Do something special with my niece, Lexie, every year (Year 1)

On my birthday this year my other half went off to his friend's wedding so, to cheer me up, my sister said I could finally take my niece out for a few hours so we could spend some quality time together.

These days, Lexie (just over 4 and half) gets excited to see me which always makes my heart jump into my throat.  I picked her up after lunchtime, helped her get her wellies on and we hit the road.  Lexie had been looking forward to the "treasure hunt" for ages.  It wasn't exactly a treasure hunt...I was dragging her geocaching!  I managed to find a cache on the map that was large enough that it had goodies inside.  If you take something out you have to replace it with something else.  Earlier that day I was in Poundland buying a toy figurine.

We got in the car and Lexie immediately wanted us to be pirates searching for the treasure.  She was Captain Seadog.  If I strayed off from the pirate voice she would tell me off.  Then we had to sing pirate songs (she's seriously hard work!).  In my pirate voice I said that I wanted to hear songs that Captain Seadog had learned in school.  This gave me a few minutes of not having to use my pirate voice until I got the "are we nearly there" questions!

We found where we needed to be and I helped Lexie out of the car.  She held my hand and we crossed the road to the tree where the "treasure" was hidden.  I spotted it fairly quickly.  I went to let go of Lexie's hand and she wouldn't let go.  She then said "Mummy told me I can't let go of your hand".  I melted!  I explained to her that I had to let go for a second so I could reach the treasure so she should stand exactly where she was and not move.

I got the container down and we slowly opened the lid to find all of the treasure inside.

We found the treasure!

 
She immediately saw what she wanted - a "gold" medal.  She took it out and I went to put the toy figurine in.  She asked what it was so I told her we had to replace the treasure we took with new treasure.  She asked if she could have the toy.  I said "you can't have both; either you have the medal or I give you the toy".

Her decision...

Lexie with the gold medal

We then went back to my house and I spent a good chunk of time cleaning Lexie's wellies because there was something unpleasant we stepped in.  We had a drink and proceeded to tackled something else I'd bought in Poundland for us to do - a Frozen fuzzy felt picture.  Lexie got distracted by the electric piano and wanted to try to play something.  I said would show her how to play.  I started off by showing her the C Major scale but she soon got bored and went back to the fuzzy felt.

End product

Then it was time to go home.  She couldn't wait to show Mummy and Daddy what treasure she had found.

Since our day out she shows everyone the medal we found - she's so proud of it and that makes me really happy.

Maybe next time she'll let me teach her how to play the piano!