week twenty one

Being Silly on a Wet Wednesday afternoon...in June....

William H telling Nelly a story ...

Nelly, with William and Amelia H waiting for the arrival of the bouncy castle...

Wow that Bouncy Castle is here...

Here we go....

...down the slide........

so so cute...
lunching in GBK....

OK I am a dab hand with the laptop....

Big teething time....dribbling, high temp and still no sign of those dastardly teeth. The weather is more like a wet October than the end of June and and Nelly hates being inside.

She is such an outdoorsy girl - cannot wait for her to be able to run in the fields, ride on bikes along lanes, spend hours on her own slide and swing in our new garden. Monday and Tuesday saw me in the cold and wet pushing her with a big grin on her face in various parks ...

We exchanged contracts finally on the house and hope to be nearer to an offer on this one...more to follow!

Rather than bore you all with the details of what we do all of the time ...just some observations on Nelly adjusting to life with us, life here in London, ...

She loves her food - favourites include any sort of pasta with any sort of sauce! Eggs...omelettes, hard boiled, scrambled, egg custards...quiches...! Cheese...goats, Baby Bel, Cheshire..COus Cous ....Rice - pudding, risotto, fried and of course Congee!...

She has really become affectionate in the last few weeks - blowing kisses to strangers in the street, big hugs and kisses to Nina and Molly, kisses to all her littleboyfriends in the street...really need to make sure that we come back each month for our Junction lunch so that she maintains contact...This week the lady at Moneky Music waas handing out the re-enrolment forms for next term and we had to say no! very sad feeling...

Saturday Simone and Bram were up from Devon and we spent the day together doing the NCT NEarly NEw Sale in Dulwich followed by lunch and mainly sheltering from the awful end of June weather ....

Lunch on Sunday with our Best Man Guy, his wife and their two little ones William and Amelia , they loved her and she had a great time playing on their bouncy castle. I for some reason came out in hives all over arms and legs not sure what I was allergic to but the same thing happened the next day at the same time...

week twenty

Week Twenty ....

Five months with Nelly on 23rd May....started with Nelly's first ever attendance at a wedding, in Westminster Abbey! ...courtesy of a kind invite from Az & Jo (the groom & bride respectively), who Rob used to work with. It was a first for the Abbey - Az was apparently the first Muslim to be married there. An amazing venue, a lovely wedding and Nelly managed to sit through the first hymn one prayer and then I headed out past the Coronation Chair so she could giggle at the top of her voice and run up and down the main abbey ( the wedding was in one of the Chapels...) She had a lovely time as did we...charming all around her as she ran around the reception pulling up her dress to show off her red pants!

Frank and Kate were up from Cornwall before they headed off to Poland for a week so we had lunch on the South Bank with Frank, Nelly loved watching the skateboarders and it is a great place for her to run up and down looking at the river and generally having a great time...It was so warm that Rob and Frank took Nelly into the fountain installation by the Hayward - walls of water pop up and all around you until you are surrounded by water walls...she loved it!


Our great friend Crispian who has been working for a publishing agency in South Africa was home for a few weeks and he came over for lunch...Nelly still has to meet some good friends - she will meet them all before the end of the year

Cannot believe it is five months - although she has changed so much and is so comfortable with us now, looking back she has grown so much - emotionally and physically = a joy every day when she wakes up even through some of her terrible 16 month old tantrums!






In the fountain on the South Bank

Fully in the fountain!with Frank and Daddy

Sun came out so I put on Mama's shades!

Lunch in Wagamamas with Daddy andFrank !

Watching the skateboarders on the South Bank .........

Crispian ...you live where? Cape Town? nive to meet you at last ...

In the Abbey with Daddy...

wow what a church....

week nineteen

week nineteen

The third meeting of the girls from China....we met in Clapham Junction and had a picnic on Wandsworth Common, before hitting the One O Clock Club, quite a few random looks as people tried to work out who we all were and what we were doing with so many little Chinese girls! The lady at the One O Clock asked if we were from some sort of association...

Nelly really getting into imaginary play - she has been giving her soft toys Calpol in the evening with the Nurofen syringe, milk in the mornings..! I dug out a beautiful little tea set that my friend Genevieve gave Nelly and she has been making us all tea. I found her putting her trainers onto her bear the other day too!

