Here comes Santa Clause

On Christmas Day H1 opened her eyes in the morning and looked around. She saw me looking at her and gave me her million dollar smile that melts my heart and whispered, “Do you think Santa came?”

I said, “I don’t know, why don’t you go and check under the tree.”
She ran to the tree and saw the present and said, “He remembered! He remembered!”

Just a few weeks back, H1 asked, “How will Santa know what I want?” and I said “Maybe if you shout out what you want he’ll hear you.” She shouted out “I want a scooter Santa!”

So that’s what Hubby…I mean Santa got her. A red scooter. She loves it.

Of cause being Buddhists we don’t do the whole nine yards of Christmas…maybe just one yard or two ;o) So H1 gets her tree and a gift from Santa every year. I think that’s the best way of creating mutual respect for everyone’s beliefs…by taking part in the celebrations in whatever small way you can.

Christmas deco @ Orchard Road

Took H1 to see the Christmas deco at Orchard Road. They have a different theme each year -- this year it was 'Candy Land'.

The tree at Takashimaya Shooping Centre is HUGE (almost four stories high)

Unfortunately H1 was in a bad mood right throughout. Maybe because of the large crowds and because it was closer to her bedtime.

Nethmi the Artist - I

Even when H1 was very young, she loved to draw. I think it's inherited from me because I too love to paint and draw. So we used to let her paint from about the time she was a year old. Initially it was just finger paintings...but she graduated to brushes when she was around one and a half (about the time these pictures were taken)

Unfortunately most of these painting sessions would invariably end in something like this:

I need to dig up some of her earlier paintings and post them here for posterity's sake I think. I have posted some of her white board drawings here and here.

Worm-de-da

H1 was scratching her bum frantically sometime last week to the point that it got quite embarrassing to take her out in public.

We thought it might be worms...so hubby was promptly sent to the pharmacy to get some de-worming tablets.

H1 having being told once-upon-a-time that sometimes she might see the worms in her poo wasn't too happy with the prospect of going to the toilet.

So when the urge did arrive she refused to go and we had to sweet talk her and tell her that it's no biggie. That seems to assure her.

When she felt the need to poo again she ran to the toilet with an exited shout of, "Here comes the worms!!"

...but there were none...

Spelling Bee

Hooty proudly announced, "I know how to spell video!"

Wow! We thought...and she goes, "It's spelt, D - V - D!!!"

Hooty and her doggy pals

Unlike Knatolee and The mad cat woman, we are not fortunate enough to be surrounded by animal love (sob sob). I’ve always had a dog and a cat while growing up and I am really saddened by the fact that poor H1 has not yet had the pleasure of a furry creature to love and hold (and squeeze, kiss and give belly rubs to…sigh). We can’t get a pet right now as we are hoping to go back to Sri Lanka soon and don’t want to put the poor fellow through all the quarantining and travelling in a plane business.

So poor Hooty has to be happy with her soft toy doggy pals, who, despite being stuffed with whatever they stuff soft toys with these days, have a heart and soul. They each have their very own personalities. Max is the clever one, while Rosy is a feminine and docile creature. Chooti (meaning the little one) is the latest addition (just 2 days old), so I am not too sure of what kind of creature she is. All three were named by Hooty herself by the way.



As you can see, poor Max, who is covered in band-aids, suffers along with Hooty whenever she gets a wound. (H1 and her wounds deserve a separate blog entry unto itself.) Rosy too joins the misery ones in awhile.





Yesterday, Hooty  having leant how to put on a hair band on her own, decided to treat her doggies to new hair styles.


I think getting me... I mean her, a pet will be one of the first things we’ll do ones we get back. I think I will try a little kitten first. If Hooty proves that she is responsible pet owner, we’ll get her a puppy as well (I can’t wait..I can’t wait…)

Dora the Sri Lankan

Hooty looked so exited and had twinkling eyes when she exclaimed, “Ammi, Dora is Sri Lankan!”

“Oh,” I said, taken by surprise, “how come?”

“See, she is brown, just like me. And she has brown eyes and black hair.”

A few months back Hooty was insisting that she was Indian as she has brown skin. I think all this came from that ‘Racial Harmony Day’ at school when teachers must have talked about skin colour.

If only all Sri Lankans thought we were just that – Sri Lankans -- without further dividing our selves, how nice it would be…

Sneaky Snakey Games

Hooty get’s insanely jealous sometimes. (OK OK..most of the time.)

Yesterday before bedtime, she chose to play snakes and ladders. I started to play with her, but every time I would move ahead of her or if my dice shows 6 and I get to play another time, she would get mad and whine and complain. It got so bad that I told her that I don’t want to play with her anymore. (yeah yeah…Mummy went off in a sulk.)

Then Hubby tried to play with her and since he was trailing way behind she was quite happy for a while. Then thanks to a long ladder climb there was Hubby ahead of Hoots. That’s when all hell broke loose. She started crying and whining. Then when she knew she was about to be beaten for sure she grabbed the board, folded it and says, “This is not a play board, see this is a book…you use it to learn numbers… see, you can count one, two, three, four,….nineteen, twenty!”

Can you believe how cunning this child can get?

We didn’t want her to get away with it, so Hubby and I tried to lecture, I mean explain, that you win some you lose some and since I was on Hubby’s side, there were loads of “I DON'T like Ammi…I DON'T want to play anymore.” And “You always win! I DON'T like you…sob sob…I DON'T want to play with you…Thaaththi is NOT nice!” (The words in all caps are said much louder than the rest.)

So, she was asked to go straight to bed…and from time to time we heard chantings from Hooty’s bed:
“I DON’T like you”
“I WON'T show you how to count!”
“I WON'T play with you anymore!”
And so on and so forth…..