Look, Daniel has shark teeth.
Cool!
Archives for May 2012
We Laughed, We Cried
We had the school Feis last Saturday. The Princess won second place with her rendition of “An TÃogar” by Máire Nà Ghallchobhair. She was very pleased.
And she got cake.
Neither of her brothers won anything (“An Seilide” by Gabriel Rosenstock for Michael and “An bhfaca tú mo ShéamaisÃn?” Traditional for Daniel). They both cried. Not in the course of their performance but on hearing the results of the independent jury. Alas.
Zoo Again
We went to the zoo again because now that we have an annual membership, I am determined to drag them there whenever possible.
As ever, we spent ages in tiny and, as far as I can see, not particularly attractive playground:
We lingered to look at not very exotic pigs:
But I didn’t care because I hadn’t paid €50 for us to get in. So then we saw the tigers close up and the sea lions did amusing things. This only happened because I didn’t care.
Reasons to Visit the Midlands
Out of the blue last week, Michael expressed a desire to go orienteering. Ever obedient to our children’s whims, last Sunday we took them to Mullaghmeen Forest with their cousins (expert orienteers, their parents have been known to run around courses).
It was freezing (6 degrees at the end of April, what is happening to the weather? I digress) but once in the forest out of the wind, it was fine. Mr. Waffle had been very excited on the way down as it is one of the very few forests in Ireland which does not consist almost entirely of fir trees. I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm myself until I saw it. And he was quite right, it is lovely.
And then we went to visit a friend of mine from college who lives in the Midlands. She has her own business, her husband commutes from his job in the UK and she has three children, 8, 6 and 3. I always feel that staying sane in these circumstances is a very significant achievement. Anyway she tells me that she has decided to up the ante and that she is expecting another baby. She seems calm and cheerful in a manner that may indicate that she has finally tipped over into insanity. One can but gasp in awe.
Trauma
On Wednesday evening, 9 May herself fainted, briefly and for the first time ever. I rang my father for advice. “Get a doctor round,” he said. The out of hours doctor service said, “Take her straight to A&E, I’ll call the ambulance, if you like.” So, the Princess – slightly miserable and headachey but otherwise ok – and I drove to A&E in the children’s hospital. In driving rain, of course.
By the time we got there, the Calpol had kicked in and she was fine. The triage nurse put us in category 4 – meaning she was ok really but the nurse insisted that she should see a doctor. Category 4 means – I can tell you now – that all smaller and/or sicker children would have to be seen before her. Between 7.30 in the evening and 3.30 in the morning, we saw every child with a broken limb in North County Dublin and a lot of sick babies.
We had left home before dinner but in the solidarity of the waiting corridor, a nice woman shared bananas with us. My phone ran out of juice about 11.30. Herself pleaded with me to pay €2 to recharge it for 40 minutes. “What,” said I, “would be the point, we’ll be out of here in half an hour.” Oh how we laughed. We had brought one book each and in desperation we swapped about 1 in the morning which was unsatisfactory for both of us. I went through the various leaflets – how to be safe in the water, permission for surgery, breastfeeding – and corrected the spelling and grammar errors. Look, each to his own.
When we eventually saw the doctor, she was very thorough but found nothing. But she was less than entirely comforting – if it happens again, we’re to bring herself in for an EEG. You need to pass out more than once before they’ll do that apparently. The doctor had been on since 9 the previous morning and a part of me sympathised and was v. impressed by her thoroughness but another less worthy part of me thought, mmmm, yes but you will be off tomorrow and I will be going to work and it is now 4 in the morning. Yes, it’s all about me. Your point? A bill for €100 is winging its way towards us in respect of the 30 minute examination and 8 hour wait.
Anyhow, herself has been absolutely fine since, so I trust that all will be well but you find us all still somewhat unnerved. Our families have been suitably supportive and caring. Anyone else I have told has been enormously comforting – it used to happen to me, I know a girl who always fainted etc. etc. There has been one notable exception, namely her teacher. He is a native Irish speaker from the Kerry Gaeltacht and, he glows with the irrepressible pessimism that is sometimes associated with the region. When we told him the story, he instantly said, “Ah, I noticed she wasn’t well in herself recently.” “In what way?” we asked nervously, “Was she tired, distracted, not concentrating?” “No,” he said, “I just felt she wasn’t learning.” Oh Lord above. We have decided to discount this evidence on the grounds that she seemed quite alright to us recently.
Queen of Post-its
Example 1:
We had a bad day with herself recently. She was cranky, we were cranky. When he put her to bed, Mr. Waffle said, “Tomorrow will be a better day.” She glowered at him. “I don’t think so,” she growled and pointed at a post-it on the wall. He peered. It said “SULK”. A note to herself for the morning, lest she forget.
Example 2:
We are still making our way through the Easter egg chocolate. The Princess suspects me of eating it. I did once but only the once because it’s quite vile. She was unconvinced. “Right,” she said, “I am going to take precautions.” Mr. Waffle found her in the kitchen weighing the chocolate. She then wrote the weight on a post-it and stuck it to the remaining chocolate in what can only be called a marked manner.
