Pride and Prejudice!

My computer crashed! How timely is that?! I mean, I have to submit my MPhil. thesis at the end of June, and here's my computer showing attitude! AAaaarrrgh! I took four days off, and got my husband to help out with Debbie and the chores while I worked on my thesis. He even did some of the typing work for me. And then, Sunday morning I open a blank file where Chapter 3 used to be.....!

I mean, I saved the file and everything. I think it's about time we got rid of that computer (It's as old as the hills!) My husband just won't do it...I don't know if it has emotional value for him (he just tried to throw out Debbie's favourite book last weekend because it was dogeared! I just don't know what makes these men tick...). Maybe, he has some distant hope in the computer's human-like will power to make one last Herculean effort. I tell you, the whole deal is as nonsensical as that last sentence. Anyway, that's my husband and his computer!

So yesterday we just gave the entire chapter to be typed at a DTP centre, where they will type your stuff out and save it for a minimal amount of money. That works for me, I tell you.

I don't have to deal with the typing work along with all the other stuff that's driving me crazy around here.

Debbie is beginning to stand without support for a few seconds nowadays. Her best yet is 10 seconds! She is really excited about it...but unfortunately has inherited the family trait of letting the excitement get out of control!

She now walks around the entire house (with support) and pulls down anything, and I mean anything she can reach. She pulled down on herself the entire pile of xeroxed secondary source material I had collected for my thesis! She managed to eat a few words too!

One day, I found her dutifully chewing her way through the headphones! That cost a lot of money and she was brunching on it!

Then there's the books, face cream tubes, underwear (my husband left the drawers open again!), stationary, TV remote, clothes (right off the hangers) etc., etc...

She is getting her fourth teeth and it's driving her crazy..She has recently developed a craving for my fingers. I would be sitting there, absorbed in my work, and she would sneak up to me, grab one of my fingers and dig her teeth right in! Gosh, I should probably introduce her to hotdogs, or maybe they have already been introduced and she just misses them!

When she cannot get at my fingers, she goes for my hair! Yep! That's what I said, my hair! She likes to pull really hard at one strand at a time and put me through excruciating pain while she claps her hands in absolute delight! Oh yeah, just for the record, she has learnt to clap her hands to music or when she is happy!

See what I mean? Here I was, narrating my unfortunate accidents and the torture I suffer at the hands of my 10 month old daughter. Yet, I can't resist bragging about her achievements. I guess that's what parents are like. So proud of their children. Makes me think of my own parents and the sacrifices they made for me. Every time I excelled in school or at art or music, they would be so full of pride and would talk about it to relatives and neighbours for so many days! Failure on my part, at the same time, would send them to the depths of disappointment that was worse than the sadness I felt at my failure. Parents practically live for us, and love us with a love so pure that it is only lesser than God's love for us.

I have wonderful parents, let me tell you. At the most unexpected of moments this fact hits me and I feel a rush of gratitude and my eyes fill up with tears. I regret to say that I rarely express this gratitude properly to my parents.

I guess that's why we have Father's Day and Mother's Day, a day on the calendar when the whole world is telling you "this is your day to go and tell you mom or dad that you love them, that they are special and that you are happy and successful and they had a large part to play in forming this success and happiness". Just tell them that you love them.

Happy Father's Day in Advance to all the fathers in the world!