A Real little Toddler!!

Hello Em my darling. 

I am baby-sitting this morning while Mom helps out for a couple of hours at Derivco.  Because I'm still nervous of you walking, I plonked you in the pram and took you for a nice long walk after Mom left. 

We usually go eastward up Anthony drive all the way to High Ridge (about 2km) looking at birds, flowers, dogs, cats, other walkers, aeroplanes etc along the way. There is one verge along the way that has a long hedge made up of different coloured bougnvillas. You know the word Bouganvilla and I always show you the flowers on our plant at home. Here are some of the colours we see.
When we walk along Anthony, we look out for the bouganvilla and I pick a few flowers of each colour for you to Oooh-and-aaah over.

You also like the Hibiscus hedge at the corner of High Ridge and Anthony becuase the branches with flowers on are low enough for you to reach. It is so sweet when you take on and hold it to your nose to smell!

This morning we saw two light aircraft and a helicopter as wll as hadeda ibis, kingfisher, Indian myna, weaver birds and a couple of woolly neck stork swooping just above our heads. The Umgeni river isn't far from your house and there are all sorts of birds that live near the river including fish eagles and pelicans. The yellow billed kites are back too - always a sign that spring is here. They are migrants from Central Africa and always return to South Africa around the beginning of August. I saw the first one on my birthday - 6th August!

We don't often see the Kingfishers but with the river being so close, there are more about here that in most suburban gardens.

The Fish Eagle is thought to be the bird that best represents Africa but the Hadeda is the one that makes me think of home! They are noisy, comical, almost chicken-like the way they scratch about in the garden and everyone knows their raucous call ' Ahhh.. ahhh". And, they don't disappear as soon as winter comes - they stay the course throughout the year.

 

When we got back to the house you looked quite sleepy so I changed your nappy and sat you in the other pram in front of Barney for a while.  Then we went in search of your Lambert (a little white lamb) and I put you down in your cot.  You didn't complain and you have been asleep for about 1.5 hours. 

The other day I bought you a soft toilet seat that fits onto the regular toilet seat.  You will be 22 months old next week and it is nearly time to start potty training.  Mom bought you a little plastic potty and sometimes you play on it but most times you put your Teddy on it!

This weekend Jeff and Gail are coming down from Johannesburg and we will have a family get-together at Patty's on Sunday.  Gumpie is away in Costa Rica with his table tennis team so he will miss this family lunch.  He gets back on Tuesday.