It’s The Book Of My Days, It’s The Book Of My Life

Advance Warning: On reading this post, you are in no way allowed to laugh at, make fun of, or ridicule me, in any manner whatsoever.

I was getting ready to bathe Thaïs the other day and she asked me if she could use the shower. She normally asks me to fill up the tub because she loves playing in the water. While she’s splashing about in the tub, I get around 15-20 minutes of peace and quiet so there are days when I find myself looking forward to bath-time.

Anyway, this was one of the rare occasions that she asked for the shower. This is also fun (for me) ‘coz I get to hear her shriek with delight as the water splashes all over her back. So we got started. She entered the way she usually does - she bends forward and backs into the shower area, bum first. She still isn’t comfortable with the water falling directly on her head.

So there we were, the two of us, in the bathroom with the door shut, when I suddenly began to get a peculiar smell. I got as close to the shower as I could without getting wet and sniffed the water. Strange smell. I stepped back. A couple of seconds later, I cupped my hand filled it with water, and sniffed it again. Strange smell.

Now the smell was beginning to get stronger. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer.

“Is the water smelling funny to you,” I asked Thaïs.

“No,” she replied.

“Then what’s that smell?” I wondered aloud.

Thaïs looked up at me, crinkled her eyes, gave me her most mischievous smile and said, “I farted!”

Read this post at Absolutely Bananas about a young make-up artist.

My little rascal tried something similar with me once. We were getting ready to go out when she came up to me, hands behind her back, and asked me to bend down. So I did. Then she showed me what she had been hiding behind her back.. a permanent marker.

“Let me do it… Let me put your lipstick on for you…!”

…but unfortunately, that is a phrase Thaïs doesn’t believe in.

My daughter can talk. No, I mean, my daughter can TALK. From the moment she wakes up in the morning to the time I tuck her in at night, she talks non-stop.

But doesn’t she have an afternoon nap, you wonder? You should get some peace and quiet then…

She does nap for about two hours in the afternoon. Most days. Occasionally she skips it, when her cousins are around and she’s too excited to sleep. But of late I’ve noticed that she has started talking even in her sleep. I’ve heard her carrying on lengthy conversations with her cousins while she’s sleeping. I got quite alarmed the first time I heard her. Most of the time she’s bullying them into letting her get her own way, which is generally the case when she’s awake. I guess being the youngest, and being the only girl, she gets away with it.

So the only time she isn’t talking is when she’s eating. That’s the rule here, no talking until you finish eating. It works, for the most part. You’re only allowed to talk if you have something really important to say, like, “Look at my boo-boo… I fell down today.” If you examine the ‘wound’, it’ll usually be a superficial scratch. You wouldn’t even give it a second glance. But I guess to a two-and-a-half year old, it’s important. Or maybe it’s just her burning desire to talk..

And boy, is she loud! I suppose she has to be, to be able to bully her cousins. But I wish she’d turn down the volume when she’s with us. Sometimes we’ll be sitting two inches apart and she’ll yell right in my ear. Then immediately she’ll apologize, whisper the same thing again (like I didn’t hear it the first time!) and give me that heart-warming smile, I just want to pick her up and squeeze her!

Her dad and her aunt (my sister) both talk a lot, so there’s no surprise where she gets it from!

Thaïs has suddenly become very concerned about my well-being. This morning as I was warming up her milk:

Don’t stand in front of the my-co-ro (meaning microwave) when it is on. You might get cooked!

I guess it’s the thought that counts.

Thaïs: I need to wear a bra…!

She was at her grandparents’ place when this episode took place, so unfortunately no pictures. But I believe she spent the whole morning going around the house with a handkerchief tied around her (ahem!) bust!

Finally! I knew it had to happen eventually, but the way she was going I was beginning to worry…

What am I talking about, you ask? My darling daughter has finally deigned to crap in her plastic potty. We’ve been trying to get her to do it for almost a year. She started peeing in the potty before she was two years old. But she wouldn’t crap in it. Then, after a couple of days of getting the hang of peeing in the potty, she crapped in it – once. I was overjoyed, thinking my days of dealing with dirty diapers were over. (So much so, that I took pictures – if you’d like to see them, let me know.) Little did I know that I would have to wait for about 8–9 months for the next crap. In the potty, that is.

So, that first crap turned out to be a mistake, as I found out the very next day. ‘Coz when, with royal salute, she announced the arrival of His Majesty The Shit, she asked for a diaper. A little confused, I asked her why she wanted one.

“I can’t do it in the potty,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“No. It’s not coming out. I need my diaper,” she said.

