hello goodbye
27 Aug 09 - Thursday - 4:56 p.m.
For the last couple of weeks, whenever the clock strikes 8am at my parents’ place, the Peanut will come up to me, stand up on her feet by pulling on my skirt, and demand to be carried. If I put her down for a moment she will cry and repeat the process of crawling up to me, standing up, pulling my skirt and making the little noises of wanting to be carried.
She does this because 8am is the approximate time I get ready to leave for work.
The couple of times I left for work in her sight, she crawled at breakneck speed to the front gate, standing there holding the bars of the grill, crying out loud with her best sad face.
It trewely breaks my heart.
Nowadays, my mother will come and take her from me and distract her with all kinds of things so that The Other Half and I could quietly sneak away to work.
I never knew that going to work could become such a clandestine affair.
*
When I get home in the evening and she hears my heels clicking along the corridor leading to my parents’ place, she would stop whatever she’s doing and crawl towards the front gate crying. It doesn’t matter that she could be happily laughing with grandpa or beating up some poor defenceless stuff toy and having the time of her life hitherto. She’d just immediately drop whatever she is doing, put on her best sad face, and come crawling towards the gate crying, crying, till I pick her up, whereupon she’d immediately break out in a toothless grin and laugh out loud in that gurgling voice of hers.
As if grandpa had been bullying her through the day, my father remarked.
*
After dinner, we’d pack up Peanut’s things and prepare to go home.
When The Other Half carries the Peanut to leave, the Peanut will let out the cutest little laugh and proceed to wave goodbye to all and sundry. Even when there weren’t anyone around or her back is faced towards the person she presumably intends to wave goodbye to.
The Other Half reckons that it’d be a while more before she learns the appropriate time and manner of her goodbye wave.
It just amuses me how delighted she appears to be at the prospect of going home.