She hated it then. She loves it now.
Beautiful beautiful third birthday quilt for beautiful beautiful birthday girl. It’s been a bit of a year for ol’ Astrid what with the arrival of Miss Edith, making such great friends at Lorraine’s in London who she still talks about, then being yanked back to New Zealand where we camped out in not great places for four months while we waited for our house.
Astrid started new Daycare in September. It’s not London and there are a lot more children than the five others at Lorraine’s. Astrid’s the only one with a dummy. She’s the only one who days ‘moomeh’ and not ‘marmy’. Damnit though she now says ‘molk’ instead of ‘milk’ but she still says ‘nauwh’ and ‘yas’. Good girl Astrid.
Astrid is now the chief cake baker. Astrid stands on the IKEA tv stand, which we wheel into the kitchen and prop in place with Mummy’s green Cath Kidston gardening clogs. And Astrid stands on the tv stand and helps bake birthday cakes that Mummy bakes. All cakes are now called birthday cakes because Mummy only makes one kind and that’s almond and spelt tart, with blueberries and dark chocolate. Cakes might vary ever so slightly but that will be to change chocolate between white and dark, and the berries might be blueberries, raspberries or boysenberries.
Sometimes Astrid is like a little limpet and she’ll cling on to one’s leg and won’t let go even though one is walking to a destination. Astrid will cling and cling and cling until she laughs so much the limpet loses its ability to grip. This year Astrid also learnt to talk. After her arrival at daycare her speech flew along in leaps and bounds. And now we have a proper little talking person who says, “take it hoff”, and finishes all sentences in “koo (too)”.
Astrid has funny little eating habits and is sometimes super duper passionate about something for a week and then will hate it forever. Currently Astrid will eat pasta, rice, meat, sausages, mortadella, mayonnaise, tomato sauce (no-nos), honey, apples, blueberries, rice crackers, muesli bars; and lollipops and ice creams in great abundance. This morning Astrid had a raspberry ripple ice cream in a waffle cone for breakfast. Some days she’d go out for coffee with Kevin and return with a fluffy. She’s had L&P for several breakfasts because L&P is her favourite drink. Although she loves water too. Did I mention the lollipop thing? Jeepers at the hardware shop last week they gave her a green one!
Oh, and Astrid is now officially toilet trained. It only took a week over summer. One week and three packs of snakes. And it was super easy peasy because she was ready. Not like the last time when she wasn’t ready. The time she’s shake and scream you’d put her anywhere near a potty. Ok, so that was not going to proceed then. Nope. Best to wait till they’re ready. As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again. Everything all in good Astrid time.
Because Astrid is such a sensitive soul. She’s so sweet and kind and gentle and generous so much of the time. But we’ve also had the terrible twos this past year. Of hysterical screaming and kicking and lying on the floor. Then there’s the lying on the floor and crying when we say, ‘no’. Hence the odd icecream for breakfast. Anything to stop the wailing. And Astrid can be quite a grump right now. But we think that’s hormones. Apparently it’s called “The Fucking Threes”. But Astrid is a very sensitive soul. She’s not a wild crazy daredevil in so many instances. You certainly won’t catch her doing anything dangerous. She’s always there, sweetly waiting to hold your hand. A big smile for Mummy and Daddy. She always wants to be picked up and carried. To be cuddled. And then she’ll leap up out of your arms and jump around screaming and cackling like a banshee while everyone ducks for cover and covers their face and head to avoid injury.
Astrid is also a bit of a control freak. She likes to tell us where we’re sitting. And she’ll make sure everyone is seated correctly before we’re allowed to sit down to dinner. She will also always get the knives and forks out and set the table for dinner. We are only allowed to have the knives and forks she chooses for us. And she can only drink out of the specified cup. The wrong cup will bring on waves of howls and wailing and nothing but the right colour cup will stop it. And beware the person who cuts Astrid’s toast or burger or whatever it is, without her permission. The entire thing will be ruined and rendered non-edible once it’s been cut the wrong way.
Another of Astrid’s hobbies is to demolish the sofas and get one of her parents to lie on the cushions so she can put blankets over us and tuck us into bed. Her Christmas present was a cleaning trolley which she wheels around the house cleaning cupboards and floors. That is, when she’s not cleaning the windows outside.
Good old Astrid. Not without drama. There has been much wailing and flailing this year. We’ve also had a huge pile of adventure, us and the pussy cats. And Edith, who you’ve re-named Mimi. And everything that’s been bought for Mimi you’ve commandeered. But Mimi doesn’t care a jot. Because all she wants is your cleaning trolley and to hang out with her cool big sister.
ps. I write here again now too.
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