One piece of great news this week was the return of IN THE NIGHT GARDEN on CBeebies - for those without kids, check out this link, it is made by the people who made Teletubbies and is totally magical; Nelly is alway emtranced by it, the music is great and the writers had to have een on some sort of drugs to have come up with it but all kids love it as do all adults I have met!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/ click on songs to hear the music! play the game !...

Have had a few viewings on the house,,,no offers as yet.... other house trugging along....





Nelly's Tea set...
Lizzy Bear wearing Nelly's trainers.....

In the Night Garden back on Beebies ...hurrah !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nelly pouring Tea

six little girls lunching in the Junction!

week eighteen

Week Eighteen


Grandma came to stay - no pics I am afraid as she hates having her photo taken, lots of trips to the park, I managed to fit in some work. Nelly is really now starting to say a few words...Bubbles, Ball, Mama, Dada, Cat ( her first one about 6 weeks ago! ) Gone, More, she was heard to say Good Girl one morning whilst applauding herself for having done something good!

I had a night out - on my own with a friend Fiona who also adopted from China at the same time -We went to a friend's book launch, great book called China Road http://www.amazon.co.uk/China-Road-Journey-Future-Rising/dp/0747588929/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/202-7234862-5802214?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182380891&sr=8-1 about a road trip from Shanghai through the Gobi Desert to Kazakhstan...interesting . It was the first time for five months that I have been on a tube without a buggy, took a few moments to remember to go through the ticket gates as opposed to the buggy gate!

Collected a sand pit for young Nelly from some neighbours - we have so many toys that we have not paid for.... thanks to all friends with children older than N!!!

Need to reference my diary for what else we did ...I know I managed some work and one evening my Mum babysat and we gatecrashed some friend's Friday evening Curry at their house!


Rob in his Elvis T Shirt - Nelly has a similar one... See next blog for image of N wearing hers...

Nelly tucking into grown up yogurts...cannot see the point now of buying baby food she always wants mine

Nelly's first gardening set - she loves watering herself mainly! and eating soil!

Impressing Grandma with her chopstick control"

week seventeen

The Bank Holiday weekend turned into a dreary wet weekend! Rob's Dad was over and we managed to make it to a very empty Dulwich Park on the Saturday afternoon, followed on the SUnday by a wet day in Herts at Nelly's cousin's ( second cousin in reality ) 2nd birthday party. She had a great time with Fish and Chips followed by jelly!!( I hate jelly so Nelly will only ever get to eat it at parties ..poor deprived child..) then musical cushions, statues etc ..and came home with a party bag....

Bank Holiday Monday.....and more rain rain rain ...so we headed off to the Horniman Museum with every other parent in SE London ....Nelly loves the Aquarium and we bumped into a friend there also sheltering from the rain...home soggy but contented and Papa Frank back to Birmingham in the evening....

Another first this week was her discovery of make up ....Bobbi Brown...Chanel....oops ..a lovley site!

The following weekend Nelly had her first night out - we were invited over to friends across the road for supper.. so we took her across in her PJs hoping that after a busy day lunching with a friend, followed by a little light shopping at Selfridges that she would be tired! Likely story - she was awake until we left at 11 15 - but she slept well the next day.

Sunday was a picnic with friends who have all adopted - these are people that I met many years ago through the IVF process and all have moved on to adopt from UK, China and Russia ....the weather forecast had been bad all week but by Sunday we had a lovely day - sunshine all day. Our Friend Linda was there with Anna whom she adopted form Jiangxi in China three years ago, Anna really took Nelly under her wing and spent ages pushing her on the swings and trying to feed her green olives ( Nelly loves grapes, Anna loves olives and the former did not realise the difference but really did not like them! ) - ............

Nelly enjoying home made lolly in her pool

She now runs everywhere in the park !

She has discovered MAKE UP ....Bobbi Brown and Chanel are her favourite brands!

Picnic with our little ones...Nelly getting tired after a long day playing with Anna and friends

Nelly and her new friend Anna ...

Picnic with Linda, Sandy, Kathy and Mindy and all of our little ones....