Today I completed an item on my bucket list – I met my niece Evie!

Last time I was in England, in 2014, I met my nephew Harry. He was 6 months old. Almost a year after that visit, my niece Evie arrived in the world, and I had yet to meet her. Meeting her was definitely on my bucket list! And today, that happened.

Harry doesn’t remember us from our last visit of course, and my kids have never met either of their cousins. So we spent today getting acquainted.

Neither of the kids, Harry and Evie, are very cuddly with us, but of course we’re strangers, so that’s to be expected. Evie keeps calling us all Daisy, as she can’t remember our names. When we tell her Caitie’s name, she pronounces it as Casey. Very cute. She talks a mix of proper sentences and babble. She’s super polite. “No, thank you,” she says, when you offer her something she doesn’t want. She sings all the time. Her favourite song is the baby shark song. She makes me want to cuddle her all the time.

Harry is four and a half, and his speech is excellent. His favourite thing at the moment seems to be Transformers Rescue Bots. He’s super cute when he giggles. He reminds me of my son, Jayden. Like, he seems to be quite sensitive, emotionally. He does things that are naughty, and then is devastated to be told off. I remember Jayden going through that. Shit, Jayden still goes through that and he’s 17! It’s a learning thing, right? They have to push the boundaries to find out what the boundaries are, and if the consequences are something they can cope with. But it’s tough. He has a tendency to isolate himself, which is also something Jayden did/does, so I try to consciously reach out to him to see if he’s isolated because he needs a break from people or if he’s feeling left out and just wants someone to include him.

The weather is gorgeous. Hot and dry. Perfect holiday weather. Maybe tomorrow we’ll go to the park and see if we can see some squirrels. We don’t have squirrels in New Zealand, so both Caitie and Jayden are keen to see them.