Zoe's second birthday is this coming weekend, and her grandmother sent her various gifts, including a small circus tent, which Roshani couldn't resist setting up immediately. It's really too big for their living room, but it's so delightful -- striped red and yellow, and big enough for three adults to sit comfortably inside. Light comes down through the mesh parts of the circus roof, and various stuffed animals make for a comfortable bolster to lean against. Zoe kept dragging me into it with her (and then insisting on closing all the door and window flaps), even though I protested that I needed to read. When I first tried to actually read inside the tent, she firmly pulled the book out of my hands -- "MY book!" and paged through it long enough to figure out there were very few pictures in it.
She eventually gave it back and pulled out her own musical book of nursery rhymes; we spent the next hour or so contentedly reading together. At one point, I heard Roshani talking to Wanda (Zoe's nanny) in the other room -- "Well, she was supposed to come over to keep *me* company while I study..." I cheerfully kept reading about the five Pandava brothers, their beautiful wife Draupadi (who got to marry all five of them, lucky girl), and their hundred cousins. With a warm snuggly two-year-old leaning against my stomach, that tent was a remarkably pleasant place.
Casings done, btw. They're pressing now -- can't do anything more on them until tomorrow. Clean up a little, I think, and then maybe try revising? If not, read.