Michael is interested in hot water bottles. For a long time, he would insist on a bottle filled with cold water to take to bed with him. He would cradle it in his arms and murmur affectionately to it, “Coldy, coldy.” Recently, my mother gave him a hot water bottle with a cover and he has started to take this to bed with him filled with hot water. For reasons best known to himself, he puts it under his head rather than under his feet.
Michael
Tempting
Michael does not like much. The long list of foods he will not touch includes sweets. For special occasions he likes crisps (or cwisps as he refers to them).
This morning I got this email from my husband.
From: Husband
Sent: 24 November 2010 12:37
To: Wife
Subject: Sounds like one for Michael
From the journal:
TAYTO PARK: The world’s first theme park dedicated to the humble crisp, Tayto Park, opens today. Launched on 55 acres of Meath farmland by crisp king Ray Coyle, the park will create 85 jobs and offer children the chance to visit Santa, experience a Native American village or, er, eat Irish crisps.
I thought you would like to know.
Ireland’s National Sport
I think I have written before about how surprised I was to come back from 5 years abroad and discover that rugby had become Ireland’s national sport. It suffered from a number of difficulties in the past, namely, the GAA used to frown on “foreign games” and it’s dangerous – particularly for amateurs. On the plus side, it seems to be the only team sport where we do well in international competition. Now the GAA doesn’t care and my sons are coached by Daddies in rugby shirts. It’s still dangerous though.
Regular readers will recall that my children go to an Irish language school. For historical reasons, one might not expect that to be a bastion of rugby. Further, the Princess’s teacher is from Mayo. Insofar as there is national expertise in rugby, its seat is emphatically not in the West of Ireland. This has not deterred this teacher who is an avid rugby fan. During gym, my daughter’s class have been practicising the haka. She has taught her brothers. They look deeply alarming when they do this. We all sat and watched the New Zealand players doing their haka this evening before Ireland proceeded to lose to New Zealand. As I have previously mentioned, the Princess knows all the words to Ireland’s call and sang along with gusto. Where will it all end?
Brave New World
The boys’ teacher tells me they were doing animals at school. “We had F [whose father is German] tell us the names in German; then R [recently returned from Italy with parents who speak Irish to him at home – Irish and Italian good, English possibly shaky] told us the words in Italian and I said twinnies [mental note that despite her protestations she does not always recognise the boys’ individuality, also, is twinnies an Irish word?] what are these animals in French?”
Apparently Daniel was quicker off the mark than Michael which may explain why Michael, who usually is the most anti -French, reproached me for not teaching them more French.
It’s all very different from when I was in school and the most exotic girl in the class was half-Dublin.
Another Belated Birthday
A description of Michael at 5 and a little bit.
He is very relaxed about school work. He is brilliant at cards and inclined to let his siblings win, if they seem cranky. He has an excellent memory and will, disconcertingly, bring up things you have said many months ago and demand that they be delivered now. He has a will of iron and he never lets anything go. He has, alas, started to bite his nails.
If you empty a box of lego on the table and ask Michael to find the one millimetre piece you need which is the only one in the box, he will find it in seconds.
His father sometimes calls him “bat boy” as when he gets upset or indignant his voice rises several octaves and his words are on a frequency too high for human ears. He is the smallest of the children and it sometimes feels that he acts as a punch bag for his heftier siblings, so he has much to complain about. But he doesn’t stint. He almost never resorts to physical violence but whether that is due to virtue or naked self-interest is unclear.
The other night he asked me who he could marry and whether it would be a boy or a girl. He then decided that he would marry a boy in his class and instantly began to worry that this 6 year old might choose someone else. A modern twist on a classic dilemma.
Michael demands instant resolution of all of his problems. This can be tiresome as when he grabs your chin, twists your face around and says sternly, “Listen to me.” When he puts something down, he frowns ferociously at the people in the room and says, “Nobody touch this.” Fortunately this hectoring is offset by considerable charm. He loves to chat to new people and will always be the first to volunteer when volunteers are sought from a room full of people – even if everyone else is an adult. Shyness seems unknown to him. However, for all his love of new people, he is not at all keen on new places and, when away, he pines for home. He is ferociously attached to things and watches me like a hawk to make sure I throw nothing out. The other day he said to me, “STOP, don’t throw that out!” “Michael, it’s the paper bag that your lunchtime sandwich was in.” He replied coldly, “Get it out of the bin, I could use it.”
Michael eats nothing other than fish fingers; yorkshire pudding; pasta with spinach and ricotta inside; breakfast cereal; bread and jam; porridge, Knorr chicken noodle soup and crisps. He does not like sweets or chocolate. Which is odd, surely.
And we love him.
Correspondence
When I got home from work this evening, there was an envelope by my bed with the words “To Mummy” on it in the Princess’s handwriting. I gazed at it fondly and then I opened it, this is what it said:
“Micel is a cruel stuck-up idiotic prig and a loser but he’s ashamed to admit it. If you are going to deal with him anser here.”
Underneath there is a line for my comments. Poor Micel, he crosses his sister at his peril.
