Little madam...

.....had some left over M&M's in the fridge, the mini kind, and only about ten all up. She took them out and ate them. Then said she wanted more chocolate. Tills: I want more chocolate mum. Me: No Tilly, that's enough. Tills: I want more mum! Me: Nope, there's no more. But you could have a piece of Paula's fudge. Tills: Well, let me see this fudge! (after seeing it, tasting a bite......) Yep, I'll take it to the sofa. Me: No you won't.

This week

Koala is Tilly's favourite toy. Poppy gave it to her. She serves many functions, such as overseeing play time, being held at night, coming on trips to the market....

.... and as the family accountant. Here she is propped up on my stair machine with the calculator. Because Tilly has seen mummy cook the books for daddy she'll sometimes role play writing out invoices or crunching numbers. I walked out of the kitchen this morning and found Koala doing just that.

And here is Tilly in the kitchen, also this morning, helping me wash up. We made daddy's lunch this morning and dropped it off to him at work. That is the first time I have ever been able to say that. Daddy never works in the same place on any given day. But, recently, he's been in the heart of the city working in a brand new office location for a particular country's embassy/trade office whatever. No western country has official ties with Taiwan, so they call them trade offices. For two weeks he oversees ten staff and the moving around and placement of all the office furniture. The view from their massive office is spectacular - 101 and all that has to offer. Shouldn't I be working in one of these places? No, I'm happy where I am!

So Tills and I slogged it out in the kitchen all morning to prepare a 'rice box' for daddy. He couldn't just have something simple like a sandwich. Most, if not all, Taiwanese eat hot lunches, rice, veggies, meat. So I cooked rice, stir fried some bok choy with a little garlic (you can see it and the wok ready in the picture actually), grilled a nice piece of steak and some prawns. Put it all into a silver lunch box, cut up some fruit and even got together some cheese cake slice that I made earlier that day (hehe) and which he loves. He opened it all up and was most impressed. The prawns, his favourite, are done in butter and a little olive oil and sprinkled with a little bit of sea salt. I have to keep these things in the freezer to feed my man. And so we sat down together to have lunch as a family. Tills had a blast and of course Steve loves showing her off.

And here she is at the end of the day, all tuckered out.

That's how she goes to sleep at night. After our nightly rituals, she goes to bed with the books we've read just before and reads them again for herself. As she hadn't napped today, she only got through half of them. The books on her right are waiting to be read, the ones on the left are finished with. I move them to the end of the bed and in the morning she wakes and gets them and reads them again.

And this is the extention of the picture of the dragonfly she drew the other day. She confirmed with me it was indeed a dragonfly and not a butterfly.

In conversation with my little one

While colouring her Hello Kitty book and I was on the bed feeling off.. "This is a birthday cake Mama. It will help you to feel your sick away, ok?" On a particularly hot day during dinner with daddy and after mummy had failed yet again to turn the a/c on.... (one hand on hip the other with a/c remote pointing at the a/c) "I need the a/c on mum, to be my sweat away." (Daddy, who would have every a/c on in the house if he could, found this and the fact she turned it on herself, particularly impressive.) After one of Steve's workers came to the door to collect the storage key... "Who was that mama, was that daddy's worker?" "Yes, love". "Is he be dead?" "No, love. He's very much alive." (Not sure why but dead is the new fascination) After waking one morning. "Tills can you get me a drink of water?" "You come with me mum." "Sarah helps her mummy get her things. Can you be a big girl like Sarah and get mummy a drink of water?" "You be like Sarah and you get your drink of water mum!" (Cop that mama. Note to self: comparing with other children doesn't work.)

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day in Taiwan. August 8th every year. The number eight is pronounced 'ba'. Therefore, the 8th of the 8th is ba-ba, get it? Baba's day. Steve had a rare day off. How convenient. In the past I would have shuffled him off somewhere so that we could get some 'quality time' in. But, now, I'm slowing down and was content to stay at home and have the quality time there. We all woke after 8 and then lounged around on the bed playing with our new set of Uno cards (kids version, with Winnie the Pooh printed on them - so cute). We played heaps of games and had the best fun ever!! Tilly knows how to play now, but she just can't hold all the cards in her hand. So we always get to see what she's holding. I have been having twinges and pains in my belly, not contractions, but just a lot of discomfort. So the opportunity to sit and do nothing was great. After Uno, I made a late breakfast and cut up some fruit and we ate it all in front of the TV (scandalous!), watching the adaptation of Roald Dahl's book Matilda, the one with Danny Devito. We three love that movie. It was a very slow day indeed. Steve and I were both loath to get up off the sofa and do anything and Tilly was just happy to have us both there together. It was a day well spent.