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

At least, I’d like to think it was a ‘he’. I’m talking about a frog that had been in my bathroom since the day I got back from my two-week trip out of town.

The day I arrived I ran into the bathroom and would have run right back out, had it not been a poo or die situation. I could have used one of the other bathrooms in the house, but there’s something supremely satisfying about sitting on one’s own throne, and having been away for two weeks, I’d suffered enough. So there I sat, one eye on my book and the other on the frog perched up on the window sill. I quickly realized this wouldn’t work. Having to constantly watch the frog, was having an adverse effect on my bowel movements.

Shower time was even more trying as it meant having to stand about a foot away from the window, that much closer to the creature with the glittering, protruding black eyes.

Thaïs, to my amusement/horror/disgust (I’m not sure which), wanted to reach out and touch it. I told Mario about my predicament. Mistake No.1. His reaction was typical, “Hmmph! It’s a harmless frog. Don’t tell me you’re scared of that little thing?!”

Scared? Not at all. I’ve spent years in the lab dissecting the poor amphibians. I just didn’t want that slimy thing jumping on me while I was unwinding with a steamy hot shower.

Anyway, I decided to leave the window open so it could escape on its own. So for the next few days I’d open the window in the morning, keep checking on the frog every few hours, and the instant I realized it had jumped out I’d shut the window. Unfortunately, my plan failed miserably, because every night the frog would be right there in his favorite spot on the window sill, glaring at me with his beady eyes.

I asked Mario why the frog kept coming back. Mistake No. 2. “I think it’s looking for a warm moist place to hibernate,” he said grinning wickedly.

It was several days later that I realized how I was being outwitted by the frog. On closer inspection of the window frame I found a 1″ x 1″ gap between frame and wall at the upper right hand corner. Now I was getting somewhere. The next time the frog went out on its daily jaunt, I plugged the gap and voila! Success at last!

Needless to say, Mario hasn’t stopped kidding me since.

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?

I’ve been back, what? Five days? And I’ve had to deal with my darling almost-three-year-old daughter telling me that she wants to get high.

“Tana, I want to get high.” She has been going on and on like this about 10 times a day.

I couldn’t take it any longer. This morning I finally asked her why getting high was so important to her.

“So I can play basketball, Mummy!!”

Now, wasn’t that obvious? Silly me!

Ahh!!! It’s good to be back!

Had to make an emergency trip out of town from the 20th of December right up to the 5th of Jan. It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that I missed the Christmas and New Year celebrations with Thaïs. I was really sad about that, but apparently she had fun going to all the Christmas parties around town. She told me how she ’shooked hands’ with ’so many Santa Clauses’ and wished them all a ‘Mewwy Chwissmiss’.

She has learned a couple of new things in our absence. Mario asked his mum to check her shoe size ‘coz we wanted to get her a new pair. Rather indignantly she asked, “Why are you documenting my feet?”

Thanks to my sister, every time she burps she now announces to all in the room, “My mama doesn’t teach me any manners!”

Yes… It’s good to be back!

Just a short post to let you all know I’m still around and will get back to blogging soon. My grandmother passed away on the 3rd, after a brief illness. We will be having a memorial service for her on the 10th, so I hope to be back soon after.

BTW, my daughter gave me the title for this post.

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!

We’re at the supermarket. There are people all around. And just as a reminder, my daughter has a loud voice:

Thaïs: Mummy, do you have hard teats?

Me: What? Er… I don’t know. Look… there’s the ketchup. Let me go get it.

Thaïs: No, wait. I have hard teats. Why do I have hard teats?

Me: Um.. I don’t know. Oh! Look at those cartons of milk. Let’s get some for you.

(If you haven’t realized it yet, I was trying to distract her and change the topic)

Thaïs: But why?

Me: I told you. I don’t know.

Thaïs: No! You know! Can you guess? Please? Can you guess?

(Now I’m getting desperate)

Me: Isn’t that the chocolate you wanted to buy? Go get some.

Thaïs: Because I brush them everyday, silly. With toot-paste!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven’t had the time to update my blog or read any of the other blogs I’ve subscribed to. However, I’ve been relatively free the last two days, so I’ve been catching up on all the stuff I missed the past two weeks.

Something I realized as I went through all the unread posts, over two hundred of them, was that almost half the feeds were ‘headlines only’. There were quite a few interesting headlines and I’d liked to have read the posts in their entirety, but unfortunately I was offline. Going online would have taken up precious time which I didn’t have. Given the speed of my Internet connection, it would have taken ages for each website to load. So I just had to skip all the headline posts. Such a pity!!!

I wonder about the usefulness of a ‘headlines only’ subscription. For me, the whole point of subscribing to a feed means that you want to read actual posts, not just headlines.

Maybe there are other advantages to a ‘headlines only’ subscription that I’m not aware of?

I’ve been neglecting my blog lately. I could come up with several interesting excuses for doing so, but I’ll stick with the truth. I simply haven’t had the time. In the blogging world, this is probably inexcusable, and I should have been prepared for an eventuality like this, but I guess I have a long way to go before I get myself that organized.

We’ve been going around to the various schools in the vicinity, checking on their admission procedures. Now that Thaïs is almost three, it’s time for her to start. Actually the term begins in June, so she’ll be 3 years and 3 months old by then. She’s the only person who’s excited about the whole thing. Even though, for the first year, she’ll be at school for just 2-3 hours in the morning, and even though, since the time she started talking, I’ve been looking for all kinds of ways to get some peace and quiet from the non-stop chatter, it is a little depressing. My baby’s growing up. But who knows? My attitude may change once she actually starts going off to school and I get used to the long-forgotten tranquil mornings…

Also, my grandmother is not keeping too well. Between the regular visits to the hospital and the school admission procedures, things around here have been rather hectic.

And now, lest this turns out to be an extremely boring post, here’s something Thaïs said to her grandmother a few days ago. She had gone to spend the weekend with Mario’s parents and as is customary when she goes there, demanded to be taken out to the park in the evening. So they got dressed and ready to go. Thaïs insisted on putting on her own shoes. So Mario’s mum left her to it and walked towards the car. Afraid she might be left behind, Thaïs yelled out, “Wait for me, bloody bitch!”

I don’t know what punishment she earned for that, but I do know that Mario and I had a hearty laugh when we got to hear about it.

Got these pictures from a friend… Just had to share them!