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

Today just seemed to drag on and on. All because the little one wasn’t around. The good news is that she’s coming back tomorrow morning. Went to play cricket as usual today, but it wasn’t the same without her running between wickets, picking up stones and throwing them into the lake, standing in the middle of the pitch thereby bringing the game to a halt, basically, just making a nuisance of herself…

While on the topic, Thaïs’ knowledge of cricket terminology is increasing. According to her, there are 3 ways to get out: caught, clean bowl-out, and eb-lee-dub-loo. At any point of time during the match, the batting team’s score can be any of the following 3 options: 46, 44, or 10. If, for some reason, she thinks I’m not paying adequate attention to the game she tells me to go ‘feel’ (field). Never mind that I’m on the batting side!

Check out my Yahoo! 360° site for the latest photos of Thaïs at the beach.

OK! Till the next time. Can’t wait for tomorrow morning.

Ciao.

Have you ever been locked up in a room by a two year old? Well, I have. About a month ago. By my own daughter. I had gone into the bedroom and shut the door in order to reach for my clothes hanging behind. The little imp came along and I guess she couldn’t resist the temptation. She’s seen us bolt doors so she must’ve thought, “Now’s a good time as any… Daddy’s not here, Mummy’s on the other side of the door so she can’t do anything to me…. ‘Less’ do it!”

Initially, I wasn’t too alarmed. I figured she’d be able to un-bolt the door on her own. But unfortunately, she didn’t have the strength for that. She panicked and started crying. I ran out to the verandah and called out to the neighbors but they couldn’t hear me. I felt like crying too — out of frustration because I needed to get to my Italian meeting. I even managed to get her to bring her plastic stool, put it down near the door, stand on it and try to undo the latch, but it didn’t help. So there I was, alternating between standing in the verandah shouting out for help and trying to calm Thaïs down and get her to open the door. My frustration soon gave way to anger. I started pounding on the door — partly because I was so mad and partly because I was hoping the latch would somehow loosen and she’d be able to undo it. No luck. All that banging on the door only frightened her further.

Finally, after about 10 minutes of shouting our immediate neighbor heard me and came out to see what all the noise was about. Fortunately Mario was at the guest house. I explained the situation to the neighbor and asked her to go call Mario. By the time he opened the front door, Thaïs was sobbing hysterically and kept apologizing over and over again.

I don’t think she’s going to fiddle around with any of the bolts any time soon.

Little Yoda played ‘cookit’ for the first time today. She saw some of the neighborhood kids playing outside and wanted to join them. So the boys let her play with them — for a little while — until they started getting bored. After all, she was interrupting their game. She seems to like wicket-keeping. She likes to squat when she sees the bowler coming in to bowl, but unfortunately, she doesn’t pay much attention to her position on the field. As a result, she sometimes ends up squatting at the non-striker’s end, and if she really gets excited she squats with her back to the batsman, facing the bowler… Who knows? She might just teach our Indian cricket team a thing or two!!!

My little darling turned 2 today. How time flies! As young as she is, she has a mind of her own and can be quite obstinate when she wants to, but all in all, it’s been an amazing two years.

Took her to the beach where she played in the sand with her two cousins. Made a total mess of herself playing in the water and rolling about in the sand. We got back, cleaned up and went over to my mum’s place for dinner. And then, she didn’t want to come back. “Stay Gamma! Stay Gamma!”, she went over and over again, so I left her there. She’s adorable, but even I need a break now and then!

Will be putting up pictures on my Yahoo! 360° site. Will keep you posted on that.

A few days ago Thaïs caught me with a screwdriver in my hand trying to fix a loose door knob.

“Mummy, doing?” she asked.

“I’m fixing it,” I told her.

“Fikkit, fikkit”, she said and tried and tried to get her hands on the screwdriver, but didn’t succeed. Today I saw her trying to pull out the wheels of one of her cars. So I asked her what she was doing.

“Baby fikkit!” she replied happily.

