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

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!

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…!”

Thaïs happened to come across cartons of her milk stored in the larder. All excited she blurted out, “Oh look! Those are my dudus!”

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Thaïs: Tana, help! Daddy’s rubbing his ‘deard’ on my cheek. It’s poking… Daddy! Don’t stop ‘dugging’ me!

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Thaïs went out for lunch with Mario’s parents and Mario’s sister and her family. When the rest of them were ordering their drinks, she placed her order too. “I’ll have a beer,” she told the waiter.

I’m told there was pin-drop silence all around the table.

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Thaïs caught me cursing today. “Mind your language, Tana,” she said. “Go stand in the corner and face the wall!”

…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.