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One of discoveries Sunday’s first excursion into the wonderful world of kiddy football was unexpected side effect of having spent three or so years working on concepts of playing nice (sharing, taking turns and so on), which is the furious, pitiable wailing that accompanies the discovery that in competitive sport you have to take your turn, not wait for it.

Much howling, a mix of self-pitying and righteous indignation, ensued. This is, the coach/referee assured me, entirely normal with three years olds, and I guess it would be. But still: an unexpected side effect; it encourages me in the belief, though, that the whole business is a good thing, not least because while “playing nice with others” is a life skill that’s valuable, so is “I’ll go get it myself, no-one’s going to give it to me.”

Other than that, and a plaintitave “I’m too cold, I want to go home”, swiftly fixed by another layer of jacketing, we had a ball, and Ada managed an absolute gem of a perfectly-executed tackle, timing a textbook interception of another player on his run into her goal.

After the game Ada worked on her dribbling some more, controlling the ball through 90 and 180 degree turns, and frustrating her mother’s attempts to regain control of the ball. I’m looking forward to see how she’ll handle next week.

When Christine abandoned ship for Canada, she left us some fabrics, including some cool space age silver fabric. Maire got sewing and behold:

I believe I’ve now experienced the loudest coherant noise my daughter can make.

Sunday morning I was discussing with Maire if, and how much, chocolate Ada could have for Easter. After some bargaining the answer was: a 50 cent piece sized bit of my egg. In accordance with best parenting practises, haggling over what she was allowed was in one room, while Ada and the egg in question, safely out of her reach, were in another.

You can, of course, see where this is headed.

Enter Rodger, to the scene of an ecstatic daughter with a staved-in egg, and a mouth full of chocolate and wrapping foil, hollering “YUMMY!” at ever-increasing volumes until her little lungs and voice box reached their peak.

Chocolate was quite the success.

“Dada”, “Mama”, ”Burl”, ”Zhak”.

“Daddy, did you know you have teeth?”

“Daddy, did you know I have opposable thumbs? And I can use them like pincers? And that I can get my own food into my own mouth? Did I mention I can do it on my own?”

It is a well-known fact I can’t be trusted to go shopping on my own. Moore Wilson’s in the weekend alone can endanger finances. This is doubly, nay, triply true when there are things I can buy for Maire—and now, Ada. As evidence of this I present the following:

The child-sized armchairs are available from the Best Childrens’ Furniture Store In Wellington, or, as it’s more commonly known, Inhabit. They’ll even upholster it in an arbitrary fabric. I may be immune to—nay, contemptuous of—baby Nikes, but against perfect child-size furniture I have no defence.

Of course, it’ll be a while before Ada can really use her new chair. In the meantime the cats are more than happy to help out.

It is an inarguable fact that the Internet does not have enough pictures of babies and cats.

To help alleviate this shortage, I offer the following:

Maire and Ada

Ada, Dad, and Jaques

Resting on Daddy

Ada and Great-Grandpa Ian

Ada and Polly