Hello Grandpa!!!

Well, hello the rest of you too! It's just that on this particular photo I was on the phone with Grandpa. And honestly speaking, most of my phone conversations are with him. That phone thing is sort of his thang!

Panoramic, how?

By the way, this is part of the view from the coffee shop.

Wodny Park Hair Dos

Sometimes on Sundays, dad and Adam go swimming at Wodny Park, which is a cool and preventively priced water land pretty close to what until yesterday used to be our house. When they come out, Adam often has a very tidy hairdo, hair combed to the side. Last week, mom and I came along. We didn't go swimming, but we hung out in the coffee shop, where there's a panorama window, which allowed us to see how Adam and dad came down the water slide time and again. The Wodny Park Coffee Shop Hairdo looks a bit different than the Wodny Park Swimming Pool Ditto. I think it may have something to do with the choice of carpeting and toys there.

Just kidding

Of course I'm not oblivient to the move! I've only done it once before in my life, but this much I gather: it's freaking hard work to move. And it's freaking hard to leave a place that you really like. And people that you really really really like. Sure, I'm excited about India. No, I'm excited about the other ones being excited. But I'm really NOT excited about leaving Warsaw.

We're moving?

Oh, well. Wake me up when we're done. (Toshia proving that moving does not have to be a stressful thing, that the perception of it is just a matter of attitude.)

A sweet time of the year

For someone with a sweet tooth, advent marks a very nice period, indeed. At home, candies are still only allowed on Saturdays, but when invited to a Christmas candy party, rules are bent and Sunday is as big a candy day as Saturday. Well a whole lot bigger, actually. Especially if the hosts are our Ferrero-connected friends, Clair and Emma. Clair is a friend who dates back to the English Playhouse last fall. And Emma too, although her ability to actively participate in the friendship is way better now than back then, considering that she was only born in October last year. For those of you who are wondering: Ferrero is Ferrero as in Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Noir, Nutella, Kinder chocolates, etc. And the practical poll at the Christmas candy party showed that Ferrero Rocher is the candy of choice for most people.

A whiff of Italy

Annica was here last week. I may not have known her from before, but as mom, dad and Adam all seemed to view her presence as absolutely normal, I decided to go with the flow and adopt her as well. So. Annica was here. And that was a lot of fun.Although she's really not much of a photographer. Or maybe she is! This pic fits right in with the other ones in our arts cathegory. Not blurry. Compsed.

Cultural teachings 2

If you go dressed like this in Sweden, especially on an average Tuesday, people might look at you and think you have really weird parents. If you go dressed like this in Poland, especially on an average Tuesday, people might look at each other and nod in approvement. And it's quite likely that they'll tell you that you look fantastically elegant. (Yes, they have seen and taken the Hello Kitty tights into consideration.)
Yet another reason why we will miss this place.

Cultural teachings

At Tomoki's house there are guest slippers at the door. And in the kitchen there's tea.

New type of interaction

I used to think Toshia'd grow up faster if she was just taught her lessons of life the hard way. I figured my role in that would be to make sure things were as rough for her as possible. However, despite really quite intense efforts on my behalf, she's remained very small. Thus, I've decided to dramatically alter my approach: Perhaps if her ride is as smooth and sweet as possible, she will grow a bit faster... Since a week or so, I'm trying this and actually, it seems to work better. She's already bigger and wiser now than when I first started this sunshine policy. And honestly, it's a lot more fun for me not to have to be so stern all the time. AND I get much better feedback from the parents, which is nice too. Sunshine it is.

Sorry guys!

We're in the midst of moving and besides, we don't have a camera. Thus, the blog is on a temporary low at the moment. Just hang in there, though. Things'll get better.

Not so congrats

Sometimes the quality of the picture outweighs the content. Ask dad! From last week, when grandma was watching us, there are loads of pictures of... ... toothpicks. Yup, you read it. Dad focused on toothpicks.

Congrats!

Sometimes the quality of the photo is outweighed of the content - just ask the paparazzis. There IS, in fact, one photo of us hanging out with grandma last week.

Ok, pretend that it's raining...

...and forget that there's not a new pic here today. If worse comes to worst there won't be one tomorrow either or on Wednesday, but let's hope not. You see, one of our facilitators has been away for a week and the other has worked so much that he just as well could have been away completely. The implication is that there are few new pictures out there and even fewer loaded onto the computor. Bear with us, please!

That carpet again

Unrolled, it can be even more fun to play with. I pretend it's a big sea with waves running down the middle (waves that mom and dad use all sorts of measures to make disappear). It happens that I trip on those waves, but most of the time, I'm fine. It's really a fantastic toy, that carpet. And Ps. forget what I wrote about it being expensive toy. It's not. Those who know have spoken.

Pedicure

The other day, mom wondered why Toshia's foot was all scratched. Here's the explanation: it wasn't scratched, it had just undergone a deep-impact treatment, in which among other things mom's metallic foot file was used. So now, Toshia's are soft like baby feet again.

