Well, hello Autumn!

What a mad old couple of weeks.  I'm still pretty under the weather, now leaking huge amounts of green gloopy stuff but ho hum...I think I'm on the up.  I'm very irritated by the way that a few invisible pathogens have managed to turn me into a mum who allows more than half an hours TV watching and is more likely to manhandle my daughter rather than patiently wait for her to do things on her own unique toddler timescale.  I hate that part of me being below par as it makes us all miserable and afterwards I just think "for goodness sake, why didn't you just bloody wait like you usually do...instead you riled her with your impatience and now you're both more pissed off than you were before" eurgh, I hate feeling like I'm not doing a very good job.

But....I'm not here to whinge and wine.  I have assessed the behaviour above as ridiculous and am now doing my darndest to stop it!

So Autumn arrived today, it doesn't usually just come in a day, does it?!  Mad!  Yesterday we were in a pub garden in shorts swatting wasps and today we're in wellies and jumpers!  But I love Autumn.  I love the hot chocolate, pink nose, outdoor smells, stomping through the woods of Autumn and much as I have enjoyed living outdoors for the past few months, I'm quite looking forward to getting back to baking and painting and play dough etc.

And with Autumn comes our daughter's adoption order.  It's all done...signed, sealed delivered...she's ours!  We've had so many wonderful positive responses to the news and we are feeling very blessed at the moment.  I'm looking forward to the celebration hearing as I think Squiblet will be in her element!  I'm also looking forward to her big old party!  I have been busy making bunting...I am very excited!

We also took Squiblet to Grandad's fancy dress (70s theme) birthday party.  I wasn't sure how she would cope with that many curious outfit choices and wigs in one room (including a very convincing cross dressing Freddie Mercury complete with Hoover - I want to break free video).  But she took it all in her stride and had a lovely time playing with everyone and lapping up the attention - she was the only little one there.  Squiblet was rocking a fabulous combo of tie dye and rainbow leg warmers, she did us proud!

And last of all I have to give a shout out to my mum and dad who have been staying here for the last 4 days cleaning and tidying and hoovering and cooking and just generally letting me rest.  I feel like I've finally turned a corner and I'm on the up and it was so wonderful of them to do so much.  We didn't put that in our adopters assessment...grandparents will come down and do all housework and generally pamper should the need arise.  I wonder if we would have been approved even faster!

And I can't go without introducing Bob.  We adopted him from Build a Bear on the day Squiblet's adoption order was made.  Squiblet was rather bemused by the whole process but went along with kissing his heart and very seriously choosing his outfit.  She chose the sex, name and outfit...and thus a gay icon is born...meet Bob everyone!

Every year that she's interested I think we will take her to buy a new outfit for Bob.  It will be a sad day when she starts dressing him in boy clothes! I love how she has no preconceptions about this yet...go Squiblet!