Come on baby, light my fire!

Today we had our new fireplace installed. The one that was in when we bought the house had rusted right through and the flue had corroded, making our bedroom upstairs unpleasantly smoky when we lit the fire downstairs. So the workmen arrived today with a brand new ceramic fireplace, glazed in turquoise-indigo blue tones with a new flue. I headed out with Jack because it would've been too hard to have him toddling around under the workers' feet while Joel stayed behind and supervised.

I went to fetch my mum and we went to our new favourite place, 'Ellie's Deli', which has a lovely sandpit plus toys for kids. We had breakfast inside first, by the fireplace as it was quite chilly, and Jack sit in the high chair provided and nibbled on bits of toast while we had our bacon and eggs. Then we took our second cups of coffee outside, took off Jack's shoes and put him in the sandpit. At first he was a bit reluctant because the sand was cold on his bare feet but when I got in with him and showed him the spades and buckets, he got interested. He toddled around doing various industrious things with the bucket and spade, while mum and I chatted and sipped our coffee. Occasionally Jack came over to show us his bucket, we oohed and aahed, and he toddled off again, quite pleased with himself.

Then we loaded him into the car and headed off to my mum's flat. Jack fell asleep in the car, just in time for his usual midday nap, as I'd hoped, so I carefully unbundled him from the car when we got to my mum's and put him on the little makeshift bed of soft blankets and cushions that she makes up for him when we go there.

While he slept, we sat in the lounge and chatted some more, and watched the soft winter rain falling outside the window. Then, when he woke up later, my mum played with him while I did some work that I'd brought along. Then I fed him lunch while my mum made muffins and tea for us. After his lunch, he toddled around the flat busily while we ate in the kitchen. When he came in to show us his car, I pulled the hood of his jacket onto his head (it's a fluffy brown jacket with little ears on the hood) and exclaimed, 'Qu'est-ce qu'il est beau, ce bebe!' (How handsome he is, this baby!) and Jack got a very self-satisfied little smile on his face. Then it became a game, where he toddled off for a while then came back and tugged on his jacket, for me to put the hood on again and a happy little smile spread on his face as I exclaimed how cute he looked. I hope I'm not teaching him to be vain, but rather to be happy with himself, as a wonderful creation, like we all are.

After that, Jack and I headed home to see our new fireplace. It's beautiful and it was hard to wait the required 12 hours till we can light it! So tomorrow night, a cosy fireside evening is planned.