"Pappa! Pappa. kom, piggup," F calls through in the mornings now. And she refers to things as "min!" when she doesn't want you to take them off her. Rubbish goes in the Bi, anything even vaguely boat-shaped can be played with as if it were a Boa, if it's hot and she's hungry she'd like an I Keem.
Two weeks of part-time daycare, and she's talking all the time. Dagis seems to suit her. I told her she'd be going this morning, and she said "Woohoo! Cooka," because there's a big toy cooker there that's her current favourite.
Not that there haven't been hiccups. The first day, she came back with a vast blue smudge on her cheek where she'd run full tilt into the corner of a bench. Then last week she was ill. Or at least 'ill' in daycare terms, which means if she's running any sort of fever, even 0.2 degrees of one, she has to stay home and not come back until there's been a whole fever-free day.
Wow, I got used to her being away fast, I realised as I resentfully settled down on the sofa with her. Fever? Other than the lime green jelly pouring out of her nose, you'd never have known it. "Pappa! Kom play!" every five minutes, and she'd take my hand and lead over me to the relevant patch of floor. F doesn't exactly want me to help with playing, just be nearby while she does it. In this respect, she holds true and close to her mother's views on my utility when shopping or doing DIY.
I was only on the sofa, I hasten to add, because I had her cold and fever too. Otherwise I'd have been springing about, constructing scalable forts out of letters of the alphabet and boiling deliciously healthy vegetables with a free hand. Doubtless.
It's still odd, though. There's a lot of residual guilt washing about as I sit at home, looking for work. Or writing. Or, frankly, lying face down in bed for an hour and a half, trying desperately to recover the sleep I've lost in the last two years.
Do birds feel like this, after they've kicked the chicks exhaustedly over the nest edge? Like, I'm so tired, I want to just eat a couple of worms and then give hibernation a shot but oh god! I haven't pre-sterilised the grub for dinner and what if they meet an owl and look at this place, there is fluff and sticks everywhere!
And worst, what the hell am I going to do with all this empty time?
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