PS:. And I said...

... DO NOT SQUISH YOUR BLACKBRRIES!!

Take care of your slip

The Olympics in China are over. We have no TV (read: we're not connected to watch programmes), so we faithfully continue watching (DVDs) Charlie and Lola, Shaun the Sheep, and Piglet Babe exclusively. Our only olympic endeavour is of a different kind... you think potty training? No no, we're just getting used to the idea of the potty and keep dancing. No. Tara is well in love with watching stuff, and having the TV on for ever. She sits up in bed in morning, and without further ado declares: "Nanenbot (Bananenbrot / banana bread)! Shaun Saaf / TarlieLola / Weinsen (Schweinchen) Babe!" Aaaaaall day long!
She's two now isn't she. So now she's allowed all that was off limits before. Chocolate. Crisps. Hot Chocolate. Watching TV (DVD!). Watching TV (DVD!). Watching TV (DVD!)*. In short, bad habits of all sorts that make my life easier.


She's also allowed potty training, but not that interested yet. However, we did find this online (on the blog of some guy in China who records funny mistranslations), and think it's great advice for when Tara does decide to make potty training her next olympic feat, whether in front of the TV or not: Take care of your SLIP!**


* DVD! We don't watch TV as such, Mr TV Licensing guy, just so we're clear about that!
** Granted, I've not heard a single English person saying slip and meaning underwear / knickers /pants, but I did check a dictionary and it featured, so the joke, by dictionary definition, IS funny.

Ponytails and Pole Dancers

Ta-da! Tara's first encounter with girly hair fashion. Now that she's not a baby any more we've got to get up to adding a bit of girly charm. Dresses, hair, necklaces, pole dancing. Oh well, the pole dancing is abviously not for her, I'm confusing agendas - pole dancing is on mine, with classes starting this very evening, after a long and uncertain wait at the gym (see, Janet?). Tara however, is quite fascinated with pole dancers, too. We went to see a carnival the other day, and the local pole dancers' float was parked outside the hosts' house. It wasn't even me who drew her attention to it and taught her the word (it was a man, of course), but she didn't stop demanding to see them for the next hour, and still speaks of them a fortnight later; and none of it my doing! Ah, so lovely to see when things run in the family and us girls have a passion in common.
Dancing would even be a passion that spans three generations now. While in Germany, Tara spent a lot of time with her Oma Gisela (primary school teacher for music and movement/dance), listening to music and doing some dancing, and then some more and some more. She'd try to drag me to play (on the odd occasion), declaring, "Hucka! Hucka! Mama kann's"! ('Hooka Hooka, mummy can do it!'), and puzzling her poor old mum greatly, who knew nothing about a song or dance called that, and certainly couldn't do it (bless her trusting daughter's heart). Back home, she's not stopped. We listen to "Kara's Musik" daily, and she will sway back and forth, occasionally grabbing her dollies to hug them close and dance with them, and occasionally (but less so), refusing to let me change a nappy cause dancing is so much more important than clean bums ("Nein, Mama, keine new nappy! Kacki auch tanzen!" - 'No mummy, no new nappy! Poopy dance too!').
Enough telling of matter that maybe shouldn't be told! I must pack my shorts, and serve my freshly bathed family dinner.

Snap: Viel besser.

Wie wunderbar, eine Tante zu haben, die einem einen Babyccino spendiert UND einem den Stuhl macht! Tara, lucky as ever...

Snap: Zu klein! Gemein!

Snap!

That's us today, making good use of a sunny spell. Tara learned the basics of putting up the washing from her nan last week, and she's loving it so much she keeps pulling it all back off to put it back again, oh yes!

Snap! Introducing mobile blogging

This is where all my blogging friends go, whoa, i want that too! A new computer, a new phone... You'd think it was MY birthday! Now talk about the new phone, it has this nice little camera and mobile blogging facilities. Read: take a pic, and two clicks later it's been uploaded onto the blog. But i'm not showing off, i'm merely advertising sony ericsson walkman phones ;) and new babies or houses like other blogging folk got themselves are much much cooler anyway! So here is the snap of the day. Tara refusing to nap all day long at appropriate times, only to collapse on mummy a few hours before bedtime. We brought a bit of a broken routine back from germany. Of which i'll talk tomorrow. Promise. IF tara sleeps at reasonable times, that is!