new milestones

We've been at the pool and beach a lot and in the water every day.
Matti swam his first lap 2 days ago, and did 3 of them, with a break. He can also dive down and get everything off the ground.
He has been practicing freestyle and backstroke as well and is advancing every day. With so many people from the community at the pool whom he knows, he watches how they all swim and learns from it.

Lucille is "talking" more and more, and playing more and more. Another tooth is just breaking through, so she has 4 at the top and the third just coming out at the bottom.

We were at the beach this morning from 8-10, and I'm quite burned, Lucille a little bit and Matti not at all. He is most of the time
without a top, so his skin has a nice natural protection.
It was beautiful this morning, with a nice pool at the beach (see photos). We met another Mum who homeschools, with 2 girls. It's interesting to see how different most girls play - the mum was sitting with them, quietly building a sandcastle, while Matti was running around, digging, playing crocodile with me, chasing seagulls etc...
Then I met another interesting woman, they had bought land here in the village, when it first started, but then went to New Zealand. She is also a Yoga Instructor and originally from Hawaii and California. We had lots in common...that's why I got burned, as I chatted too much :-). Have been covered in Silicea since then, so it should be fine again soon. Better no swimming pool today.

It has been a week of meeting lots of new people. There is a couple from France here in the village at the moment, housesitting. The Mum is originally from Canada and the husband works for an American company from 'home'...home can then be anywhere, as he can work from his laptop...great! They have 3 children, and they also came to the park with us on Wednesday.

We have had a Thermomix Demonstration on Thursday and today at our house, to which some village members came. It's always such a joy to see people who have never heard about it, see how it works and that such a fantastic machine exists. At each we had little babies, which Matti loved. He kissed them, stroked them over the head, held one up so that she could see the truck bringing us mulch better and he brought the baskets for them (which Lucille took fancy too and a new game developped - see photos :-) ). After today's one, he wanted to have the Ergo on him and put his doll in it. He then played that it was his baby, he breastfed her, played that he fell asleep, then went quickly to get it, then he got his second doll and played that he had two babies, that he had to feed, hold and eat with them. It was soo cute and it was so interesting to see that he did exactly with them what I do with Lucille :-) (and also him).

We had a busy weekend with gardening and a community forum on Saturday, plus a swim and pizza oven dinner at the community centre on Sunday. The weekend seemed so long with Justin already being home on Thursday night. It was great and we all loved it, especially the children. When Justin got home on Thursday, Lucille said something that sounded like: How's it going? We all heard it, it was incredible.

The photos show how Matti was building his workbench back together today, Lucille climbed up onto the chair and Matti dressed up as a police man ;-)...ready to catch baddies ;-).

The sleep photos I felt like taking, as they looked so cute and so alike. I've been talking to Matti for a few minutes every night, while he is asleep, so his subconscious can really take things in, telling him how much we all love him etc., to help work on our connection and help him cope with all the new circumstances (daddy not home every night especially....). It seems to have been helping quite a lot.

From one of the animal movies he has been watching, and Bindi the Jungle Girl, he got inspired to be wanting to build a house right by the water when he is older, and one in the jungle on a tree. I'll be allowed to live there too, lucky me :)!