Nothing much to say today...

I really want to try to keep up with posting every day, but I'm sure that I'll have the occasional evening like tonight where I'm just worn out and brain-fried. In my book, I've not really done much today but I'm wiped.

The Imp has been fantastic. She had an appointment at her nursery for a photographer, and she actually let me do her hair without a fight. Shame her hair laughed at the curling iron. I had a lovely image in my head of what I wanted her hair to look like...with some big, loose curls. Instead, it looked like I had used straighteners. She was thrilled, either way, with her 'princess hair'. She's been in a fantastic mood all day. She sat still and had a huge, gorgeous smile for the photographer, had an hour of playing with the other girls, then sat and had a huge smile for the group photo. I give the nursery serious props for managing to wrangle almost 40 under 5 year olds in under 15 minutes for a photograph together, and most of them were actually looking forward.  After a lunch of chips at home, she decided that she wanted a nap. She's three...how many three year olds do you know decide that they're ready for a rest? She must have been picking up on me flagging, because I was ready for a kip, too. Nothing like an hour snuggled on the sofa to bring around a second wind. She even sorted out the pillows (her hint that I wasn't moving fast enough for us to lay down was her bringing her pillows off her bed and putting them on the sofa herself).

It gave us the energy to go out to the back garden to work some more on the weeds. My intention was to just plant the sweetcorn plants that I bought for 10p a piece at the market. We ended up working with our 89 year old neighbour to get rid of the thistle in the path between, bagging up the steadily grown mound of dead weeds from our garden, weeding the bit of veg patch that I do have planted, thinning out the lettuce and tomato plants that have gotten insane. I truly didn't expect to be out there for that long, but I think that after a weekend of rain, I needed the energy from the sun. And I find putting plants into the soil to be rather cathartic. Shame the same can't be said about the weeding, which there is a lot more to do before I get the remainder of the seeds out that I wanted out a month ago.

Well, with it being the school half-term, I'll have the Imp's assistance all week, that we can spend some of it gardening. She's rather good at weed pulling (at least in the main part of the garden...she presented me with a beetroot seedling today :S ), and we could both use more time outside. It'll also be excellent time to clearly think through for a better post tomorrow.

It does make me feel all tingly that on many of my low-energy days, the Imp can be so thoughtful, even at such a tender age. Today, she's occasionally asked me 'Are you happy, mummy?', which was a first. You don't expect it from your toddler. It's even better when she follows it with a beaming smile when you tell her yes and a huge hug. It does make for a fantastic day, to be honest. It makes me so proud of her, and glad that I chose a gentle path to raise her on, and that we've had 3 1/2 years of close attachment, that will continue so she can keep learning by the examples of her elders. It makes me just as glad that the elders that she has the most contact with set such a strong and understanding example for her.

Mel