I don’t get much of a chance to look after little Lavinia. My main responsibility is Lakshmi. Lavinia feels like a feather as I carry her around. She is slowly getting there. It is an uphill struggle. Was Lakshmi ever this small. She was 3 weeks before dates but Lavinia is 5 weeks and so smaller than Lakshmi ever was. The first person Lakshmi asks for when she wakes up and the last person she kisses goodnight is her baby sister.
Some days Lakshmi takes a while to fall asleep. As she restlessly rolls around in bed waiting for the sleep fairies to catch up, she tries to find ways to amuse herself. If she hears the baby crying she would go ‘baby crying, baby crying’ followed by a wicked loud ‘hahaha’ laugh. Sometimes she sings to herself ‘’wheels on the bus go round and round’’ or ‘’wipers on the bus go swish swish swish”. Yesterday she had a new addition, it went like this ‘’ashtoo, ashtoo, we all fall down’’. ‘Ring a ring of roses’, an old folk song. I look up the meaning of the song. The popular version we all know about the plague and the connections. There are other folklores behind it as well. I tell Lakshmi that it is not the happy song that she believes it to be.
On Friday we made the most of the sunshine. It was a perfect day to get the hammock out but the oak trees are still devoid of leaves. The new leaf buds are just opening up and so there is no shade under the trees. I get my plastic mat that I bought from India this time and we had a picnic in the shade. Later as the evening progressed and the heat intensity lessened Lakshmi took her ‘Mini’ out for a spin. She wanted to go up the hill. It was getting difficult for me to push it up the hill. She got out and asked me to sit on it, so that she could push me up the hill. An offer I declined. We pushed it up together and then let it roll downwards guiding it.
The weather has gone from the coldest spring day since records began with snow showers to one of the hottest spring days in just over a months duration. Today is the London marathon and luckily the temperature is lower than it has been for the past few days and it is predicted to even rain. By next week the temperature will drop back to the season’s average and normality will be restored, but in the meantime we’ve enjoyed some much needed sunshine and with it spring has finally brought a bit of spring to our steps.
