OSCAR
- With kindergarten and the first cold autumn-days of september, came the running nose -punctual as the appearance of natural phenomenon like the eclipse of Europa by Ganymede or the arrival of Santa Claus. Fed up with having his nose cleaned Oscar has forbidden mum to approach him with a tissue, claiming that "my nose is making honey!!"
- After a year or so with Icelandic being his first language, even mum has to accept the fact that Italian has overtaken that role. Being the parrot that the age predicts, he can be heard repeating word for word instructions and orders given at the kindergarten and he will only speak to Irene in italian.
- For some reason or another, Oscar has always been terrified of water. When finally mum and dad decided it was time to take him to the pool, all he did was clinging to them and begging them with tears in his eyes to go out of the water. Little by little, Oscar has been making friends with the water and although he hasn't completely overcome his fear, he had no problem playing with the waves on the beach this summer (see photo).
- Oscar has invented the identification game. It goes like this: Oscar will first ask the colour of the house of any number of people his parents may or may not know, then he asks the colour of the same people's car, trousers and T-shirt. You are in deep shit if you don't answer consistently to these questions (e.g. invent 2 different colours to Gloria (whom you don't know at all), his classmate's house on two separate days). Then he inverts the game and asks: who lives in the blue house (right answer: Afi Lalli), who has a red motorbike (right answer: Aunt Raggy), who is wearing green T-shirt (boh, don't know Oscar, who is wearing a green T-shirt....? Oscar angry: THE man...!!!, ehemm, of course oscar, the man!).
- Late August we took Aunt Kidda to Crespi di Adda, an industrial village (on the UNESCO list) where basically ALL the houses look the same, give and take small details. When we had walked for about half an hour Oscar said: where is the cat that lives in this house? and pointed to a house in front of him. The cat? In this house? Why should a cat live in this house? We all just scratched our heads and had no idea what Oscar was going on about. Then our memory was rewound approx. 3 months back, when we took Steina and Guðjón to see the same village and in front of that precise house, Oscar had seen a cat playing. THAT's what I'd call good memory!
IRENE
- Beeing able to walk 10-15 steps alone, while not yet having gained full confidence to walk by herself -and therefore preferring to hold mum's or dad's hand while trotting about the flat, Irene might give the idea of a sedentary child. This is only an illusion. What she lacks on her horizontal mobility, she gains with her vertical mobility. There is not a piece of furniture in our home that she hasn't tried climbing. Her favourite places are:the kitchen table, the water bowl (see photo) and the upper rack of the dishwasher!
- Having passed months being a desperate mummy-girl, who would cry inconsolably whenever mum went out of sight, mum and dad were curious to konw how she would react to the start of kindergarten. A week of adjustment-time was planned and mum got herself psycologically ready for a tough period. But Irene didn't need any adjustment to kindergarten, she just fitted in, right from the start. What mum and dad had underestimated was the fact that she had accompanied Oscar to the same kindergarten every day from when she was born, and therefore the place was no mistery to her, and she knew that even if mum disappeared for a couple of hours, she would come back eventually to pick her up!
- Irene decided by her own initiative, at around 10 months, that baby-food was nothing for her, she wanted plain food, just like everyone else in the family. At the same time she decided that she was capable of eating all by herself. Despite the fact that this leads to food accumulation under her chair (gradually diminishing though, we must admit), she has been nicknamed "the little hoover" for the way she seems to suck up any food item within her reach.
- As the gap between Irene's front teeth predicts, she is a very determined girl. She knows just what she wants, and if she doesn't get it, or if she doesn't manage to do something she wishes to do, she gets very very angry. And then she tries again.
- No opportunity goes wasted in this little girl's life to let people laugh. She will put things in her mouth and make funny sounds, she will hide herself behind a cloth for then reappearing laughing, she will offer to feed mum with her fork for then to pull it back at the last moment, she will climb on a table and spill the water for then to say "splash" with her hands, all this with the face of the lovely rascal that she is. When she get's rewarded with a smile, a laughter or a little extra cuddling, she is happy.
