Me: Am I the best Mummy?
Michael: Yes you are!
Me: In the whole wide…?
Michael: Google?
Me: You are a digital native.
Herself: And what are you?
Me: I’m a digital traveller, no wait, a digital stranger, a digital visitor..oh I forget.
Her: A digital sieve?
Me: Michael, will you come upstairs and wash your teeth?
Michael (wrestling with his brother): NO!
Me: Michael, you know how annoying it is for me when you ignore me.
Him (indignantly): I didn’t ignore you, I answered the question.
The Olympic flame travelled through Dublin this morning. The school took the children out to see. As Michael said, “It was the first time I saw Jedward in real life.”
For their homework, Daniel and Michael were asked to list the names of books they had read on a sheet of paper. They had to fill in the date they had read the book and the author and review it by means of a sad face or smiley face.
Michael said, “It is only for books in Irish you have read at school”. He filled in the details of his Irish textbook, closed up his books and zoomed off about his business.
Daniel assured me that it was for all books you had read that day and was determined to fill in all 10 spaces. He wouldn’t cheat either. He gathered around him a selection of books (all of which he had read before), including even an Irish one, and dutifully re-read through them all before carefully noting down the details on his list. It took him forever.
I noted that all of his reviews were positive as was Michael’s. My children are uniformly positive when asked for their views by authorities outside the family. I tackled Michael later. “Why did you give Féasta a smiley face? You hate Féasta.” “Oh, I like the bit where they have the party,” he said.
Michael reads and re-reads a lot of Asterix and Tintin. This has had an impact on how he talks. Sometimes he says “By Jupiter!” and also “By Toutatis!” [which he pronounces “by tortious”], “Blistering barnacles!” and “Thundering Typhoons”. He also says, “Fiddlesticks!” when baulked. The other day he answered the door to the babysitter and I heard him say to her, “Do come in.” When you ask him to do something he says, “As you wish.” He says “That’s quite alright”, if you apologise for something. When you make an observation with which he agrees, he says, “Very true” or “I’ll say!” Hilariously, whenever he is cross with anyone he says, “You bingbong!”; he also has a slightly baroque line in insults – “you bald baboon”, “you half-headed monkey” and other made-up expressions of that nature. He refers to me as “My beloved Mummy.”
The other day, we deployed the paddling pool. As is often the case, the water from the garden hose led to a cooler experience than expected. I got a kettle full of water to put in the pool and Michael leapt up in delight and said, “Hot water, Allah be praised!”
Recently, he had to sit in my office for an hour which he did very quietly. Only looking up from his DS occasionally to say, “That’s a bad word, Mummy” as I muttered curses.
As Michael told us last night, today is a big day: the new edition of the Club Penguin magazine is out, it’s the day before school sports day; and it’s referendum day.
I brought the children with me to vote. The nice girl at the desk gave them jellies. “Who’s the youngest?” she asked. “Me!” said Michael. The girl gave him the ballot paper. “Only by 20 minutes” said Daniel. “You can put it in the box, then.” He promptly proceeded to do so and only quick reflexes on everyone’s part stopped a spoilt vote.
The secrecy of my ballot was compromised by Michael roaring at me in the booth: “Why did you put an x there and not a tick; you want to vote yes!”. This gave everyone in the room a laugh. The attendants looked pretty bored. I’d say turnout has been atrocious.
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