The Arrival of Summer

Summer arrived over night, while we were away as well. Adapting to decent temperatures? In steps!

Step One: Send child outside with a bit of water to mess about with.

Step Two: Slap sun block and a heat on. Ignore tears and cries of "No deam! No deam!" (No cream).

Step Three: Accept that no water will stay in any container that child can manipulate.
Step Four: Find container for child and child made puddle that child can NOT manipulate.

Step Five: Inflate paddling pool and sun roof despite child's protests "Decke! Decke!" (blanket) as she pulls limp sun roof over her legs.

Voila! Success!
Step Six: Accept that hat will not stay on child and strip her of remaining clothing as well.

She played and played and played, mostly by herself - if you don't count her demands on her mother as refiller of water containers when she'd tipped them into her puddle. For over an hour, it was a proper domestic miracle. And after she'd come out, she just went on playing by herself, and read a book without wanting mummy to sit on and turn the pages. That hadn't happened since we moved down, i.e. for half a year. Bless summer for miracles in toddler independence.

That was on Thursday. Today we dug her summer clothes out. It seems the 'not-on-my-head!' rule applies to hats only. Everything else she tries to put on and got stuck on her head.

Quite and effort, given that we aim at being as naked as we can for as often and long as we can!