Children grow very fast. I mean, just the other day, we were struggling with holding and bathing Calla, because she was too small, too fragile… She looked like she would break.

But now, she is a grown girl who can’t keep calm. She is literally always on the move, running to the kitchen, bedrooms, through the living room to the balconies. If she finds the gate open, she runs out, too. And so, we have to keep an eye on her all the time.

And she learnt how to hide and commit her sins. The more we ban her from doing things, the more she hides to do them. Like eating her toothpaste – if she lands it, she literally distracts you and runs to hide and suck it away. He favourite hiding place is behind the curtains – and it took us a while to discover it.

When you catch her, she throws the evidence away and either laughs like a maniac (and she’s loud) or hugs your feet.

Makes you forget your anger.

Speaking of anger. There’s no much anger in this Meru house any more. She is such a light. Much because sometimes, she is maddening. She does things that make you feel like kicking her. Like standing on her little plastic seat which she drags around all the time and trying to light the cooker, or to climb on the kitchen counter to throw away utensils… or like yesterday, I caught her dancing on top of my laptop.

Maddening. But then she calls you Papi, Baba, Mami, Bami, Maaam, Baaa (she calls you whatever comes to her lips) and you forget you were mad in the first place.

Yes, she talks now. A lot. She’s always talking and telling us stories. She takes all the phone calls and won’t let you speak, she imitates people on TV, she chats, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions… Only that we don’t understand 99% of what she says.

Tutu

We know tutu, though, which is poo poo in her language. I guess she loves the toilet, like her dad, because she kills boredom by making us run helter skelter looking for her potty when she says these magic words, tutu. Try to fart around her, and she will point at your your ass, shouting tutu and laughing like those village women.

The only time she stops talking is when she is watching her cartoons. She literally zones out, doesn’t acknowledge our presence and we can leave her for hours, only getting up to dance with the cartoons, and get drinking water. That’s why I know Baby Shark, Humpty Dumpty, The Little Monkeys and other baby songs this much now.

She makes me look forward to going home, Calla. Because she also looks forward to seeing me at home, too. She gets off her seat when she hears the car wheels on the gravel outside, is normally out on the balcony confirming it’s me by the time I’m locking up, and is standing at the door with the keys by the time I’m at the door.

Oh, you should experience the shrieks and the hugs and the kisses I get to understand real love.

In the mornings, I have to tiptoe (sometimes humming that song wanaanza ku-tipi-toe 🙂 ) to get out of the house. Because if she hears me, it will be 30 minutes before I can distract her enough to leave. And she’s a hard one to distract. Still, she realises I’m gone and screams like she’s on fire. That scream is so heartbreaking I have caught myself going back to blow another 30 minutes to be given permission by her majesty.

She’s also a prayer warrior. Tell her it’s time to pray and she’ll stop whatever she’s doing, close her eyes, grasp her hands and start mumbling. We don’t know what she says, but I know God knows, he hears and does it for her. Yes, we are trying to raise her in the ways of the Lord … so that when she grows, she doesn’t depart from them (Pro 22:6). That’s what the Bible says.

Speaking of ways of the Lord, Calla is a star of the church…and pretty much any public place we go. She dances (and she’s a complete dancer), shouts, sings, plays with other kids, runs around. And steals the show with her beauty.

My little puppy is all grown, and I love her to bits.