloured pencils.  I've added this to the list of wet wipes and tissues so far that I constantly need on me.  Anything else?

We allowed Missy a glass of lemonade as it was proper real lemon-ade, not the crappy stuff.  Fizzy drinks are going to be an occasional treat and cola is a complete no-no in this house.   An hour later in the park, Missy had her first little accident of the wet variety and we think it was possibly down to the fizz.

After the playground, we walked around the park meeting several dogs on the way.  I've always been a bit nervous of dogs, but I don't want Missy to be scared so did my best to stand still and not run away, even when the puppy rottweiler came over to play (which incidentally will grow to 9 stone!).  Daddy swung Missy around and around which she absolutely loved.  When Missy finds something really funny, she has the most gorgeous smile and infectious laugh.

By the time we'd got home we'd been out for three hours - one hour lunch and and two hours in the park.  After making a fabulous piece of artwork with real leaves, all Missy's own work, and the obligatory visit to the pretend hairdressers, it was time for dinner.

So far Missy has been excellent at dinner time.  I did have a food strategy in place, expecting a fussy eater to be living with us, but I've not needed to call up on it as she eats everything and happy to try new foods (or indeed foods she said she didn't like but actually turned out she does like).  But tonight she decided she didn't like mince, until we pointed out it was the same mince as in meatballs, burgers and lasagne that she has eaten.  She did start to eat it but was very whiny.  The park had wiped her out and she was too tired to eat.  We explained that food to a person is like the batteries we had just put in her toy ie, energy to make things work, and that helped her understand she needed to eat a bit, although we did compromise a lot tonight (Daddy is going to have to watch his waistline methinks, since he eats all the leftovers).  Quiet time on the sofa after tea was very sleepy time so we took her up early.

Today she has been calling us by our first names a little more than the last few days, and started doing this after we explained we were meeting up with the foster carers tomorrow for a drink.  Not sure if the two are related but I do think it's confused her a little.  We must reinforce tomorrow that all three of us are coming back here and we are not leaving her with the foster carer.

Would it be bad of mummy to eat the chocolate in the fridge we bought for Missy but she was too tired to eat, as long as I replace it tomorrow?  :-)