"I have five friends!"

.....Sapphire said the second she saw me waiting at the gate with Milly in tow.

Seven seconds after that, she introduced me to one of them - Audrey - and a playdate was hastily arranged with Audrey's father for this Thursday after school.

Perhaps the note Sapphire wrote this morning did the trick:

.....or maybe it was Love Chunks who, once at work by 8:00am, rang her say that he loved her, was very proud of her and that he knew that she would get through this tough first stage.

.......or maybe it was me desperately trying to advise her on the way through the school gate this morning, whispering, "Look, you're like a L'Oreal ad. You ARE worth making the effort for, even if YOU have to do the asking yourself, first."

Whatever the methods used, she walked through our front door a completely different girl from yesterday.

Skipper perhaps felt the full weight of her optimism, being christened a Triceratops when she plopped a few well-placed white flowers on his head:

He didn't seem to mind.

There may be more ups and downs ahead, but she's now in her bedroom on the cordless phone, exuberantly sharing the news with her grandparents and I'm sitting here grinning from ear to ear. Oh and still a bit tearful, too.