I've had a relatively 'child-lite' day today as I worked this morning, so Tamsin went to playschool and Isabelle was looked after by Grandpa (my Dad) as is the case every Thursday. I left work at 1pm, came home for lunch and a play with the girls, and then out again at 2.30pm as Kate and I were doing a talk to the Women's Institute about our work in the Time Bank. It went well :-) I'm not good enough to earn money as an after-dinner speaker or anything, but I can do a 45-min presentation to the local WI ;-) (youngest member aged 71....).

I was home again about 4pm so my Dad left and I went into the kitchen to decide what to make for dinner. I switched CBeebies on for Tamsin and we caught a snatch of Balamory featuring a lovely chocolate cake. "I want to make a chocolate cake", said Tamsin, and despite it being 4.20pm and nothing yet for tea I thought, "Why not?" and launched forth. So we now have a yummy chocolate cake, and the girls had the warmed-up remains of yesterday's home-made quiche for dinner! At least, Tamsin did. I can't remember a single morsel of solid food passing Isabelle's lips today, despite my best attempts to tempt her with all sorts of things. Ah well, she's certainly not wasting away!

I did notice by about 5pm how very significantly less tired I was than when I have been with the girls all day!

I only have one thing to report educationally and that is I noticed what a beautiful pen grip Isabelle has! Yes, she has a perfect 3-finger hold, to contrast with Tamsin's 4-finger preference. Isabelle has added "bee-beep" to her vocabulary, when pressing her nose, as well as the original "shush" addressed to Poppy the dog. I also noticed, a little sadly, that we no longer see that idiosyncratic crawl any more - she is truly a walking toddler.