A day at the disco

A while ago, Adam and I were invited to a disco. You know, a real one, with music from big speakers and a big dance floor, not filled with the dressed up kids who also seemed to feel a bit awkward in the dimmed lights. The event featured Astrid Lindgren music, a Pippi Longstocking acrobat and hogen gas filled balloons. And on top of that Swedish style Saturday candies. The timing, 11-2, was more or less like discos for kids who are a decade and a half older than us (who cares about that am vs. pm thing?). As opposed to teenagers, however, we had gruel to help us stay awake after nap time. No RedBulls in sight.

The Sweet Basket Case

I know Swedish childcare places often have an issue with sugar. Here too, it happens that some parents (like mine) ask the teachers to keep down our sugar exposure. After serious consideration, it's therefore been decided that apart from the often quite sweetened lunch, we should only have sweets on Fridays and when someone has their birthday and when there's something special to celebrate. And at snacktime in the afternoon, of course. Absolutely not more often than that. Everybody seems ok with this order. Last week, when it was my turn to fill the Friday snack basket, I got some parental help to do so. And this is what I brought: cinnamon rolles filled not only with the normal stuff, but also with some marsipan. So much for their credibility.

One of my suitors

There's a bunch of guys and gals who court me. Tomoki's quite active and Warsaw-based Rosie and Bebba as well. But I think Lukas is probably the one who hosts the warmest feelings for me. He's always very sweet and caring. And as opposed to the other ones, he realizes that the fact that I'm just one year old implies that I'm not able to do all the things that the big kids can do.

What to do when the weather's uninviting?

We're three years old! We need to move about, also when the thermometer shows a couple of degrees above freezing point and the rain falls heavily over Warsaw. And this is what we do then, Bebba and I: we go to my place and there, we hit the best toy ever created. The Filipino mini-climb. We climb and swing. And twist and turn. And skip and hop. And stay entertained for a good twenty minutes at least!

Seals being fed

At the place where we should have gotten ourselves a one-year membership. That would have rendered us a cool plastic badge with giraffes on it. And that badge would have been well-used.

It's Lotta på Bråkmakargatan and I

Lotta on the Trouble Maker Street, could only bike stealthily. And besides, she didn't have a real bike. As I also don't own one, I've also had to keep my abilities secret. But when Bebba brought her's around, I couldn't help but showing off the fact that I DO know how to bike.

These are also not blurry

Those who think they are just lack a good eye for aestetics. Så dé så!

Oh, so artsy!

Hey, watch this! Imagine how trained their eyes must be. How developed, the feeling for what workes and what doesn't! Economists, bah! Diplomats? Don't even get me started! They're artists, mom and dad. Clearly artists.

Toto, the tull monster

You know how I'm (oftentime) featuring this totally girlie girlie angel fluff style? And how it makes me look fair and sweet, like a delicious little cream cake? Did you ever wonder why? (Apart from the obvious cuteness and my parents' unwillingness to sign up to a societal norm that prescribes specific clothes as a substitute for actual gender equality.)Well, the answer is that I need those clothes in order to bring out the TULL MONSTER! The TULL MONSTER is a very cool but also very scary crature. Watch out! She's charging at you! (For a reference that only mom's family will understand, the tull monster has great similarities with LISTERPOJKEN, although LISTERPOJKEN featured a backturned hat and a gun.)

Why are we so giggly?

Yeah, why is it that we just couldn't stop laughing the other morning?Because we tricked them, of course! We pretended to be one another and climbed up at/into each other's chairs, and then we just sat there, pretending that nothing was up. Success! No one could guess who was who.

Ok, some winning concepts deserve changing

We don't only hit the kiddie section of CitiGross when we're in Sweden - we also hit Ikea. I'm good with it these days, as I've passed the magical age limit to be let into Småland with the other big children. But Toshia... Not impressed with Ikea Kalmar. At least not enough.

Fab in faux fur

It's a hard job, looking so glamorous all the time. But with good stylists, it's still manageable. Today, I'm a function of aunt Kia's trained eye and selective taste. All I have to do is be my adorable self. And I don't mean to boast, but I'm really pretty good at that. A born natural, you could say.

Why change a winning concept?

When in Sweden, we did some shopping of our favourit Swedish things: Välling (gruel) and diapers. And then we added some more of each of those things. And then yet some more. Semper välling and Libero diapers... How's that for a craving?

Morning Quiz

We have two roles when playing with the train tracks: one is the constructor and the other is the destructor. Sometimes, when the destructor is being particularly efficient, the constructor also gets a bit destructive. Now, take a wild guess - who is who? [By the way, mom is wondering about the name of that book in which a kid builds a super high tower with his building blocks, but his baby sister keeps tearing it down... She figures we would recognize ourselves in the main characters. She also figures the happy ending with the kid giving a few blocks to his sis might rub off.]

The COP15 model and the not COP15 model

It must have been very tricky to decide who was going to appear at COP15. I mean, we're both totally selling the message!!!

By the way...

Adam may have trouble remembering the pose word, but me, I've gone from Teeeeef! to Cheeese! The fourth or so proper word in my vocab (after mom, dad and NO!). So just bring out the camera! [Cheers, from the girl who will appear in the good-cause advert.]