Michael: Dan, ma man, what’s up?
Daniel: Nuttin’ just chillin’.
The Americans have a lot to answer for.
Daniel
Go on Emily-Jane!
I was at a GAA blitz* all Saturday morning with Daniel. Most of the teams consisted of little boys only but one team was mixed and there was a really great girl on the team. The coach kept shouting out her name “Go on Emily-Jane, up the wing” and so on. Emily-Jane is not a name to conjure with in GAA circles I would have thought, but I was wrong.
*If these words mean nothing to you, lucky you.
Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway
Mr Waffle took the children zipwiring in the Dublin mountains. Where will this madness end?
And Another One Down
This year’s childminder has left us. She has gone back to Spain. We are all a bit sad, as she was really lovely – warm and friendly. She was also very, very beautiful – about six feet tall with long, thick, dark hair to her waist and perfect features. I was describing her to a colleague and he asked whether I make it my practice to bring good looking young women into my house. Apparently, I do.
But in related good news, our previous childminder who the children also loved has come back to us for the month of June as he is between jobs having left the crèche where he was employed because he was concerned about standards (he is very French, which is not to say that he is wrong). Anyhow, if he doesn’t find another job over the summer (when we can’t take him on as I am off work on unpaid leave and there are limits to our funds), he has promised to come back to us in September which would be wonderful.
Are you fascinated by my childminder problems?
Agony of the Faithful
At mass recently we had to do, the introduction (me), the second reading (herself), the prayers of the faithful (all of them and some other children rounded up on the morning).
The reason for this was that a number of our choir members sing in a national youth choir and they were singing at mass so regular readers were thin on the ground (either singing or preparing tea for the singers). The regular reading organiser asked me to round up children to say the prayers of the faithful. A number of novice readers I approached in the church shrank back in horror and I was left to fall back on my own brood. Daniel and Herself are regulars but Michael has only done it once before. I had him practice two prayers. Just before mass, one of the regular young readers turned up and I nabbed her and said to Michael, “OK you only need to do one now.”
I did my introductory bit and I thought that considering how bad previous attempts of mine have been, it wasn’t too awful but my family said I looked pale and shook like a blancmange. Can this be true? Hey, don’t mock until you’ve had a chance to bore a church full of people yourself. The Princess missed her cue for the second reading as she was distracted by the really beautiful responsorial psalm sung by the choir and had to zoom up to the altar with the speed of a coursing hare. She was fine once she got there – she has nerves of steel.
And then I found myself worrying – when are the prayers of the faithful? When do my little readers need to be shepherded to the altar? The Princess and I exchanged agonised glances. The priest paused. “Is it now?” I hissed at Mr. Waffle. “I don’t think so,” he said. Oh the agony. There was a really meaningful pause after the creed and the Princess gathered the children together and brought them up to do the prayers of the faithful. Michael was up first. Although he has read less often than the others, he is a clear and confident reader from the altar so, once he was there, I entertained relatively few fears. He began. It was the wrong prayer – he had got confused in the messing about before mass. He realised this. Instead of ploughing on, he put his hand to his forehead and said, “Oh no, oh no, it’s not this one.” Alas. Poor Michael, he was very cast down, though nobody minded at all, on the contrary, I imagine that they welcomed the variety from the standard prayer for vocations (singularly ineffective).
In other religious news, this Sunday, I will be operating a slushy machine for the Church Garden Party. The early Christian martyrs have nothing on me.
A Weekend of Two Halves
A couple of weeks ago, I took the children to see Derek Landy, author of the popular Skulduggery Pleasant books. Herself read them for the first time a while ago but they have merited re-reading and the boys have been haring through them over the past couple of months.
I was a bit worried that the boys might not enjoy the session [being less patient than their sister] but I needn’t have worried, Derek Landy was fantastic. He spoke for about an hour and had them all in stitches and then stayed patiently signing books and chatting, with every appearance of enthusiasm, to every child in the room.
Buoyed up by this undoubted success, we went to the National Museum on Sunday for a session on Vikings billed as being for “the young and the young at heart”. I now know that this means for ages 3-6. The children were in the centre of the room on the mat and there was no escape. This nice man from New Zealand sang a number of songs of his own devising about the Vikings which the younger children loved. Michael just sat with his head in his hands throughout. Herself and Daniel gamely tried to answer the questions that the songster threw out to the audience about the Vikings. Since they were aimed at 3-6 year olds, my pair obviously knew the answers and their hands went straight up in the air every time. Mr. NZ sang loudly and with enthusiasm. I had a migraine and the headache tablets I had taken before leaving the house were only somewhat effective in countering his efforts.
The only amusing moment was when Mr. NZ said, “Brian Boru beat the Vikings at the Battle of Clontarf, where’s Clontarf?” [Expected answer – Dublin] A three year old with curls stuck up his hand. “It’s on the Northside.”
It’ll be a while before we’re back to the National Museum, I’d say.
