glue

"I'm sticking with you

'Cause I'm made out of glue

anything that you might do

I'm gonna do too."

The Velvet Underground sang it and with illustrate this every day. That includes the cat (who thinks he is a dog) and the dog (who thinks he is a child). So when I say that I am going to sew, this is what happens:

And when I start taking some pictures, this is what happens:

And you get to see these pics because I really like her style (Leila's, I mean. because Coline's style so far is limited to thick blurry finger pics).

And when Leila grabs facepaint for herself, this is what happens:

Let us not be fooled, we all end up being inspired by one another, this is no unidirectional copying. Coline-inspired Leila has been using blue more than ever, Coline repeats every word that Leila says and I have been dancing in the living room. Sometimes I'd rather hold on to my camera, my piece of knitting, my book, my computer, my conversation, my yoga class, my French lesson or my own free time, and expect the girls to learn to count or pee in the loo when I please, but I slowly come to appreciate how much we benefit from our tendency to mimic one another, how quickly and easily they learn when they just want to do like me, Cristiano, the cat, or one another. I actually do remember this too, when Leila and Coline fight over the same toy, the same seat, the same pen, and over me as well.

A few more pics, because I love painted faces. Leila was a tiger (she has been quite angry - at me - lately) and Coline was surprised when she saw herself in the mirror after she had grabbed the make up that Leila had negligently abandoned after use.

Potato stamps in food coloring, a pair of straws, lemon meringue pie and strawberries. Some days just unfold blissfully.

On a joyful rainy Sunday, Michelle took these pictures of us. Leila served us coffee, she and Coline showed off with their dance / circus skills (one of their favorite activity lately. It involves dressing up, playing classical piano music and moving in a fast circular motion for Coline and upside down for Leila). We went playing in the rain and I am definitely getting myself a pair of gumboots this year to make the most of it!

these moments are priceless

Cristiano pretend-calls Coline on her mobile. She picks up and says "ui!". She cracks laughing. He follows. The same scene happens 25 times. 25 times in a row they crack laughing. Priceless. And contagious.

rain

Did I say rain? I meant RAAAAIIIIIIIIN!!
So, the first rain of the season came, after five sunny and dry months. We saw it coming as dark clouds piled up behind the hill near our house and lightning started crisscrossing the skies around us. We looked at it through the kitchen windows, until I went swingin in the hammock with Coline for her not to worry about all the noise that she was hearing around us (the day started with many firecrackers to celebrate the public holiday and she already did not like them much, but thunder falling all over the place really got her stuck in my arms), until I grabbed both girls to get out of this place surrounded by windows that by then were being lashed by palm tree leaves in this heavy rain and crazy wind. This is when we started getting busy with (trying to) seal so many doors and windows that were leaking buckets of water inside the house. It was quite an active moment. Scratchy found a shelter for his head (only), about three meters away from the entrance door but was too deep in panic to consider moving the rest of his body to a dry spot.

We ended up scooping and mopping away buckets of water from the flour shortly after the storm even started. That was fun because in the end there was no real damage to our house. Unlike many others in Ouro Preto, unfortunately.

broken

It is not in Coline's nature to complain. When she really hurts herself she cries, she does not scream, squeal, howl nor whine. She comes to me with a little tear in her eyes and a sad face and all it takes for her to get over it is a few seconds of breastmilk. This is how she got over it when she fell off a chair last Tuesday. It was way past bedtime and we left it there until the next day. She kept on pointing at her arm and we could tell that it hurt whenever she tripped because she could not use her arm to stand up again. We (and the doctor) were quite confident that she would complain more than that if her arm were broken. Three days and an x-ray later it turned out that she broke her arm near the wrist. We spent four hours at the hospital where she and Leila played, apparently oblivious of the long wait and possibly constant pain. She laughed as the doctor put a cast on her arm and marveled at how cold it feels when she puts it on her tummy. She did get upset when she tried to take all her clothes off and managed, except for the cast. She gave Leila a pat on her head and Leila, on the contrary, screamed as if her head had split in two. Luckily it had not.

since we are back

Since we came back from France, here is what we have been doing. We have mostly been living everyday according to our peaceful schedule of swimming lessons or French classes in the morning and quiet or manual artyvities in the afternoon followed by a trip to the "parquinho" in the afternoon. We felt very lucky because two new playgrounds have appeared last month, just as mushrooms after the rain, as well as Ouro Preto's first (proper) football pitch with stands and a running track where Leila can practice kick scooter. Coline looooves painting, drawing, writing, sorting, reading and watching cartoons in English. She has started translating, just like Leila used to do, particularly in that cute and determined way they have to inform their daddy of the french version of what he tells them. Blue is her favorite colour for paint, clothes, shoes, cuttlery, cars, birds and well I guess all the rest.

 At the moment I am into knitting challenging stuff, in my rare spare time, thanks to the knitting book I got myself from Amazon and some beautifully colorful wool from my mum. I also started Biodanza, which I did rather because I could not find yoga classes at a convenient time and place. It has been slightly too intense for me so far. I experienced it almost as a kind of shock self-psychotherapy, which I am not against but I feel that I have to take it slow. To start with, a whole hour and a half for me to take care of myself feels like a lot, given that the rest of the week I spend it with my two little girls who do not sleep during the day, and if they do then at night I feel like sleeping before they start yawning. Challenging times but oh so sweet.

to paint a butterfly

Some time ago, Leila and I found a dead butterfly on the street near our house. I suggested that we took it home to use it as a model for painting a butterfly. She got very excited with this idea. 

I like her interpretation of what I said. I obviously thought that she was going to paint a drawing of a butterfly, not on the butterfly itself. That day she was happy and proud. I let her use my sewing machine. She sat on my lap, kept on reminding me not to forget my fingers when they got close to the needle, and carefully held the material herself. She called me "caca pourrite", but that was only because she had spent much time with Maela the week before.

Some may think that one cannot disappear from a blog like this without even leaving a word of notice. I agree. Yet, as it turns out, I did. Does me writing this mean that I am back? Am not even sure why I did not come back before. One thing for sure, coming back from France to being happy, relaxed and merging in the landscape in Ouro Preto was not that easy after all. For something completely different, I heard myself say to Leila 3 times: "I am going to work this morning, I'll see you in the afternoon". Actually, I said that only once. On the other two occasions I took her with me. For the sake of Silvia's ears. How proud I am to say that tonight a grant application was submitted for me to perhaps work at the university next year. What a strange feeling. I really hope that the application is successful and also really really hope that it is not. I will enjoy the waiting.

Until then, I will be sharing some more about us here.