Aurora Joy

I want to make a special note here in honour of Aurora Joy, Aged 10, my sister's daughter and my goddaughter. She did a great job babysitting Callum and helping me look after the boys. She was like a little nurse for Reuben, donning gloves, helping with suctioning, getting supplies, calming Callum in the garden swing, giving him a bottle or feeding him breakfast and sincerely wanted to learn. She now has a great vocabularly of American Sign Language. Dining al fresco in Joe's garden, when we needed something, she'd eagerly run up the stairs to get it for us and she never asked for thanks or praise. An accomplished pianist now, I've already shared the photos of her and Callum playing piano together. I challenged her to a game of chess on my brother Joe's chess set that he's had since he was a boy. I haven't played for years, but certainly loved learning to play years ago on this same chess set. Joe's a bit of a chess master and on watching the 2 of us play, remarked, "Well, I've never quite seen a line up like this before", wondering why we hadn't castled or in fact, done anything along the lines of traditional chess playing. Castled? Forgot about that one. He'd gently coach first Aurora, then seeing Aurora was actually doing rather well and just 2 moves from check mate, then coach me out of tricky situations and becoming hooked at the same time. The game ended in me knocking my king over in defeat as Aurora had my queen and I had but my king and 2 porns standing!

How fitting her name Aurora Joy: A school captain and much respected schoolgirl, sweet, bright, engaging, beautiful and charming, Joy is something she brings in abundance to our lives. Love you darling goddaughter and niece.

See how she's grown in 2 years since Anne-Marie and Aurora came over in 2007.