Page two of two.

When I'd finished my little speech, he just jumped off my lap and said "Can you read this story now mummy?" picking up another book from the pile!

We've progressed a little from there now with the help of my questionable artistic talents! I decided to make a family tree for him, so one morning Jamie and I went out to the local office supply shop and bought loads of glue, card, paper and pens. That afternoon, we stuck a big tree on a huge black piece of card - a brown cardboard tree trunk with a big piece of green paper for the leaves.

Then, after much deliberation from Jamie, we stuck little golden apples all on the tree - one apple for everyone who was a part of his life. Jamie was in the middle, with us close by - there were apples for family, friends, pets, you name it and they were there. We also put on apples for his birth mother, the foster carers, our social worker and his social worker.

It is a great visual tool to use for explaining things. Whenever I point to his birth mother's apple, he now says that he grew in her tummy and reels off the story we've told to him. I don't know what his understanding of it really is yet, but at least he knows and we can use this to build on when we feel it's appropriate.

I think you'll probably recall that last time around, Jamie had done some quite interesting art work on a beige footstool of ours. Well, he has now advanced on to other furnishings! After the footstool incident, we decided only to let Jamie have crayons when he was sitting in his booster seat at the table.

This worked well, until one day a friend of mine came around with her two year old daughter and we got so engrossed in conversation that we left the children to it playing in our dining room, checking on them every now and then. They'd got loads of toys out, plus Jamie's little table and chairs with the crayons and some paper.

Well, after a while, they went very quiet. When we noticed this, I went into the dining room and Jamie's little friend was pointing at Jamie hiding behind my white, floor to ceiling voile curtain. I just said "What are you pair up to?" in a cheery voice when suddenly my eyes caught sight of what they'd been up to.

On my white voile curtain there was now a splash of purple here, a splash of green there and on closer inspection a multitude of colours everywhere. Well, my friend went ballistic at her daughter and was pretty embarrassed by it all and by means of punishment for her daughter, they packed up and went off home.

Jamie was instructed to sit on the bottom step whilst I went to inspect the damage closer - it was then that I noticed the huge W crayoned in brown on our wall. This was well above my friend's daughter's height, so there was no mistaking Jamie had done it. But, you haven't heard the best yet! On further inspection of the curtain, for some reason I drew it back to look outside and it was then I noticed that Jamie had actually written his name in crayon on the patio windows - not just once, a few times!

Well, I had to turn away from him because I was absolutely bursting to laugh. Not only had he done what he'd done, but he'd signed the masterpiece too! Needless to say, Jamie was given a bit of a talking to by myself and then from Tim when he came home. He had an early bed night that night, and give him his due, there wasn't a peep out of him that night. The crayons will now only be used under direct supervision in future!

Well, next week we're off on our first proper holiday together. I've got lists everywhere to remind me of things to take and Jamie is really excited about the fact we're going to the seaside. It really does take you back when you look at the excitement in a child's eyes when they're looking forward to their holiday - I must admit memories are flooding back to me of our lovely family holidays when I was small. We just hope the weather holds and we get chance to get to the beach! Fingers crossed!!