Conveniently now it's also Erkki's vacation so it's an excellent time to spend some family time. Siiri hasn't even seen her babysitter for a week and she absolutely loves spending time with her parents. Suddenly she's so attached to both me and Erkki. When she wakes up and Erkki goes to pick her up, she asks for mommy. 
When I go there, she asks for daddy. She shows me hew primitive drawings and she even lets me fix her hair. She also loves playing with my hair or combing it or just patting my head.So it wasn't very surprising today when Siiri walked up to me and rubbed the tips of my hair between her hands.
I was playing with Xbox and Siiri was running from one room to another. The rooms are as baby-safe as necessary with Siiri. There are places where she could harm herself if she got creative, and trust me, kids are very creative in that respect. However, she rarely ever harms herself in our home. When she does, it's mostly just by accident and it's things that could have been avoided if we kept Siiri safe in a locked padded room with no tables to hit her head and no corners to run into. 
Well, me and Erkki sure have a LONG-LOOONG way to go toward keeping Siiri "safe". I mean, we actually let her open and close drawers by herself and we have not taped up any cupboards. Heavy DANGEROUS books are at hands reach, and since we didn't have any bright ideas where else to keep our cutlery, Siiri also has access to table knives (which are sharper than some people's "real" knives). Well, if Siiri tried any funny business, we'd have it differently, but Siiri's just too bright to be kept locked in a padded room. She reaches cutlery easily and takes out spoons and sometimes forks to "feed" her dolls and stuffed animals. She never takes the knives. The first time she opened that drawer I explained why knives are bad. Now sometimes she very carefully touches a knife and says with a serious expression, "OW!" 
.She's also super-fast. When I try to tell her, "Hey, Siiri, it's bedtime. It's time to put on your night clothing." and I reach the word, "beeedd...." PAT-PAT-PAT-PAT-pat-pat, and she's already in the other end of the apartment. I wait one second, she runs back to a safe viewing distance. I finish my word "..bedtime", she laughs maniacally (in a cute kid way) and off she goes to the other end of the apartment. She usually does this 4 or 5 times before she's in her night clothing. Unless I put her in chains, there's no way I can keep her from doing what kids normally do - run around and have fun doing it. This gives a whole new perspective to the typical slogan, "you have to keep an eye on your toddler AT ALL TIMES". I think that's just what childless people say.
Of course I keep her close when we're outside and I keep household chemicals as far from her as possible because she can't read labels and can't sense the dangers involved but looking at her at all times is just ridiculous. At home, I let her run free until I get suspicious that she might be up to something. I'm talking about minutes here and I check on her immediately when she gets too quiet. I'm getting awfully side-tracked, like I always do when I'm telling a story. But that all stuff was necessary to create the setting.
I was playing with Xbox and Siiri was free-roaming around the apartment. She drew a little bit, then took a toy from one room to another, then took a quick look if I've added anything fun to any of my drawers, closing them with a slam. All familiar sounds. Next she went to the master bedroom - the safest room in our apartment - and spent some time there. Then she came and rubbed and patted my hair. Then she ran off again. Cute! I kept playing and a moment later she was back. Again she came and rubbed her hands in my hair with great care, patted me and left.
Mhh? I tried to make some dialog but she was too busy to notice. Then she did the same a third and a fourth time and ran back to the master bedroom. This time I put down the Xbox remote and followed her. She ran through the door straight to the closet. But in stead of playing with the clothes in the closet, she headed straight for the 2-inch/5cm crack between the closet and the wall. It's full of spider webs and dust. I never clean it because I'm arachnophobic and I won't even go near those spider webs. Siiri's not arachnophobic. She squeezed her hand into the dusty dirty crack, ("Siiri, no don't!") pulled it out and then rubbed her hands together to clean away all that dust. It wasn't very effective so she came to me and signaled me to get closer so she could reach my hair so she could rub her hands clean of all that dust and spiderwebs. 
I should have known. Just a few weeks ago Siiri was eating (more like warming it up) some cheese and just wasn't happy with how greasy her hands felt. I gave her a paper towel. She rubbed her hands in it, put it aside and carefully looked at her hands. Then suddenly she demanded that I sit next to her RIGHT NOW. It seemed an odd request but I couldn't really ask her for any explanation so I sat with great curiosity. Siiri stepped up to me and patted me firmly from the top of the head to my shoulders, "Paaaaat!" (Estonian "Paaaaaai!", or "Aiiii" as she says it). Then she took another look at her hands, smiled, and hurried back to her toys.
Something I wanted to show you... Some of you will think, What the heck? and some of you will nod with understanding. Here's my Oblivion character:
Have a happy New Year's celebration and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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