Michael: I’m going to kill my sister because she’s a big meanie.
Daniel: Yeah! Me too!
Me: Hang on a minute, sometimes she’s very kind to you; she reads you stories and she makes up games for you to play.
Daniel (reflectively): And sometimes she lets us in her room.
Michael: If we killed her, we could go in her room all the time.
Daniel
Weekend Round-up or the Concerns of the Middle Aged
I spent a very happy afternoon on Saturday in the back garden digging up things and poking at things I had planted. I was slightly appalled by this but as a friend of my mother’s whom I met for lunch today said “you have to grow up some time.”
On Saturday night I attended a joint 40th birthday party and dissipated all of my zen happiness by encouraging a friend to tell me all about her beautifully renovated large house. Envy is such a corrosive emotion. Was slightly soothed by getting a lift home from another friend in his porsche which he (hilariously) enjoys driving around underground car parks at speed. I think that Mr. Waffle who was sitting in the front, enjoyed it a lot less. On a negative note, while the 911 is built for speed, it is not built for back seat passengers and getting in and out was not a dignified exercise.
I then brought our lovely, but slightly neurotic and highly strung, French babysitter home and said that she looked tired. She is very confiding and told me a long and complex tale about her boyfriend’s perfidy, intertwined with her difficulties in getting a summer placement for her course. I sympathised as effectively as I could. I was somewhat hampered by the fact that all of this was confided to me in French and I wasn’t entirely clear what the perfidy was.
On Sunday at mass, the children got given plastic rosary beads and miraculous medals. Daniel insisted on wearing his blue beads around his neck all day and, combined with his peaked cap and baggy tracksuit, he looked like a little wannabe rapper. The Princess ate her miraculous medal.
In the afternoon we went to Dollymount beach which could be pretty but suffers from the following, not insignificant, drawbacks:
a) it is smelly;
b) it is rough;
c) there are horse races with little buggy things;
d) large ships pass nearby;
e) it was low tide (not a permanent drawback, I concede);
f) a large husky kept escaping from his very tattooed masters and barking at the small children;
g) the car park is on the beach – yes on the sand – I am not making this up;
h) motor bikes drive up and down the beach.
Despite the above, the beach has beautiful golden sand which kept the children amused for several hours when they were not cowering behind rocks in fear due to c), e) and h) above. It also has beautiful views of the Dublin mountains which are lovely so long as you keep your line of sight above the industrial buildings that litter the coastline.
The Angst of the Wishy-Washy Liberal Parent
Part I
Daniel: Look Mummy, a Jew, a Jew!
Me: WHAT??
Daniel: A JEW, Mummy.
Me: Sorry??
Daniel: Over there, behind that girl, it’s a Jew.
Me: I beg your pardon?
Daniel (pointing): Look, you can see it now! On that man’s arm.
Me: Oh, do you mean a tattoo?
Part II
Recounting this incident to my husband over lunch, herself asked why it would be wrong to say “a Jew”.
Me: Well, sweetheart, there was a time when people were really mean to Jews and so it’s important to be sensitive to people’s feelings..(feeling a bit overpowered by the prospect of having to explain anti-semitism, I turn to Mr. Waffle) Help me out here.
Mr. Waffle: You see a person is more than just one characteristic, you can’t just identify someone as one thing – how would it be, if you were only described as blue eyes.
Princess (confused): People would be mean to me because I had blue eyes?
Me: Well, I suppose, they could be. They could decide that blue eyes are bad. Maybe, if blue eyes were very unusual. Sometimes people are scared of people who are different or do things differently. For example, a long time ago, English people were mean to Irish people and they put up signs saying Irish people couldn’t stay in their houses.
Princess: English people don’t like me because of my blue eyes?
Me: No, no, that’s not true any more – remember we had lots of English friends when we lived in Brussels.
Her: English people like blue eyes now?
Me: No, no, forget the blue eyes.
Her: But Daddy said…
Me: Never mind what Daddy said. Look, it’s rude to comment on people’s appearance.
Her: Do Jews look different?
Me: No, of course not.
Her: Well, then why…
Me: Look, just don’t categorise people by their appearance or their beliefs – everyone is different and should be judged on his or her own merits, now would you like more soup?
Mr. Waffle: That went well, didn’t it?
Too much Enid Blyton
I overheard the Princess saying to her brother – “Daniel, if you find the cat, I will give you a shilling.”
Recovering
I’ve been saving this up until I could get back online.
One Saturday afternoon, the Princess went out with a friend and his mother for a birthday treat, Mr. Waffle went to the supermarket, I cut the grass and the boys played upstairs with a little girl who lives on our road. Later that evening, after the children had eaten dinner I went upstairs to dress to go out. It was only then that I discovered that my sons and their little visitor had taken off the shelves, out of baskets, out of cupboards and out of wardrobes everything their little four year old mitts could reach. In all the bedrooms. The Princess’s room was knee deep in tat. I couldn’t even open her door. I roared at the two boys. They lay on the ground and bawled contrition. I continued to roar at them. I was so furious that I STILL don’t feel bad about that. At this point the babysitter arrived and asked, in awed tones, whether we had taken photos. As we had to leave, our priority was to clear a path to the beds so that the children could get into them at some point later in the evening. I was most displeased. I think that this may well be the boys’ earliest memory.
As though this were not bad enough, the following day we had the Princess’s birthday party. This normally hair raising event passed off relatively peacefully due to the following factors: the party was only two hours long; my sister came to help and made the birthday cake; we hired professional help; one of the invitees was 11 and more like an extra helper than a guest; the weather though not sunny was dry and the children were able to run in the garden; and, all the parents collected their offspring on time.
Much entertainment in the office with stories of colleagues stuck all over Europe under a cloud of volcanic ash; ferries fully booked; general hilarity on the part of those not stuck in Cherbourg where colleagues comprehensively fail to see the humour. All back to normal now. Until the next Icelandic volcano.
Bunk Beds
We got bunk beds for the boys. This followed a concerted campaign by Michael who insisted that they were essential for his happiness. To be fair, I also felt that it was time that my four year old sons got out of their cots. Michael steered the delivery men into his room. He was quite cross when they wouldn’t move the other furniture so that the bunk beds could be fitted into the selected alcove. I went upstairs having seen the men out, to find Michael lying weeping on his bed. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I asked. “What will happen to my bed? Please don’t give away my bed that I’ve had since I was a tiny baby.” Oh dear.
While they were far too big for their cots, they look very small in the bunk beds.
