If I want to whistle, I whistle

     Look who just learnt how to whistle! She practices all day long, in the house, on the street and also in church (yeap...) It was fun in the beginning, but she is now becoming really good at it and much louder!!
She is extremely proud of the new accomplishment so we don't have the heart to tell her to stop :). She invited her friend for a sleep over to show her how she can whistle. My very big hope is that her friend does not pick up whistling tonight, or a very big headache is guaranteed!

Till then, we try to sneak in some fun whenever we can

Fishes

Ups....

Lazy cats

It is no secret that in our household we do not fault laziness, but actually we hold at high respect those who are lazy (and still lead independent, happy, successful lives). The way we see it, laziness equals efficiency, which equals smart decisions followed by smart execution of those decisions. With this in mind, the following dialogue with my daughter took place:

Mommy:      "Catalina, we're going camping on the beach soon. I am thinking we can wake up really really early, way before the sun in up on the sky and we can then see the sunrise on the beach"
Catalina:     "Mommy, we are two lazy cats, we'll never wake up that early. Maybe daddy can go see the sunrise by himself"

I'll do my best to do see a sunrise, but can I anyone fault me in desperately wanting to be a lazy cat next to this other, much cuter, lazy cat?

Till then, we had a nice trip to the shore, without the tent. Looking forward to more waves!

Away

The most dreaded trip passed and I am back home to my family. Was is as bad as I anticipated it will be? No, it was worse by far. I know that somehow Catalina and I depend on each other to make our mornings go smooth, we get energy from each other's smiles. There are mornings when I wake up before she does, but I rarely leave the room before she is up, just because I don't want to miss that moment when she opens her eyes and looks for me. This feeling of being needed and loved above everything and everyone else is extremely empowering. But mostly, the knowledge that I have something so precious and unique as my daughter makes me want to take advantage of every second I can in her presence.

So, how does one prepare for 4 days without her sweetheart? You can't prepare, and in my case I couldn't really make it a big deal, as I didn't want Catalina to get too scared. So instead I told her she should try on all her princess dresses so I can brag with my beautiful girl to all the people I will meet. dress like a princess? Catalina was on! This made for a very fun and beautiful show.

Tricky Sophia in the house!

7 dwarfs needed!

Beautiful Belle

Cinderella (a little bored by this time...)

Gipsy Ariel :)

Missing from here are the fairy and the ballerina costumes, the night was just not long enough...

So, early in the morning I packed and got ready to leave. Minutes before my cab came I decided to make some paper presents for my daughter. I cut a paper heart, a flower and a butterfly, I planned to paint them with glitter and make them pretty, a small present for her to find each of the mornings she wakes up without me. I did not have time to paint them, so I decided to ask her to color them instead. That did not go well...

Being away was hard, I felt her absence constantly. Like when one of the participants said (after being inside the whole day) : "oh, how I miss the sun!" and I understood "oh, how i miss my son" and i added" "I know, I miss my daughter so much, it hurts". Yeah...a career workshop might not be the perfect place to mention very tight connection to family :). The first evening came, I called to see my baby girl. And my gorgeous girl told me she had a great day, but she so wants some mommy time now! So we talked a little and at some instant, while we were just staring lovingly at each other she told me: "I just wish I could pull you through the phone so I can touch you". How is it that such a small little girl can put in words whatever I feel so much better that I can? And then we said the good night story, and then we said good bye. And the same exact thing happened for 3 nights in a row.

To go back to my little paper presents. Each morning I was telling my little girl she has a new paper present and where it is. At first she said thank you and told me she doesn't want to color it. At the second one she told me "not again". At the third one she started crying and asked me how many more did I leave her, she just does not want to color them! Far from me for caring if she colored them or not, so I just told her I love her and she can throw them if she wants. And that was the end I thought. Until 3 days later when I came back and I was greeted by this:

My cutie pie wrote a message for me. She molded her tears into a smile for me.
The world is beautiful and fun and happy again. I am back to my daughter.

Mommy's Sunday

I am getting ready for the most guilt loaded trip I ever planned. I will leave for a work related trip this Thursday and i will be away for 4 days. This was not a mandatory conference, it was just an unexpected award that I received and somehow I could not refuse without staining a little my academic reputation. So, here I am with a heavy heart, thinking how I will fall asleep without smelling my beautiful girl, how I will wake up without her kisses. But, as sad as I am, I was even more worried about her, how will she fare without me.

So, I started counting days with her, when will I leave, when I will I come back. She was upset, apparently I told her once that I will be away for 3 days and now she was counting 4 (including the day I am coming back). So we went over the days again and again until she finally understood. Mommy comes back on the 4th day, on Sunday. And then she told me: "so I will call that Sunday the mommy's Sunday because I will wait and wait until you come back to me".

And now that she is not here to see me, I can cry a little.

Gibberish and some funny, smart coments

My darling girl was very vocal early on. If there was smth that never worried me, it was her ability to form well constructed sentences, with a vocabulary that exceeded her age in both the romanian and the english languages. Once she got better at speaking both languages however, the funny constructions started. Catalina applies English grammar to romanian words and this makes her hilarious.

We came to my workplace one day, so she can look under the microscope at an ant. She carefully pressed the ant and then told me proudly in romanian" mami, am mortit furnica", which pretty much translates as "mommy, I death-ed the ant". All kids have their funny sayings, and we, like any other parent, think our daughter's are the funniest.

Well, that day at work was very productive for both mommy and Catalina. We stayed there for over 3 hours during which Catalina drew every single step of what mommy was doing. Here is her representation (quite accurate!) of the instruments needed for PCR purification of a plasmid!

drawing by Catalina
annotations by mommy

Among the other magnificent inventions of her beautiful mind:

We were going to a farm to pick up cherries and blueberries. The whole car ride (which was less than an hour) Catalina kept on telling how she can't wait until she can pluck a blueberry in her basket. 30 minutes into the ride she exclaims: "Why  do we have to drive through the entire world so I can just pluck a blueberry into my basket? Mommy, those guys need to move the blueberry field closer to our house". If only I could shrink and widen distances...so many troubles averted, and so much money saved on airplane tickets!

Here she is, finally plucking those blueberries into her basket!

 On a similar note, one evening Catalina was throwing one of her tantrums, why does she have to eat, why does she have to sleep, pretty much she didn't want to do anything. At the end of her wits she yells that everything I or her dad tell her is stupid. Oh well, that did not sit well with mommy and daddy, so we explained that "stupid" is not a nice word so she is not allowed to use it. So, my darling little devil asked me: so if I can't use it, like never, never, ever, then why did God make the word in the first place?
So very trues, these words are made for our angry moods, and if we can't use them when we are mad, than what's their use?

And now, to fast forward through our latest adventures:
4th of July parade with Catalina's daycare. I was very nostalgic, this one is the last one when Catalina is actually part of this daycare. Even if we comeback next year, it won't be the same. The teachers won't be her teachers, the kids won't be her classmates anymore. Catalina couldn't care less, she was very uninterested in the whole event and all she asked was to go back home.

Finally happy to go back home!

Of course, maybe she anticipated the great bbq that daddy was planning. At mommy's suggestion Catalina chose to have lunch on the balcony. Not a bad idea at all!

 We repeated our balcony meals in the morning as well. Nothing like starting your day with this beauty!