Little black balls

Indian summer came on Friday. Unfortunately it disappeared on Sunday but still we really enjoyed the two pretty days. Mom and I went to the grandparents’ garden to pick up some rowan and to catch some sun light.

On Friday we went alone. As we went by car, I could spend the time sitting in my removable car seat on the loan. I was looking around through the small meshes of the mosquito net and kept happily “singing”. From time to time a wasp tried to get under my net but without success. My protection shutter was perfect. The black-yellow fighters had to leave. They probably went back to look for some forgotten plums, which could hide somewhere behind flowers in the flower beds.

Mommy diligently picked the little black balls of rowan. She was standing on old unstable stepladder and kept putting the balls to a small bucket underneath. Sometimes I could hear the balls running on rubber pavements between flower beds because mom didn’t always send the balls to bucket. Soon her hands were all red from the juice and her hair was all slatternly from the branches and wind.

The sky was beautifully blue, just the wind blew with strong breath. It reminded me of a kids poem “Blow, blow the wind…” and than, suddenly, the wind did really blow and almost did put down a little pear like in that poem… actually - no, not a pear because there are no pears on the garden…but my mom. Mom caught on the tree and was swaying in the rhythm of the wind. Luckily both my mom and the tree survived, the stepladder did not break and mom did not break any arm or hand either. We left for home with three buckets of rowan, some tomatoes and flowers. In the evening mom made cider from the juice of rowan and the will also make liqueur from the juice.

On Saturday we went to the garden again. This time I was in my pram and mom kept pushing me. We also took Aja with us and sometimes it looked like she was walking alone without us. When mom called on her she did as if she did not hear. Aja does this from time to time but usually it ends with her being belted on the leash again and having some wind in her fur. After this she usually does not talk to my parents for the whole afternoon.

Just before the last hill we met my granny. She was cycling to the garden too. There was some rowan left and it had to be picked before the birds would do it. Mom parked my so I could watch her and granny and than she took the stepladder again. Aja helped a lot. She kept walking around and picking the balls which fell on the ground.

Than, Aja got tired of looking for the missed balls of rowan and she went around the garden to have a look at the flowers and I guess she also met some wasps. Than she found out there was a whole bucked of rowan on the grass. Why to pick sole balls when you have the whole serving prepared in from of you… But mom saw her and she retrieved the bucked and hid it. Poor dog! Aja tried to find the bucket again and than she lied down next to my pram and she was probably digesting the vitamin C she ate.

We all came home tired but happy and relaxed. The sun makes miracles.

When I grow up

When I grow up, I would like to be a workman. I would work for medium size construction company, which builds isolation on small houses and I would have a perfect life like in clover.

Well, such workman has to wake up early in the morning to be on spot at six a.m. but the supervisors are kind at work so he always gets a few first days to get used to it and those days he starts work much later. Anyway I don’t mind getting up very early (unlike my mom who has quite troubles to keep up with me :).

When I come to work I will always have a cup of coffee to wake up properly. Some little work in the morning always heats one up but you have to be careful so I will also take lots of brakes. I will take at least two snack breaks and one or two more breaks to have some more coffee… well and of course there is also the lunch pause. Another thing I have to think over is smoking because if I start smoking I will get at least three more breaks to smoke. It is surprising how fast the day runs. I will work from six a.m. to four p.m. and I will go home at around three and on Fridays I will leave earlier – lets say at two – to enjoy my family, you know…

What I for sure don’t want to be is a programmer. I can see it at home. My dad gets up also very early to be by the computer at six a.m. But he never takes a cup of coffee before work. He takes some snack only when mom brings it to him and he eats it while working. He takes only very short time for lunch pause and than he keeps working by late afternoon. You can hear him clapping on the keyboard or talking on the phone. Sometimes he also leaves home for some meetings but that is even worse. I am surprised he still remembers he also has Aja, mom and me and that he still finds some time to walk Aja or to help mom with shopping bags.

No no … I will definitely join the great group of workpeople…

How we had our facade isolation made

There is lots of movement at home again. On Mondays a big new action started. A group of four men came with lots of tools and tubes wooden boards. The motto is “Demolish and destroy!” At first the chief told my mom that they would work from early morning to late night (i.e. from six a.m. to four p.m.) but the reality is a little different. The first day the boss arrived at around eight and the rest of the group was even later. I don’t know exactly when because at that time I was in the tax office with my parents (I have already written about it before – my second story with blackmailers). At two p.m. they were gone again. Next day they came an hour earlier so they are getting better :-).

