”Let me out, let me out” screams Lakshmi as she wakes me up. This is not the New Years awakening that I was looking forward to. She does this when she is tired and doesn’t go to sleep on time. It takes me a good half an hour to put her back to sleep. She does it again twice during the night. I am sleep deprived and tired when I wake up in the morning. The breakfast bar will close soon if we do not get a move on.
New Year’s Day and what a start. Lakshmi is not in the happiest of moods as she hasn’t had a decent nights sleep.
Breakfast and a pot of tea later I am fine to face the day. Lakshmi ran off when she saw her Amma and let us have our breakfast in peace. It is time to checkout but we are not going home yet as we have an evening meal booked in a nearby restaurant.
We can use the pool even though we have checked out and so that was our next destination. I try to get Lakshmi into her swimsuit. She wouldn’t budge. There is no way she is going to put it on. She is still traumatised with the incident fresh in her mind and I am not sure what to do. Kavitha helps me put the swim suit on while she screams and I take her to the pool area.
Simon and the boys are already in the water. Lakshmi doesn’t want to join in. I leave her on the poolside deck chair. Her dad arrives and slowly coaxes her into the water. Once in we put her floating jacket on. She starts to kick her legs to stay afloat. Soon she starts laughing and enjoying the experience. We’ve gotten over the hurdle. She will be alright now.
We stay in the pool for almost an hour. Lakshmi enjoys every minute of it before we decide to call it a day. The next struggle is to get her hair washed. She doesn’t like getting into the shower and yet the other day when she was playing with her ‘doggie’ (stuffed toy), she was encouraging him to have a shower. “You can do it, I will help you”, she told him as she coaxed him into the shower. Yet now she is not willing to listen to her own advice. A bit of a struggle and we are washed, dried and all smiles again.
Kavitha brought some games to play. Parlour games and trivia, something I am and never was comfortable with and yet it turns out to be such an enjoyable afternoon. We laugh as everyone made a fool of themselves and when it comes to our turns hope that we will be spared. I was indeed spared as for some unknown reason, both my turns came as passes for which I didn’t have to do anything. For one of the opposing team’s turn they had to come up with an impromptu poem within a minute which rhymed with a dating website ‘desperate dude’. I do not perform well under pressure, but this time I ask if I could join in and write something and came up with this:
‘Desperate dude
If you would like to share your food
I will take you places
And put you through your paces’
(An unfortunate title for a dating website but which desperate dude, I.e. if he is so desperate will be able to refuse this offer, I ask)
Of course my entry was disqualified and Thomas was the only person to come up with a rhyming phrase on the other side and was chosen as the winner.
Despite the sorry start to the day, it turns out to be one of my best New Year days. In the evening I watch the repeat show of the Viennese philharmonic orchestra welcoming in the New Year with their classical concert which was broadcast live on TV in the morning. As the ‘Blue Danube’ plays I gently waltz my way into slumberland.
