Day 19

One of the complexities of writing a diary about raising a little girl — especially with the goal of being humorous — is that it becomes more and more difficult to find ways to say “Stormy woke up”.

Stormy woke up… Late.

That’ll do.

I have noticed that Stormy learns very quickly. We have a conversation, it goes like this. “Shall I pick your clothes for the day”, “NO”. Good girl — she’s learning. I ask if she wants toast for breakfast. She decides that ToastBox would be a better choice. I don’t disagree — so ToastBox and then taxi to school it is.

Dinner time and the gas runs out for the stove. I make the mistake of asking Stormy what she wants. Old McDonalds is the answer. I know it will be the answer as the words come out of my mouth. Silly Evan. One trip to Macca’s later and we’re back home, sitting down for dinner. That is when I make my biggest mistake. I dip a chip into her tomato sauce. The look of betrayal on her face will haunt me until I die. It takes 30 minutes to convince her to stop crying and come back to the table to finish dinner.

Story time. I read her a local Singaporean story about a tiger who visits Raffles Hotel. There’s a page with some mandarin writing on it. I point to it and ask her, “Can you read that, it’s Chinese”, “I can’t read Chinese, I can only read Mandarin”. I correct her “It actually is Mandarin”. Stormy looks at me puzzled and asks “Chinese Mandarin?”. “Yes”, I respond. “Oh, I can’t read Chinese Mandarin”. I give up at this point.

A quick shower together and it’s time for bed. I don’t know why I allow myself to hope these things. She’s out of her bedroom and chatting with me every two minutes. “Can I stay with you daddy”, “I want to stay with you daddy”. I notice that I’m only Daddy when she wants something. Every other time it’s “EVAN”. Said in the same tone of voice as my wife when she’s annoyed at me. My favourite part of the night is when she comes out in the middle of a Skype call with the US and unplugs the computer. That was fun.

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* For those who missed the context, I’m not actually single. My wife has started a 5-month contract in Australia (yay). This is a Very Good Thing™. Stormy will be staying with me here in Singapore and I have great help both remotely (from my wife) and locally. I’m writing this purely for fun and to practice writing. :-)