Day 73

It’s 6:30 in the morning and Stormy is awake. An unstoppable force of will imposing herself on the only personal time I have any more. She “invites” me to join her and play with her Lego. I am not allowed to refuse. Defeated, I join her on the floor of her room. Here we create the monsters of our dreams. Stormy creates a bunny/giraffe hybrid. She gives it to me to keep beside my computer “forever”. “Because I love you”. It’s terrifying visage truly brings a little smile to my face now.

I casually walk down to the bus stop. Stormy skips along beside me. She’s so excited about the day ahead that she seems to have forgotten how language works. The stream of words that emerge from her mouth are part of no known grammar. Darmock and Jalad have nothing on a 4 year old girl in a good mood.

After work, it’s such a warm day that I suggest that we take our dinner down to the pool and have a play. She’s hesitant at first, but then realises that she can use playing in the pool as an excuse not to eat. She gets the gleam in her eye that she has whenever she planning something cheeky and so bounces off to get changed into her swimmers. Chewie joins us and we carry everything down to the pool. Stormy grabs my hand and pulls me over to the edge. She makes a big deal about “pushing” me in. I play along, but spin and pull her in with me. This could have gone badly, but she’s happily giggling.

After 5 minutes, I tell her that I’m going to eat. She joins me and proceeds to alternate between running around like a lunatic and stuffing her face like a lunatic. We decide to Skype her mother and she’s so excited that she can’t keep still. I have to keep moving the phone to keep it pointed at her. On the positive side, given the volume that she’s squealing at, it doesn’t matter how far away from the phone she is. In fact, the further the better. After the phone call she manages to finish her dinner and so earns desert. We swim for a little bit before I get chocolate biscuits from the vending machine. The small things, like putting the money in the machine herself, just make her happier.

While I’m giving her a bath she thanks me for suggesting we have dinner by the pool. “I didn’t know it was going to be that fun. I was so crazy”. Yes, yes you were. She asks to do the same tomorrow. I’m not sure I can survive that again, but nevertheless agree. I comment that perhaps I shouldn’t give her desert tomorrow as it is full of sugar. She looks at me and tells me with a straight face. “Desert isn’t full or sugar. You are full of sugar”. She’s right of course, but I can’t let her know that.

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