Now she tries to ‘fikkit’ everything. She has ‘fikkit’ed a pair of sunglasses, CDs, CD cases, some of her pull-along toys, one of her toy cell phones — (she tried to ‘fikkit’ my cell phone too, but got a good yell for that), and the list goes on….

I’m back after a long break. (Sorry, Tammy!) Didn’t have much to blog about. In fact, things were so slow, we watched the Scary Movie series in succession. They were actually quite a lot of fun. Crazy, but fun. Looking forward to the Jean Luc Ponty concert here on the 11th. Will keep you posted on that.

Had a little accident yesterday. Cookie was sitting in her ‘easychair’ eating a chocolate chip cookie, staring out at the lake. She probably forgot where she was sitting or that she didn’t have a diaper on and suddenly pee’d in the chair. She got so upset. Apologized profusely. Immediately went to her potty and tried to pee some more, but unfortunately nothing else came out. Embarrassed, she came back and repeated ‘vedy soddy’ over and over.

Went for a long drive this evening. On the way back she stopped the car because she wanted to see the ’sitting’ sun!

Finally! It’s bed-time. Mario took her to the bedroom to try to put her to sleep. But little madam was not ready for bed yet, so she sits up, throws her ‘ber’ at him and says, ’suck thumb’!

The little one was invited to a birthday party today. Had a blast with all the other little kids there, but for some reason got scared of the clowns. Won a prize for the smallest dancer on the floor. Well, actually, she wasn’t on the dance floor — more like on the periphery, closer to where I was sitting. There was some kid who kept following her and pinching her cheeks every time she joined the other kids on the floor and, not surprisingly, she didn’t like it very much. Anyway, she was too much of a lady to pinch back, so every time she saw the kid approaching she’d come running to me.
Tahill did a good job of looking out for her every time she wandered off. Even won her a pull-back car which she promptly broke! She can be quite a brute sometimes…

All in all, she must have had a good time, coz she was asleep less than half an hour after we got back home.

Took a few days off… didn’t have too much to write about. Also, the little one kept me busy. Today I surprised myself. I actually sat through an entire Star Wars movie. Mario had borrowed a DVD with the complete saga (he’s a Star Wars buff), and since I had nothing else to do, I watched it with him. I didn’t think I’d last more than 30 mins., but I guess there’s something about the movies after all! I won’t call myself a fan just yet, but I must say it was quite entertaining.

Cookie did something amusing yesterday. She decided she needed to use the potty, so she ran towards it shouting “potty! potty! potty!” the way she normally does. Then, she gets to her potty, stands in front of it and decides to let it out. When she felt it trickling down her leg, she got so upset! “Ooh! Sutu! Sutu!” she went and almost burst out crying. As if that wasn’t funny enough, she immediately apologized for the mess, “vedy soddy, vedy soddy” all the way to the bathroom! At first I thought she did it because she probably couldn’t hold it any longer. Then Mario enlightened me… She’s been spending a lot of time with her cousins (boys) lately. She probably saw them do it standing up and with their pants on, so she thought she could too!!

Ok… Till the next time….

Finally…. put the little one (and the big one!) to bed. Now I can sit down, uninterrupted, and get this thing started.

Today was peaceful. Thaïs woke up in an extremely good mood. Finished her breakfast and asked me to take her out on her tricycle, “Mammy, out. Bike. Gep-up!” So I had no choice. It was either that, or sit at home and listen to her scream. She has a loud voice, so I chose the former. God help me when she grows up… She’s only going to get louder!!! She met some boys cycling outside, and went after them. Didn’t want to come back home after that… Had to lure her away with promises of chocolate and ice-cream. Those are her preferences, in that order — boys, chocolate and ice-cream. I’m next… after doggies, mud, water and Santa Claus.

Went to play badminton this evening, after a long break. Made the mistake of taking Thaïs along. And so, I paid the price. Didn’t get to play much — was forced to run around with her trying to keep her off the other courts. She had taken my racquet and one of the shuttlecocks and was trying to play cricket! Thankfully, my racquet survived. Never again…. well, not for another 2 years, at least…

OK… will sign off now. Can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

Ciao.