"You finished WHAT?"

The women in my life came back home last night! My daughter, my wife and my mom landed from their vacation last evening and it was so great to see them at the airport.

My daughter has gotten a new hair cut and she looks absolutely adorable! Not that she did not look adorable before, but she looks cuter still after the hair cut. And this is despite the fact that I would have preferred her to grow her hair for a while. So it was great to see her walk out of the airport looking that cute. And the hug that I got from her after more than two weeks said everything that she did not. She just clung on to me as I lifted her in my arms. Now she's grown to almost 4'6" tall, so she's not exactly a small kid. But lifting her up after all this while was something that I did not even have to make an effort for.

As I had thought, they were carrying enormous amount of luggage for three people. Luckily, the Laura has more than enough boot space to accommodate all that they had got and more. After they had put all the stuff in, I even had a fleeting thought that I needn't have taken my golf kit out as it would have still fit in!

My mom was seeing the new car for the first time and she completely loved it. For her, it is perfect as it is not very low to sit in and has a lot of space for her to relax her legs while still leaving enough room for people to sit on the back seats. All the way, she was commenting about how nice the drive was. And my daughter was pointing things out to her ("This is the sunroof, this is the music system, you can connect the iPod", etc.). All in all, it was an eventful drive home. The painful part was carrying the luggage from the basement parking to the house. Once we did get everything inside, then it was time for my daughter and wife to parade all the latest acquisitions that they have made during this vacation of theirs. Luckily for me, I had a few acquisitions to parade as well.

So all the stuff I bought for my kids in Vegas came out. So did the MacBook that I bought for myself. As did the iPhone. Since I have not blogged about this before, I need to tell you that I have successfully hacked the iPhone and am using it as my communications device as we speak. When I bought it in the US, the one that I got was one with the latest released firmware (version 1.1.1) which Apple had released recently to stop all the unlocking that was going on to avoid going on the AT&T network. After almost a week's worth of effort, I could not get it cracked. Until the day I landed back in India. That night, there was a new procedure available with which I could hack and get it to work. Since then, I have helped at least five of my pals to crack their respective iPhones. But more on how wonderful this device later.

My daughter was going on about a Famous Five book that she read. It just so happened that I remember which book she was talking about and knew the plot. So we have a very interesting discussion on the story and how it turned out. Then I realized that she had finished the 2nd Harry Potter book, started the 3rd, then moved to a Famous Five book, finished that and was already halfway through that. All this in a 10 day vacation!

I was so surprised at the rate at which she was reading that I could not believe it to be possible. But when I heard her describing the story and the characters in such detail that I knew she had not only read the book, but also visualized it vividly in her mind. That to me is a sign of really reading the book rather than understanding the words in the book. After finishing her first Famous Five book, she made sure that my Dad would pass all my old novels to her. And she has carried all of them back so that she can read them. And she is looking forward to the next book fair where she can buy more Enid Blyton books.

That makes me feel so proud of her. Once she starts reading, it's like an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. It will just push her to read more and more. And the more she reads, the million more perspectives and experiences that she will be exposed to. And that, I hope, will enrich her and make her an even better person than she already is. Being a big believer in reading and the benefits of imbibing information through books, this is exactly how I would have wanted my child to be. And she is everything that I would have ever wanted.

So my sweetheart is back. And I am waiting for my other daughter to arrive shortly after. No no, we are not expecting. I'm talking about my sister's daughter who is my second daughter. I love that little devil to bits. Everything that gets bought gets bought for both my daughters without exception. I cannot imagine buying something for one of them. It's impossible.

So the little one arrives on the 1st of this month and will be here for a couple of weeks. That should be a fun two weeks.