En pointe

It was a lovely spring day in Cardiff - warm and sunny, if a little blustery. The Boy Wonder was warm and sunny too, and very rarely blustery, from his excited "Good  mornin!" when we first walked in, to the casual "Bye! More water!!" as we left - the dismissal aimed at us and the instruction at his father, who'd taken over from the oldies and was filling a watering can, under close supervision, for a Boy Project in the garden.

R and I think that the couple of tricky visits we had recently might have been due, at least in part, to some kind of growing-up or adjustment phase, because it definitely feels as though there's now been a step-change in B's confidence and physical abilities. For example, the child who three weeks ago declined even the suggestion of using a swing, today spent twenty minutes asking to be swung faster and higher - which was pretty hard work for R, who'd landed the task of pushing.

In the space of the hour after that, we watched the Boy master several new skills on a fairly complex piece of climbing equipment, which up till now has largely been outside his comfort zone. To see him go from not wanting to try either slide, to only wanting to use the taller one, to wanting to take his shoes off so that he could slide faster, and sliding multiple times (even though the climb back up a fairly slippery ramp in just his socks required a great deal of effort and determination), was pretty awe-inspiring.

He was also much less fazed by the presence of older children than he's been before, and quickly took on board the necessity of taking turns, and making way for bigger and faster people when necessary. Very sweetly, when these bigger people were little girls of, say, seven or eight, they were always described as "ladies" - as in: "There's a lady comin' now. Iss her turn. I waitin'. Iss OK now - the lady's gone." As you'd expect, this piece of commentary melted both grandparental hearts all over the newly-installed, Council-approved, soft play surface.

When I first caught sight of the Boy's still-shod feet on the climbing frame platform, he was up on the absolute ends of both shoes so that he could peer over a high safety barrier. By the time I'd lifted the camera he'd lowered the right foot, but I still think he looks as though he's doing a pirouette. At the rate he's going, he'll be onto fouetté turns by Easter.