Turning Wheels: Mon père est de soixante aujourd'hui!

Yay! Dada is 70 today and I baked him a double-choc cake! ;) #pridingmuch! Btw, he’s got a sweet tooth so 70 or not, he’ll enjoy and relish every bite of it!

;D with MRS!!!!

Hmmmnnn, I remember his 50^th – we had a big bash and funny enough, I remember every bit of it like it was last year n not 20 years ago. I remember what he wore (he and mum did anko n changed about twice, normal owanbe parry stuffs), I remember the cakes and how me and deejay stole into the ‘spare room’ where they were kept the night before n pinched d icing n then worried in bed all night that mum would notice and give us a good spanking! :D I remember we both wore matching dresses (hers was green n mine pink) to the church service n Baby Winchi wore the pink fluffy dress. Dunno why buh I remember so much about it vividly, I can almost hear the music blarring (mostly Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade and Orlando Owo, Dad’s favs back then). I wonder if any 8 year old should pick up so much detail and hold on to them, probably just another perk of being weird me, whatever, back to the baidei bloke!

...I wonder where BWinchi was. That's me clutching her beret n deejay was giving the camera her signature smile!

Baby Winchi finally showed up! ;p

You know, this year’s birthday was special in a funny way. When Philla and Deejay sent their cards today, we found out that they had both bought the very same card! Then Wendi’s card arrived all the way from Manchester and it was the very same card too!!! Then dad opened the card from Naomi and the one from Ara and Tomi and guess what?! All grand children had sent the same giant Happy Birthday to a special GrandPa card with the bespectacled monkey on its front! Cool huh?! Dad was so tripped about it! He said that was the best part of the whole day!!!

One of my earliest memories of dad was about age 3 or 4, my fat stubby arms wrapped around his neck, thinking smugly to myself that I could protect him from anything! ;) yeah, super Tipsy! Right on the heels of that is the memory of him force-feeding me panadol dispersed in water when I was ill! (errr, I wonder why they didn’t invent the syrup earlier, they bursted my super Tipsy bubble!) L then I remember the trips to MtSinai Hospital n how dad was the only one who could hold us still for the injections (notto worry, super Tipsy will still protect her dada despite all that!).

I remember being about 6 or 7, and dad sitting me in the passenger seat of his car (the Peugeot 507, reg no. LA 570 LND, I remember cos that car stuck around until I was 16 or 17!) and explaining to me how the engine managed to turn the wheels while I starred in wonder at my whine-up toy car. I was so, so awed by him n tot he was the smartest person in the whole world! I remember how we used to sing whenever he got home from work "Daddy Oyoyo! Daddy Oyoyo!” (yeah, everyone of us did that – Wendi, Philla, Deejay, Tipsy n BWinchi!) :p. When we were little, he gave us these silly nick-names – Keredu, Katabu, can’t remember the rest! L I remember that daddy never spanked us. His signature look always did the trick! And the worst punishment?! “Go and face the wall!!!” choi, I remember the time me and deejay were squabbling as usual and he banished us to the much hated spot by the doorway. Even while there, we still continued to poke and pinch each other. Then we got tired of being there and it seemed like we stayed there for like forever! Before we knew it, everyone went to bed and daddy put out the lights in the sitting room! Unknown to us, he’d forgotten we were there and had gone off to sleep! You can bet we didn’t dare move from the spot! We forgot all about our squabble and clung to each other in the dark, crying cos we were both afraid of the dark. Wendi n Philla snuck out of the room and tried to console us from the hallway cos they didn’t dare come right out and stay with us! Finally, daddy heard all the sniffling and whispering and came out to see what was going on and he was like, why didn’t we just go on in! imagine, after hours of terror! Thinking about it still leaves me in fits of laughter! One day, me n deejay (again!) squabbled about whose turn it was to ride our little paddle car n both of us ended up squeezing into the tiny seat n got suck! We both sat there, crying our eyes out until he found us!

Dada, Philla, Deejay, Wendi n Momma - Baidei galore!!!

I remember his flower pots and birds, I can’t ever forget about the birds! We each had our own canaries n he eve taught us how to whistle to them ( I always believed the canaries understood me and that, err, I well, understood them too!!!). I always heave a sigh of contentment thinking of those lay Saturday afternoons…oh, I remember the pigeons too n how I learnt their morning song n how all my friends in primary 5 thought I was weird cos I could ‘sing’ birdsong! (if they’d only known about me n weird back then!). then there was Napoleon, mean Napoleon the pig whom dada loved so much and how hard it had been for him when Napoleon died on the 31^st of December (btw, I enjoyed eating Napoleon!!!).

with Tomi, Ara n Nai. See aw they were all sitting like gentle shildrens!!! Only Dad can have that effect on them!

I remember daddy’s fav glass cup with the star on it n the transparent glass bowl that was specially for his eba! Back then, that bowl had seemed MASSIVE to me and had diminished in size over the years. I wonder what happened to them (I probably broke them! Have I mentioned that I was a clumsy kid apart from being weird?! ;D)

I remember bashing his car one time like that when he was away (thankfully, not the legendary 570!) and I wondered how I was going to tell him. The day I finally gathered the courage to tell him, the first words he said to me when he called were “Hope you’ve not bashed my car yet oh!” Even though he’d been joking, I lost my nerve and didn’t tell him until he got back home! ;) I remember telling him matter-of-factly (age 4 or so) that I was going to be an artist when I grew up! I wonder what he must have been thinking at that moment!

The memories are endless and they feel like several life-times, not just 70 years (well, the twenty-something years for which I’ve had conscious thought). It would probably take the rest of my life to finish up this blog entry (I’ll probably keep editing and adding new bits until I probably hit a word limit and then there’ll be part two…;D). there have been the times he's made me laugh, the times he's made me cry, the times he's amazed me, left me dazed with a surprise, the times he's driven me crazy (you know, sometimes, he can be so maddening and I'm like MR!!! sometimes, he's like a naughty child n I just want to give him a good shaking and tear out my hair! Now I know where the grand kids get their ways from! :p I’ve probably done my fair share of driving him crazy and sometimes, I wonder if, just if, he sees right through me and knows just how mahdt I am! ;D), how he can be so, so stubborn at times (I sooooo didn't get that from him!), the times he's burst my bubbles, the times he's fuelled my dreams on, dared me to believe in myself, dared me to challenge myself and most importantly, the times he’s believed in me....through it all, the good and the bad, I love him to bits and I would like to raise my glass to a legend, my Hero.... He taught me one of the most important lessons I've learnt in life, and that is to always hold on to what is true and honest and right no matter what. Paraphrased in Yours-Truly-Tipsy's words: If you can't beat 'em, kick their butts rather than join 'em, be unique in being different. Even if the whole world loses its integrity, I know just where to find the last man standing.