The workmen started to work with the tubes and wooden boards. They made scaffolding. It all had to be very heavy because they had to finish it next day. My dad could not look at it and left for St. Petersburg. No wonder, the workmen started to make terrible noise when demolishing the old facade.

They have been demolishing it for third day already. They keep taking down the old asbestos facade, siding and wooden boards. The strokes are so loud that they woke me up several times and two or three times I was even afraid they ploughed inside. Luckily the house is still standing all right. It just looks very sad – it is like naked.

Aja also does not really like the works. She tries to sleep a lot but sometimes she startles, jumps and starts barking. Oh yes, Aja also know how to bark! Unfortunately she sometimes also barks at night. She probably does not like the scaffolding around the house. One night she even stressed mom so much that she took a fire-hook and went around to check the house. As Aja had already waked her up at least twice before, mom kept walking around with big dark sacks under her eyes the next day.

Already the first day mom let the workers know very clearly that the job at our house won’t be so easy. One of them smoked at ten when they were taking the first coffee break (first of many). Mom saw it so she gave him an old tea cup she usually gives to the smoking visitors instead of ashtray. The others were laughing at the smoker saying it was cleaver of my mom to do it as he would otherwise keep throwing the fag-ends around the garden. I am quite curious how many of those fag-ends is mom going to find when they are finished because they left the cup in the back garden but started to work mainly in the front.

I am also a little worried that when I start walking I won’t have any place to play. My parents got me a small but very nice garden where you can run around the grass, crawl into the flower beds and jump on the sandpit. Well… you could. Now there are old boards everywhere, huge bags with waste, tools and dust. It looks here like on a battle field, the grass is beaten down, there are nails dropped into the flower bed and the sandpit is gone. Aja is unhappy that she doesn’t even have a little space where to go and mom cannot look at the havoc any more. Daddy will be shocked when she is back. I wish it was all over soon!

Blackmailers all around

And there it is again. Do you remember one of my last stories about the blackmailers? Finally I started to feel safer regarding my toys as it seemed all problems were solved. My dad even received a letter from the lawyer confirming that the whole thing was a mistake.

The feeling of the safety was gone very soon. There was another blackmailer letter delivered. This time the envelop with a red strip was delivered to my grandparents. It was addressed to my mom and it again threatening with execution. The blackmailer was not the Czech Tv again but this time it was the tax office.

My grandmother felt very nervous. She said that she would never expect such threat because of my mom. She scanned the letter and sent it to mommy so she would have something to think about over the weekend.

And that is what she did. She kept thinking about it whole weekend. On Monday we all went for a walk to the tax office. Mom, daddy and I took a few rides in an elevator, visited a few offices and spent at least an hour with the woman who had sent the terrible letter. Finally everything was explained and the blackmailer woman did admit that the letter was a mistake and that there is really no debt on my mother’s account. Another twenty minutes my parents spent arguing with her asking for some written confirmation. The lady thought she had it on the hook and that she wouldn’t for sure give any confirmation. But she was no match for my father. He silenced her idle talk about no confirmation with a calm face of Charles Bronson as given by law my parents had a right for something called “Oral Proceeding Record”. Finally we left for home with this record in my mom’s bag. The record said literally that the tax office requested the money based on false claim and that my mom does not owe anything to them. The controller lady must have sleeping problems now and I guess from time to time she keeps hearing harmonica in her nightmares… :-)

We arrived home at the last moment – just on time to give me something to eat. I started to announce the hunger already on the way.

Than daddy just took his two bags, waved us and he was gone. Luckily at leas my mom stayed with me.

Television – my good friend

My parents are usually quite fain and they for sure love me but sometimes I cannot understand them at all. For example yesterday. Mom was feeding me my afternoon snack and she turned the TV on to watch some news. We have a new box under the Tv set – my parents call it satellite – and unlike the old one this box allows us to watch also more Czech programs like ČT24 etc.

So mom watched the news on ČT24 and she held me to not be able to watch it too. I don’t understand why can’t I enjoy the movable pictures when she can watch it.

I tried to wrick my neck, I was not interested in the bottle any more, and I was kicking my mom for so long that I really managed to take a glimpse of the box with movable pictures. Unfortunately my mom is quite sensitive and she understood what I was up to very soon. She simply switched the TV off. Instead of both being satisfied we both didn’t watch.

