this that happened

After such a long absence, it is not easy to come back and select a few things to say on what happened here in the past few months. Or perhaps it is, because in retrospect I can see what was important to us, what was a big change, what I want to remember in the years to come.

Coline turned two on March 22nd. She is a big girl now, as she puts it, "no baby, me". I called her "little sausage" last week, which triggered a suspicious look on her face and her putting it straight this way: little sausage, me, no, big sausage, me.

After some early morning presents and wishes we took a walk to the park and to the bakery where she got a bouncing ball as a special birthday treat. We had a relatively big gathering on her birthday, as mamie and grandpa had arrived the night before and our friend Munyke joined us with her children. Coline took part in making the dough for her most favorite food of all: pao de queijo, and had a feast with the final baked version of it.

Leila had prepared a special birthday pillow for her and mamie had brought a suitcase full of goodies for us.

Since she is 2, Coline has been mastering the art of cutting small pieces of thread, drawing circles and spiders with lots of legs, hanging, swinging and twirling from the rings under our stairs, she talks and plays a lot with her "baby" Corentaine, who used to be Leila's, and is generally a happy and chilled two-year-old.

It was only last week that I was able to finish the blue dress that I started knitting for her in March... my first piece of such enormous dimensions to cover a 2 year-old from neck to knees... and she only allowed me to try it on her once and for 2 min. Luckily I had fun in the process.