Games evening!

I wanted to share about something that I did with Chloe this evening. We'd had a bit of fractious day; she was being stubborn and argumentative and I didn't have much grace to deal with it. I had promised I would play with her during Livia's nap time but she ended up having a sleep too! So by the time dinner came around, I didn't feel like I'd had any decent time with her at all. So, spur of the moment, I told her that she could stay up after Livia went to bed and we could play a game together.

This might be something completely normal in other houses, but I am usually very reluctant to give up my special grown-up time in the evenings. So Chloe was thrilled about this, much more than I thought she would be. She started planning what we could do, what snacks we could eat and which teddies she wanted to bring downstairs with her.

I ended up teaching her how to play Uno, which is something that would be impossible with Livia around. It was nice to interact with her in a more mature way. You can really see her change when you give her intense attention. Suddenly everything is 'I love you mummy', 'you're the best mummy!' Nicer then the 'you're a horrid mummy' which I got when we were shopping earlier (ha!). I also learnt a bit more about some games she'd played with friends at school which naturally came into the conversation; much better than forcing it out of her at the school gates.

I'm definitely going to do this more often!