Guests and colds.....

We've had a hectic, but great week.  A close friend, Lindsey, and her son, Gabe, came to visit for a few days.  We hosted a big get together on Wednesday of friends and children.  We had 9 children on the trampoline at one point.  The older children just took care of the younger children so the adults were able to sit down for a whole 5 minutes and eat their lunch.  I am not very good at sitting down these days.  I have permanent ants in my pants!  The children all played very well together (for the most part) and Katie had a wonderful day.  The weather was dry, finally, so the children were able to play outside all day.  The new playroom also worked well for the children and they kept themselves amused all day.  Katie missed her nap but was a total star, despite the cold.  She is definitely a party girl that's for sure!  It was hard having guests in the house because we are still establishing our routine and tend to do certain things in certain places.  I am sure it will get easier with time though.  Katie struggled a bit with seeing me with other children.  She said several times "That's my mummy" when I hugged another child.  Mind you, she even said that to our neighbours' dog, Mac, yesterday when he sat on my lap!  Katie adores Mac and our neighbour has said we can visit him during the day when they are at work whenever we want.  Mac loves our visits.  He gets so excited he wets himself!!!  Katie loves playing fetch with him, except she forgets to shout "fetch" when she throws his ball and is confused when he doesn't chase it!

Everyone in the house has come down with a cold now.  Katie is really full of cold, poor little thing.  Mike has also come down with it.  I am fighting it off so am just coughing at the moment. I am hoping that the echinaccea and vitamin C tablets that I am downing will help.  We don't need all of us ill!  The Toddler Taming book threatens that toddlers will get a cold every 8 weeks - this is our second cold in a month!!! My daughter is NOT playing by the rules!

We had our big Review Meeting on Tuesday which went extremely well.  One of the Social Workers has known Katie since she was very little and was amazed by how well she is doing.  Katie continues to surprise the Social Workers by her progress and how happy she seems.  Katie's vocabulary is improving on an almost hourly basis.  Her counting has improved as well.  She couldn't count from 1 to 10 when she arrived but is now able to do it confidently when she helps warm her milk up in the microwave for breakfast each morning!  I am very proud of her.  She is very laid back and takes so much in her stride.  I'm not sure I could do it as well as she has.  Children are amazing, that's for sure.  One great thing to come out of the Review Meeting is that we are now down to fortnightly visits from the the Social Workers instead of weekly ones.  It's early days but they've said we can start filling out the formal adoption paperwork ready to send when Katie has been placed with us 10 weeks.

My placement certificate finally arrived this week so Katie and I took it to my work yesterday.  Katie met several of my colleagues and was supremely shy for most of the visit.  Anyone who has met Katie will know that this is not how she usually is.  She is usually a total live wire, running around, enjoying everything around her.  We have a work lunch this week that I will probably pop in with Katie for.  I don't think we will stay long, although Katie loves a pub lunch and did ask today when we could go for another one........