I tried showing her the pictures I had taken the previous day. I thought maybe jogging her memory would help. No luck. And no amount of reasoning, pleading or cajoling would change her mind. So I just left it at that. I did try bribing her with chocolate a few times, but that didn’t work either.

Three days ago, out of the blue, she went to her potty and sat down on it. I happened to be in the same room, and after a few seconds I heard a steady trickle.

“OK,” I thought. “She had finished her juice a little while ago, so what goes in must come out.”

After a few minutes, while she was still sitting there, she said “Oooh… Shit!”

Knowing that she has somewhat of a colorful vocabulary, I told her to mind her language.

Again she said, “Nooo… Shit!”

That’s when I turned around and saw her standing up, peering into the potty. Seeing the unusual behavior, I went over look at what she was staring at. And there, in her potty, lying in peaceful solitude, was a perfectly shaped turd. What excitement ensued! I yelled out to Mario and gave him the good news. We clapped and danced. A mini celebration of sorts.

Thaïs was rewarded with some chocolate.

Oh, and yes, I took pictures.

During one of our daily tickling bouts, Thaïs tried a new way to get us to give her a breather:

“Stop! Or I’ll give you a ‘panking’!!”

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Thaïs’ favorite TV programs:

• Pizzen Bake
• Everybody Loves Raymons
• The Sin-sins
• Koffee With Kanana
• Lord And Honor (Law And Order)
• Dessit All-files (Desperate Housewives)

Thaïs’ favorite cartoon shows:

• Tom & Jewwy
• Bob The Dilder

That last one has me worried !!!

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I love my little bambina… even though she insists on carrying around a smelly, discolored, threadbare piece of cloth that she calls a bib wherever she goes.

She also sucks her thumb… something she’s been doing since the time she was born. She’d grab the bib with her left hand and start sucking her right thumb. Always the right thumb. And always with the bib in the other hand. Back then, I could wash the bib whenever it got dirty. When she was about a year old, she began to differentiate between the clean and dirty bibs by smell, and started refusing to let it be washed. Each time she reached out for it she’d smell it first. If it ‘smelled’ clean, she’d actually ask for the dirty one.

She now has a big red boo-boo on her right thumb caused by her thumb-sucking habit. A couple of months ago, she asked me to ‘bannage’ her thumb (she probably bit down on it too hard!). So I did, curious to see what would happen when she decided she needed to suck it. When the time came, she asked me to remove the bandage. I politely refused, saying she needed to keep it on overnight. She looked at me, then looked at the thumb, tried putting it in her mouth, didn’t like sucking on the bandage very much, and so popped her left thumb in her mouth. She pulled a couple of faces, maybe the left thumb didn’t taste as good as the right, but she didn’t have a choice, so that was that.

Now, when she feels the urge coming on, she doesn’t hesitate to say, “Tana, give me my bib so I can suck my thumb!”

My little darling is quite the hypochondriac. True, she has been sneezing a little bit, and her nose has been running, but it doesn’t seem to be serious. Probably due to the weather. In any case, I’ve been giving her some medication since it started 3–4 days ago.

Every morning she wakes up, drinks her milk and asks for her medicine. She looks very disappointed when she gets only one teaspoonful, and asks for another. Then she pouts for a couple of seconds when the answer is ‘no’. In addition to the anti-histamine she gets her daily dose of calcium and cod liver oil, so she cheers up immediately.

The other day she asked for some tissue because she was ‘blessing’ (sneezing) and nose was ‘blowing’ (running)…!

Mario got caught with his pants down today. By Thaïs. Before I go any further, let me make it clear that she didn’t see anything of importance – although she tried to…

He had just finished his shower and had come out in his towel. Since Thaïs was talking to me in the TV room, he didn’t bother to lock the bedroom door while he changed. I was facing the bedroom, while Thaïs had her back to the bedroom door, so we both assumed she was unaware of the fact that he had come out of the bathroom. I don’t know how she realized Mario was out, but as soon as my ‘conversation’ with Thaïs was over, I turned back to the TV and she ran straight into the bedroom. Talk about being alert!! She probably heard the bathroom door open. I didn’t know what was happening until I heard Mario’s frantic cries for help. So I went into the bedroom and there I saw Mario backed up against the wall covering himself with his shorts with Thaïs bending down in front of him trying to look under the shorts. She turned to me and said, “Wanna see daddy bum.”

Trying to keep a straight face, I picked her up and started to walk out. I tried to distract her with the TV show that was on, but before we were out of the bedroom, she turned around and asked Mario, “Daddy, wanna see bum. Why feeling shy?”

Now, every time she catches Mario ducking into one of the rooms to change, she says, “Daddy, don’t feel shy!”