Hmmmnnnn, it’s been a year of mixed Blessings, with its fair share of ups and downs. It’s been crazy and boring and fun and annoying and a whole lot of other thins! I’ve had people tell me I’m a cheeky monkey and were! A friend read one of my blogs once and concluded that I was a ‘very disturbed girl with a nicely put on façade’ (underneath all that grammar wey him talk na were!) and some other reader was like, “Girl, you’re mahdddd!!!!!” ;D and I've had someone else in tears....I’ve had times that I was really high on life and yeah, I’ve taken one-too-many trips into the dumps, buh all in all, I know that I’ve got more to be grateful for this year….
Kicking off the year was me sky-rocketing up the scale of getting the title ‘mother-o-plenni (a few people to jasi will understand just what I mean! *wink*wink*) and all those Youth Church children who used to scream ‘Vision 2010!', mo luv gbo-gbo yin ti e believe in me! Vision 2010 alone was enough to cancel all the minuses of the year!
Then, I finally got to meet my Babies! I remember the long weekend 15-month old Naomi spent with us. I loved every single moment of it, even though I hardly slept (thanks to her kung-fu sleeping, her odd feeding hours and the fact that she loves to sing and chatter in Baby gibberish in the middle of the night! (Yeah, future X-Factor star!!!) and I soooo remember getting to Westminster station an realising that I had to carry the buggy cos there were no lifts linking District with Piccadilly! That was how many levels down?! :( It was fun anyways having Nai and Peppa-pig around, and you know, she’s a model in the making oh! At that age, she already knows that when you bring your fone close to her face, she has to pose, imagine! The signature smile is cute though!
My dearest Tomi who thinks all my school books are story books…
My dearest Tomi who thinks all my school books are story books…
Tomi: Aunty Tope, what are you doing?
Aunty Tope: I’m studying.
Tomi: (thoughtful pause) why?!
Aunty Tope: because I have to write exams luv.
Tomi: (laughs) silly you!
Aunty Tope: (in my mind) If I woz you ehn?!
Tomi: I want you to read this one, it’s whoops! A Daisy Angel! (Iyen Computer Vision mi naa!!!) and this is fireman Sam and Bob the builder and Rorry the racing car…
Aunty Tope: bami gbe iwe mi jooo!!! Don’t worry, it’ll be your turn one day!
In Tomi’s beautiful world, anything printed just has to be a good story otherwise, what’s the point?! I wish!!! L
Every time you tell him it’s time for bed, he remembers he wants to make mummy a surprise! Or he claims the baby is snoring (all the way from the next room!) or declares that sleep is sooooo boring!!! And immediately he wakes up in the morning, “can I open my presents now?!” thank God Christmas has finally come and gone oh!
Wendi: Tomi, it’s time for your medicine.
Tomi: nooooo!!!
Wendi: but it’s not bitter now!
Tomi: It’s pink! Pink’s for girls!!! Silly mommie!
Wendi: ti nba gba eh?!
Tomi: no mommie, Jenny says no spanking! (Jenny is his teacher in nursery) naughty mommie!
Wendi: ati iwo ati Jenny, ti nba mu yin?!
And finally, sweet, little cuddly Ara with his one sided, dimpled smiles! That smile is sure to capture many hearts one day! *wink* Ara might just be 3 months old, buh he sure knows how to pass a message across when he wants something! ;D Whoever said all Babies do is sleep?! and when he does the poo, mehn!!!
I remember the weekend 4 of the girls were together in Erith and Dee Jay looked me up and down and declared I was skinny! Imagine! I reminded her matter of factly that I was fatter than she was and she got that incredulous look on her face! Imagine, she actually thought she was the fatter one! In her mind!!! Tayo, mischievous monkey, had a good laugh at our expense. L we then indignantly asked Philla who the fatter one was and she dismissively told us that it wasn’t a matter of who was fatter but who was skinnier! (why does this scenario feel familiar?!) hello! Does anyone have eyes?! I most def am the FATTER one! That night, Tayo cheekily announced that the ‘thinnest’ person got to sleep in the middle and that it most def wasn’t her (she’d been banished to the much hated middle spot as the ‘aburo’). I think I took the couch! L and just for the record, I’M NOT THE SKINNY ONE!
Then my interesting lecturers in school, there’s the three-coloured man with ginger hair whose eyebrows are white, and his beard brown! plus he's got mannerisms to go with the colour scheme! Then there’s Nicolas Cage’s look alike and the one with the sexy Spanish accent! problem is sexy and Artificial Intelligence don’t gel at all and I was always struggling to hear him during lectures! L
Sigh! There were so many moments this year….my fairy-tale birthday, the day my car almost packed up on the bridge, the day my fone beeped and I reluctantly tore my eyes away from the novel and the rush I felt when I saw it was a text from him…yay!!! and Seun went ‘yeah Baby!’ I miss those nights with her, first in VI and then Magodo and our regular greeting: ‘Any gist?’ *wink*wink* and that time I thought it was surely the end of me and I didn’t think I would get out of it, as in the end l’opin cinema…and then You were there, and I think You were there all along, patiently waiting for me…..and the million and one times that I’ve asked myself who sent me message come school oh! and the plenty-plenty mornings I just did not want to get out of bed! Twas probably cos I was just a lazy child who hates mornings (and who simply hates to go to bed as well! I still can’t seem to understand why we should go to bed at night when there’s so much to do and the night’s so quiet and peaceful, beautifully alluring…), or maybe twas cos it was always cold and miserable in the mornings (small wonder the British love to moan and gripe so much and are so good at it!) and I really do not function well in the mornings anyways! and then there were just those mornings I didn’t have the strength to face another day…and that morning I started awake just to find a wall gecko staring at me! The karate jump I did must have made Jackie Chan proud! I soooo don’t miss those creatures and I’ll endure any kinda cold weather just to be away from them! L
There was the tranquillity and serenity, the weightlessness, the floating happy moments, bouts of rib-aching laughter, the bonding, the cold snobbery, the cold aloneness, the slamming doors, the warmth on my skin, the sun kissing my face even on the coldest, grayest days, the void created by missing you and You, the holes, the deep dark holes, the overwhelming sadness, the loss, the despair, the fast, hot tears, the sparks, the bright lights and fireworks, the thin flat lines…all a beautiful mix of colour, of reds and blacks and pinks and greys and whites and blues and yellows and purples, the kaleidoscope that was my 2010….
There were the diaries, loads of them, those of the mad-mahd woman who’s madder than the mad hatteer, the memoirs of the faceless stranger, Iya-aburo with her million personality disorder, little miss Purdish, outrageous and scandalous Naya...all books I have read and written and starred in, minds I have explored, abhorred, loved, flirted with, lost me in… I really am not weird, I’m simply inspired!
