Me: What do you want for breakfast?
Daniel: I want some lego.
Me: You can’t eat lego.
Daniel: I want lego you can eat.
Me: There isn’t lego you can eat.
Daniel (fretfully): Yes, there is.
Me (fretfully back): No, there isn’t.
Daniel (weepily): I want lego.
Me (crankily putting it on the table): There, are you happy now?
Daniel (crying): No. I want white round lego with butter.
Me (mystified) to Princess: Have you any idea what he wants?
Her: Yes, he would like a bagel.
Archives for March 2009
Things that happen to you when you are over 40
I have spent the last number of evenings alphabetising our book collection. This is disturbingly entertaining. I may be going insane. In a dull meeting today, I found my mind wandering longingly to the four shelves that then remained to be tackled.
I have a burst blood vessel in my eyeball. It is not an attractive look.
Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam. Alarmingly, I remember when we won the Triple Crown in 1982. Last Sunday afternoon we saw the bus bearing the victorious players and pieces of plate go by while we were stopped at traffic lights. If the children become international rugby stars, we will remind them of this moment – my brother is working hard on their skills, only this evening he had them all practising doing a scrum together.
I am cycling to work and finding that the world of cycling in Dublin is very macho. It’s all men in lycra with high visibility vests and sporting helmets. I miss Brussels where there was a gender mix in the cycling population and all the competitive macho cycling took place deep in Flanders.
I discover that my writing style has started to resemble that of a a TV critic, desperately trying to knit together disparate elements under an unlikely unifying theme.
Empathy
Daniel has recently developed a slight rash on his arms coinciding with a spell of renewed cold weather and Michael’s continuing difficulty with his colouring assignments.
Me (rubbing on cream): Are you worried about something sweetheart?
Daniel: Yes.
Michael has gone up the stairs to the bedroom where he is swigging down his bottle (no comments please, no one is more aware than I am that the boys will be 4 and starting school in September) and getting into his pyjamas. I decide, in Michael’s absence, to see whether Michael’s misery is affecting Daniel.
Me: Are you worried about Michael?
Daniel: Yes.
My poor child, anguished about his brother and his brother’s misery.
Me: Why are you worried about Michael?
Daniel (loudly): I’m worried he will take my bottle.
From the birth announcements
XX-YY – K and D welcome their beautiful daughter SÃabhra-Róise Antònia Elizabeth …. Born safely and gently in water into the loving arms of her mother under the professional eye of homebirth midwife …and to the early morning delight of her brothers …
It’s the proselytising that gets me. The subtext of “not born in a hospital with an epidural, oh no, not for us, and certainly not by cesarean section..we found that with a TENS machine it was all wonderful etc. etc.” Oh the politics of giving birth. I also draw your attention to the innovative use of accents (two Irish, one Spanish) which ensures that this child’s name will never be spelt correctly except, fair dues to the Irish Times, on her birth announcement.
AA and BB – C and J are delighted to announce the birth of our beautiful baby girl, Lady Ruby Mae …. A … little sister for India and Domino.
Do you think Domino is a boy, a girl or something you might wear to a masked ball?
Yeah, I know, it’s easy to mock and if these children’s parents ever find this site, I am doomed. My own brother has described the Princess’s name as just the wrong side of pretentious.
