Even now, there’s so much more I want to say, but I just don’t have the time. I know if I wait any longer it’ll never happen. So I’ll just put up the pictures… here goes…
This one made it to the front page of the Herald. Below is a close up.
The next one is from the third page of another daily, The Gomantak Times. She made it to the 3rd page.
Here’s the close up. That’s Mario watching over her. They were having a ’sand fight’.
We’ve all been pretty busy these past couple of weeks, Thaïs included. I’m not going to bore you with all the details. In short, our Italian group (which I’m the secretary of) celebrated its first anniversary, so I was busy helping out with all the arrangements. We had to get all the paperwork ready for Thaïs’ school admission which is still not complete. We have to go back to the school after 10 days. And, as always, I’ve been plagued with ‘net access problems. In fact I don’t even know if I’ll be able to post this. Keeping my fingers crossed because there are a couple of pictures I want to put up. These are some of the ‘better’ drawings Thaïs has produced in the recent weeks. Here goes:
She’s learning the alphabet, so there’s a ‘T’, a few ‘A’s, an ‘I’, an ‘O’ which changed to a zero and then became an egg.
Took Thaïs to her first carnival parade yesterday. She did enjoy herself for the first hour or so… until she began to feel sleepy and started dozing on Mario’s shoulder. Well, not exactly…
Unfortunately I lost all the pictures because of some problem with the memory card in the camera. That was so disappointing. There were some really good pictures in there. So much for Olympus xD picture cards. And I thought Olympus was a reliable name in the market… BAH! This is the second time I’ve had problems with the card. I formatted it the first time it happened and thought things would run smoothly. I guess I was wrong. I wonder if this sort of thing happens with all so-called brands? If not for my camera phone I’d have absolutely no photographic memories of this ‘mile stone’. The picture quality isn’t that great, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose
Thaïs caught me putting away some er… unmentionables… the other day. OK… OK… they were sanitary napkins. “Whose are these?” she asked me.
“They’re mine,” I said.
She put out her hand. “Can I have one?”
Knowing full well that downright refusal would be a big mistake, I gave her one. She looked at it, turned it over and said, “But it’s… it’s like… a diaper! You’re using diapers!? Why? Because you’ll mess your pants?”
A few days ago I had to go into town to get some work done, and I decided I’d be able to get more done if I left the little one at home with Mario. So I waited for her to fall asleep in the afternoon and I slipped out.
Unfortunately, it took me longer than I had expected to complete all my chores and Thaïs woke up while I was still out. The first thing she usually does when she wakes up is look for me. And that’s exactly what she did. She poked her head into each of the rooms and bathrooms calling out to me and at the same time asking Mario where I had gone.
Fearing a tantrum, Mario told her I had gone next door and that I’d be back soon. Thaïs looked at him for a few seconds as if wondering whether to believe him or not. Then she went to the balcony and looked out.
She came back in. “She’s at the neighbor’s?” she asked Mario, double-checking.
“Yes,” he said.
“But she’s taken the car. It’s not outside… I think she’s at Grandma’s house…!”
(BTW, there was no tantrum. She played happily till I got back.)
I was clearing up Thaïs’ playroom yesterday and thought I’d ask her to help out. Now I do get her to clear up her mess occasionally, and she obeys, but on each of those occasions there had been just a few toys lying around so it wasn’t too daunting a task for her and she’d manage to get the room cleared up pretty quick.
Yesterday, however, was a different story. It seemed as though she had dumped the entire contents of her toy chest on the floor. And since she wasn’t playing in the room any longer, I thought I’d get the place cleared up. I groaned looking at the mess and decided to get my revenge. “Thaïs,” I called out. “Please pick up all your toys and put them in the toy chest. I’m coming back into the room after 10 minutes and I expect the mess to be cleared up. If I see any of your toys on the floor, I’m going to throw them out. Do you understand?”
“What? Throw them out? Where?” she asked.
“In the garbage.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “I’ll tell Daddy,” she threatened.
“Please go ahead. And while you’re at it tell him to come in here and take a look at this mess.”
She looked around the room. “Err… no. He’s busy. Don’t disturb him. But I need them… I’m still playing, Mummy.”
“You can’t be playing with all these toys at the same time. Come on now… start clearing up.”
After a little more coaxing she agreed to clear up the room. I went back after about 10 minutes. My dear daughter had indeed started clearing up. The only difference was, all the toys that had previously been on the floor were now piled up on the table, the couch, and her mini easy-chair. Her toy chest was still empty.
Thaïs has been playing around with ‘cray-horns’ for a few months now. She has several coloring books, but I guess the joy that comes from scribbling on clothes, walls, chairs, tables and the floor is too great to resist. As a result, her coloring books are almost as good as new - if you don’t consider the food stains, spit marks (don’t ask!), and dog-eared corners thanks to the unnecessary flipping of pages.
Yesterday, she picked up a pen and the newspaper and created her first masterpiece all by herself. She calls it ‘Daddy’.
OK… OK.. To me it’s a masterpiece.
BTW, those appendages at the bottom of the figure are Daddy’s legs. Yup! Coming right out of his head!
Thaïs is going through a paper-plane-throwing craze. Check out a great site I found that has several different paper airplane models and some are so easy to make even I could manage them.
I used to love playing with paper planes myself when I was a kid, but was terrible at making them. Where was the Internet when I was growing up?
This is something new my little angel has started. If she sees Mario or me stepping out of the house, she comes running up to the front door and calls out, “Wait! You can’t leave… You have to give me a hug and a kiss first!”
How cute is that?
However, if she missed your exit, you’d be wise to make sure she misses your re-entry, because she’ll come running up and shin you! A couple of times I’ve stopped to give her a hug and kiss out of fear of the punishment that’s sure to follow!
