The Grumpy Santa

This encounter at the City Mall started out with some doubts, a really bad beard and a Santa attitude to Match. It ended in tears but not before she received a curvatious doll which featured delightful snap-on body parts. Lesson of the day: Keep smiling. Even when someone totally takes your head off.

Sari time.

Special New Year greetings to all our family and friends. All the very best for 2012.

Boxing Day Smiles.

Wow. Holiday joy.

This is slide execution number 476 or thereabouts. An instant hit and almost too fast with those slippery pants. Sticking a cushion under the latter end has so far preempted all of the sprained ankles.

A swing, ball and hoop with net complete the installation. 'Horse' for some reason has all of a sudden become the number one competitive sport in the household; and so far only two picture frames have been the price of some great entertainment.

Christmas secrets

What in santa's name could that be?

Caught in the Act.

Self explanitory, this afternoon. This was an un-staged Christmas moment. Attacking Uncle Stormy's birthday cake the day after. Merry Christmas to all!

Ready for her exam.

After demonstrating the standing snooze in the waiting room (see below), she kept it up on the exam table only to wake with the stethoscope on her back.

As a horse

A new technique here being demonstrated while waiting to see the doc. She really is fast asleep and not jus 'tekin a five'. See next post for follow up.

Recovery Nap

A respiratory infection and barking cough has taken out the piercing little voice and won her a trip to the pediatrician. A long rehab nap yesterday afternoon had the old man occupied entirely.

Marnin face

First moments of a new day. Too bad the fisher price toy messed up the composition a little. Perhaps some sepia could work here.

Complete sentences

Even with Guyanese creole known for it's chopped and abbreviated phrasiology (of which we hear nuff), we do get treated to the occasional full length soliloquy.

"Mommy please pass the keys I want to drive the car" was a recent demand.

Very common of for some months now is referring to herself in the third person:

"She likes the purple one" or

"LEAVE HER!"

Sometimes her family has to stifle some loud laughter to avoid re-enforcing a phrase that is best not repeated.

Throat back to normal.

When your throat is so sore and inflamed that even eating soft ice cream is to painful to handle without crying out loud, u know life is officially miserable. We are thankfully back to swallowing normally and finishing off the dose of treatment with pleasure. Medicine and vitamins are actually a highlight. The damsel is pictured here gulping down her barney-colored favorite on the humpty wall while fending off one of the neighboring twin cats.

We do admittedly have a lot of catching up to do including her trip to see the Albany-based grand parents and a birthday event too.

The end of a musical era.

The highlight of our evenings once were a solo performance of the number one hit single: "Crinkle Crinkle Little Star". This tradition has sadly, as inevitably it must, come to an end. Getting it 'right' is apparently not always an improvement.

Singing has of course been a big part of every day for a long time now. The new trend, however, is taking a familiar tune and spontaneously changing up the lyrics. Recently we got "Mom,Mom"(repeating) to the tune of 'Baa Baa black sheep' for example. How about Barney's "clean up" tune with the name of a good friend and neighbor (Ayla) inserted for a change.

Mom free week.

Got to spend loads of time with Pops who was grounded for a week while Mom traveled back alone. New favorites: Old McDonald, Teletubbies, Nursery Rhymes with bad graphics on Youtube (Gtown only), raisins, cheese sticks (as in curls), Diwalli lights/sculptures. Learning milestone: recognizing single digit numbers. Thanks to the Grandparents and many uncles and aunts for baby sitting during the day.

New outfits

Special thanks to Dr Anu Kulkarni and Mrs Sureka Maddiwar for her original Indian outfits all the way from the sub-continent. We were told that Dr Gan picked out this pink scrub suit, also to grow into - marked 'Doctor in training' on the back. Hmmm, subtle indeed.

Ice cream on the Sea Wall.

She likes the stuff almost as much as the Great Grandmother she is named after.