You run, I'll jump.

"Dad now you run and I will jump"

That is one of the fun games we play on the trampoline. You would rather jump alone than with me because when I jump you loose balance and fall.

Since I was home for a good few days, we spent a lot of time together. Early in the morning first and then later when you are back from pre-school. Along the way, as always, we have developed our own fun routines - reading books, jumping on the trampoline, sitting on the trampoline and having ice creams or ice lollies.

While we play, it is interesting to see some traits that you have developed to bring out your personality. For one, you are quite cautious, cowardly even. I for one am glad for that. For me, that means you do not engage in unnecessary adventures like playing with fire or sharp objects or bouncing on a bouncy castle when there are too many kids already on it.

That by no means is to say you are timid or a pushover. I could see you standing your own ground with your friends and shining in your individuality. If that means playing outside the group for a while, so be it.  I like to believe you've got that from me 😊.

Secondly, you are a stickler for cleanliness. That's obviously something you inherited from you mom's side. If there are dry leaves on the trampoline, chances are you wouldn't play on it until you've made me to clean it or cleaned it yourself.

Did I ever mention how you like books? Although you are too young to flow and swim with letters words and sentences, you do a great job with pictures already. And how you love your books ! You continue pestering me or your mom to read whichever happens to be your current favourite book, again and again, night after night. It's the gift of childhood innocence, I guess, to not be numbed by repetition. I'm not complaining though, I like buying books. Reading is any day better than us loosing you in a rectangular halo of light in your hands and spending more time connecting  with you instead. So lie down, be cosy, read, enjoy and immerse yourself in these innocent stories for now. That's our gift of one of the 'happy places' in your life to be in, if you ever need that image. 

One of these days when you were unwell (more about that some other day ) you stayed home and the two of us went to town. We ran some chores - you pasted your first stamp and posted your first letter - an otherwise dull and boring change of address form.  We had lunch together, teasing mom with pictures of us having fun. Then we went to buy books of your choice. Problem was - you went straight for the ones that attracted you - tiny little books with good looking covers. These weren't necessarily the ones that would keep you engaged for long. Kind of a difficult set of concepts to explain at your age though - evaluating the future utility of an asset and not judging a book by its cover !

In the end we bought a couple of pretty little books of your choice and a couple of not so tiny, not so bulky books that I thought would serve you (and us!) well.

Dear daughter;

"Judging a book by its cover" is something that we are increasingly dealing with on a day to day basis. Not just at a personal level but at a social, political & international level too. By no way is it a new phenomenon. However,  foolishness travels faster than wisdom. It doesn’t take long for a half baked notion to be a full blown, mass scale epidemic of stupidity with global proportions.  You cautiousness would be a skill to hold onto in this big bad world of ill-conceived opinions. As a child you expect the grown up world to be more thoughtful, more thorough with their opinions and approach, more mature and "in order". However, as you grow up, you find out that there is no order. Just an arrangement, a delicate one at that. You need to be the smart one and find your piece in this jigsaw of arrangement. Even once you grow up you will still need to decide how to tread this wobbly trampoline of a world - when to jump and when to run and with whom.