On two occasions recently while Mr. Waffle and I have been putting the boys to bed, the Princess has tidied up.  Not just her mess but the mess in general. Without being asked at all. And she knows exactly where everything goes. Imagine coming back from bathing and saying good night to the boys and finding that instead of having to get down on hands and knees and put everything away, it’s all been done.  How fabulous and how kind. “Thank you, thank you†we said.  “Yes, amn’t I good†she said bursting with pride “and I’m so good, you don’t even have to say thank you to me!â€
Archives for June 2007
Love is, perhaps, a little short sighted
Her: You look beautiful, Mummy.
Me: Thank you sweetheart.
Her (anxiously): Are you going out to a work dinner?
Me (looking at my grubby work clothes which I, stupidly, wore to feed the children and put them to bed): No, sweetheart, look at me, I’m filthy.
Her: I still think you’re beautiful, especially when you smile.
Me: What a nice thing to say.
Her: I have to set Daddy a good example.
It reminds me of when I was a little girl and I thought my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. I remember particularly once when my mother was going to a garden party; it was the early 1970s and she was wearing a maxi dress with lots of different colours, though I think large pink flowers predominated and a big floppy white hat on her long blonde hair. I can remember not wanting her to go so that I could keep looking at her all afternoon.
Mother knows best
5.00 am Princess wakes howling in agony saying her tummy is very sore.
5.10 am I ring my parents for advice (why should I suffer alone?) and push on a screaming Princess’s abdomen in line with instruction from Cork. “Does it hurt particularly when you press for a while and let go suddenly?” Well, it’s a bit hard to tell when she is screaming all the time.
5.15 am My instinct tells me that something is wrong and my parents say, if I’m concerned go to a doctor. I pack her into the car, leaving loving husband to mind the boys and zoom off to accident and emergency in the local hospital. Princess sobs pitifully in the back of the car.
5.20am Arrive at hospital. Carry Princess around the building looking for night entrance. Explain to her that they are very unlikely to cut her open (though in the back of my mind I am worried she has appendicitis) and she miraculously calms down and perks up.
5.25am Hand over her medical details to friendly man on the desk.
5.26am Princess lies down on examining chair in a nice kiddie friendly room and chats animatedly to the charming nurse. Otherwise A&E is deserted. I marvel at its cleanliness and the efficiency of the Belgian health system. The nurse takes the Princess’s temperature. 37.8.
5.34am A weary doctor, clearly roused from her slumbers, comes and does a thorough examination on the Princess and pronounces her perfectly healthy. The Princess continues to chat happily, I die of mortification.
5.50am Back home, rang father to give him an update – look, he suffers from insomnia, it’s good for him to have something to listen to other than radio 4.
6.00am Back to sleep to prepare for the rigours of a day which includes a visit to the farm and the aquarium. Motherly instinct, eh?
Unlikely
Headline from Saturday’s Irish Times: “German and Polish relations hit new low over treaty”. Really? A passing acquaintance with 20th century history would suggest that this is improbable.
Trendy
Why you should not let your four year old pick out her own clothes.
Feral cows or he who laughs last laughs longest
My mother is afraid of cows. This is more of a problem than you might think since her father was a dairy farmer. When she was in primary school, she used to sit on the gate post until some kind passing soul would take her down and walk up the drive with her keeping her safe from marauding cows. I sometimes think that this might be part of the reason why she so enjoyed boarding school when she went. She was safe from the cows. She always said that she worked harder than us in school because she had more of an incentive “I knew, if I didn’t mind my lesson, I wouldn’t go to college and I would have to marry a farmerâ€. Her objection, you understand, was not to farmers per se but the farms that came with them. When we were small, I can remember going on a picnic and cows turning up in the field. My mother fled leaving her defenceless family to the mercy of the bovine invaders. I remember my father treacherously carrying me up to pat a cow on the nose saying “nice moo-cowâ€.
All this is by way of background. In the Irish Times a while ago, there was an article on feral cows. Apparently some unfortunate woman was set upon by her herd and killed. The article pointed out that bulls get a bad press but cows can be every bit as dangerous (cetainly trying to recast the villains there – a bit like John Waters and domestic violence). I spoke about it to my mother.
Her: I’m not a bit surprised that woman was attacked. She went out at twilight with a dog.
Me: At twilight?
Her: Cows are at their most dangerous at twilight.
Me (suppressing a snigger): Mooing at the moon and all that.
Her: Well, with all this factory farming, they’re not used to people any more. Mind you, they were always dangerous.
Me: Er, were they?
Her: I remember my mother going across the fields to visit Houlihans and encountering a herd of cows on the way back who chased her up the tree.
Me: No, really, what happened?
Her: She stayed there until your grandfather thought she’d been gone a long time and went out to look for her and drove off the cows.
Ramblers beware, you heard it here first.