We have already had the similar fight with my daddy. Colorful Olympics circles, lots of musclemen and musclewomen who looked like the men, music, shouts and other noises … that all was on TV and daddy was watching it. Mom was running around with iron and was working on my clean wear. I was lying therefore on my daddy’s lap trying to suck on my fingers. Daddy is even worse than my mom. He also doesn’t let me suck on my fingers and he even hides my hands so not to be able to put it into my mouth. In a while I got bored with the fight and than I realized why I was lying with my back towards the TV. The TV was on and I was going to miss the fun.

So the new fight started. At first I kept turning but daddy realized what I was about to do. Than I tried to change my strategy. I behaved as if I was interested in a toy and as soon as daddy started giving it to me, I turned. It is not easy but I made it. And what do you think daddy did? Of course he turned me back in a way I really had no chance to watch the TV. Luckily my neck is still very flexible. I almost wringed off my head but I could see. Well, just for a while. Daddy turned me back again and when he saw I was not giving up, he simply took to another room. Such a life! :(

Growing fast

Today I went to see my doctor again. She had to make sure I was growing and developing well.

At first we visited mom’s office in the town and she tried to download some anti-virus program to one of the computers. I am afraid we will have to go there again. Mom was actually a bit angry with the computer and she almost forgot I should get something to eat. I had to remind her loudly.

When we arrived to the doctor’s, there were many people already waiting. Next to me there way a pretty chick parked with many toys around her. She made lots of noise and kept kicking her mother or crying. I guess she didn’t like waiting too. To be honest her mother paid much more attention to my pretty eyes than to her daughter’s cries.

Besides the girls, there was also one boy but I pretended I was not interested in him. I kept looking at him only a little… he was already 6 months and could sit! I have to admit, I envied him a lot. I wished I could do that too. My action radius would be much wider :).

Finally, it was our turn and we got into the office. The nurse took my weight and height as usually. I am 6,25 kg and 61cm. I already knew I was growing, because I could not fit into some of favorite clothes.

My mom also complained of me putting my fingers into the mouth. The doctor smiled and she advised my mom to give me some toy instead so I would forget the fingers. Well, it is easy to say but all the toys are too heavy!

Than the doctor just said I was all right and that the next visit would be some torturing again. I am going to have another vaccination. Poor me!

On our way home we also stopped by in some store and mom got me a new toy – it is a rattle and it looks like a big safety-pin. It is quite light so I can handle it all right. Sometimes I stick it into my eye or bump into my head but I just need to practice a little. The only thing, which troubles me now is that I don’t know what to do first – Shell I stick my finger or the toy or actually the dummy into my mouth? I don’t really know – the fingers taste best but mom and dad keep watching!

Starting to be dangerous

I am really very skillful but my mom says I’m slowly starting to be dangerous to myself. It all started last week when I held my bottle with tea myself and alone for the first time. I don’t like that tea much but I had lost of fun with the bottle. There is some special nipple on it so I should not spilt the tea but nothing is perfect so finally I was all wet. Besides, this nipple is great to point with it not only into your mouth but also into your eye. I just must train my arms because I get tired very soon.

However I became much more dangerous to myself on Friday. I started to roll! Mom was just working on some boring translation and I was lying next to her on the big working table trying to tear off one ear on the small plushy dog. It got bored with this activity soon and so I threw the dog under the table. Mom saw it and bended under the table to get it back. I used this moment and started to roll. When mom got back I was laying on my side, lower part of my little body was already rolled and the only thing (unfortunately quite significant thing) which was in the way was my lower arm. I could not get over it. Also I could not have looked down from the table as mom places me unnecessarily too far away from the edge… I will have to learn how to crawl.

I keep training to roll diligently. Already on Saturday I showed it to my dad. I am getting quite good at it. Everything goes well but one “insignificant detail”. I can not understand why babies have two arms. One is quite enough to roll around and the other one just stays in the way. Otherwise it is very easy – I bend in my back like a bow, I throw the legs over each other and than I bend my head as if I wanted to break my neck. I just cannot get over that arm. Usually I lose my temper in some while and start to cry. Mammy helps me and I finish rolling to my belly and I am satisfied for a short while.

Yesterday I even tried to do my first “double-roll”. Mammy helped me to get to my belly and I immediately continued to get to another spin. Unfortunately my support team did not count with anything like that and there was not enough space around me so mom had to push me back a little. That completely destroyed my concentration and rolling was over.

I understand that my achievements are not sufficient enough fort he Olympic golden medial yet but if I spend more time training may be I will be able to do pirouettes too. Mom and dad are having lots of fun right now when I show them my new skills. I thing they still don’t realize that after rolling babies start to crawl and than I will be the one having a laugh :).