Tri's and braais

So life is good here in SA. My mum is up from the Cape for a visit and Nico is now officially settled at school. They said it would take 3 weeks and at exactly 3 weeks to the day he started really having fun at school, joining in with the others, and not crying when I dropped him off, getting involved in the baking and the art activities, and generally not just gluing himself to his teacher.
He has a new teacher, Kim, she is lovely. She looks a little like my sister, who is now Nico's second mum, so he LOVES Teacher kim. And she LOVES Nico! She really has taken him under her wing. Apparently she is like the pied piper at school, with 3 little ones: Nico, Cara (her daughter) and another little girl, Katja, following her everywhere.
He also doesn't need his lion anymore. For his first 3 weeks he dragged it around with him everywhere. It was real comfort for him at school. It was so cute seeing him clutching his lion in a strangle hold! He does love it. He growls every time he picks it up. And he even hugs and kisses it. But thankfully, he can easily live without it.
So I am happy because it was horrible dropping off Nico every morning and he just WAILED and tried to cling to me. Now he is a happy school boy, he even says 'school is cool' (if you know his language)

Nico has also developed quite a bit in these last few weeks. Physically and mentally. He now rides his motorbike like a pro, whizzing around and taking the corners at speed. He can swing from things now, so holds his own weight. He climbs EVERYTHING and anything and has had some falls at school apparently. He is talking a lot more and repeats things with much more clarity. He says 'please' or 'bitte' after we insist he says it, instead of his usual, demanding 'more'.

He is also trying VERY hard to jump off the ground with both feet... he just can't quite work out the co-ordination. One leg goes up and the other follows after, but he's yet to do them together. He tries for about 10 minutes though. Which is REALLY long for a toddler to do anything! Soon after the jumping game he will turn round and round and round and round on the spot making himself awfully dizzy. These games are often before bath time, in what we call his happy (crazy) hour. I think he gets extra excited cos Dad is home by then.

Another funny thing he does is call Mahindi 'Mahindi', but he calls Horse, 'Bad Girl'. Just shows how often we are shouting at Horse!

Nico is absolutely key befok. He is always wanting to play with them and hold them and try every key in every door. His obsession is getting very annoying. He goes around saying 'KKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYY' and then 'KEEEEEEEEYYYYYY DOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRR' and then 'CAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR KEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY'. And apparently you are to drop everything and help him get keys in the locks. My mum bought up a whole bunch of random spare keys so at least now we don't have to worry about him losing every key for the house.