We have a new carpet on the stairs, it is cheap, as these things go, and it is beige. It has made me more happy than I believe a carpet should.
I wish, though, that we hadn’t got it laid the week we finally started toilet training Daniel.
Boys
Cupboard love
Michael:Â Are we going to grandma and grandad’s house?
Me: Not today, sweetheart.
Him: Hysterical sobs.
Me: Why do you want to see grandma and grandad so badly?
Him: Because their house is warm. I’m always freezing here.
As you can tell, the insulation crisis continues unchecked.
I was relating this hilarious tale to a colleague and she became very concerned on my behalf. I was bemused; when I was a child it was completely normal to be frozen all the time, I used to have to get dressed under the blankets in the mornings. This Celtic Tiger has a lot to answer for.
Meanwhile, herself is busy practising for the nativity play: “Nà raibh aon leaba le fáil do Mhuire agus Iosaef” [Go on, non-Irish speakers, guess what it means using only your knowledge of infant nativitiy plays as a guide]. You may care to consider this in plain clothes (not quite the right text) or dress rehearsal version.
Slightly disturbing
Princess: You may kiss the bride.
Me: Eh?
Her: Who says that?
Me: The priest when people get married.
Her: I want to kiss a boy.
Me: You can kiss your brothers whenever you want.
Her: Another boy.
Me: Is this what you talk about at school.
Her: Yes.
Ladies and gentlemen, the child is five.
In other news, I have captured Daniel (with some interference) doing bits from Peter and the Wolf. Only the really enthusiastic will want to follow all of these links.
Random update on my children
Michael is not a great believer in metaphor and he does not like inaccuracy.
When he hurts himself, I will often say “my poor baby” and through his sobs, Michael will say furiously “I’m not a baby, I’m a big boy”. Somebody at Montessori school has sold him the line that, “juice makes me small and water makes me big” and he will now only drink water in the hopes of growing up big and strong. In fact, he doesn’t really like sweet things and when his brother and sister get a biscuit, he always has a cracker instead as he doesn’t like biscuits. Isn’t this odd?
Michael is morbidly anxious that the family may be split up and always insists that when we go out we stick together like glue.
This morning, Daniel, as always, woke up first. As I lifted him out of the cot (maybe for their 18th birthdays, they’ll get beds) I said “Up, up, up with a fish”. And Michael said from some distance under the duvet, “My brother is not a fish.”Michael also likes to say “actually” all the time. I fear he may have picked that up from me, actually.
Michael’s hair is finally starting to grow back after having been shaved off in September. I remember shortly after his scalping I got the train to Cork with the children and the lady opposite asked, “Are they twins?” To which I said yes. “And the little boy is a cousin?” I explained that the boys were the twins and the little girl their big sister. “Oh,” she said “it’s just that his hair was so different, I didn’t think that they could be in the same family”.
Daniel howled this evening from the moment his sister taunted him by singing the wrong song until almost an hour later when we finally wrestled him into bed, having wrestled him out of his clothes, into the bath, into a towel and into his pyjamas. We are exhausted. He is very strong and has an enormous capacity for misery, poor mite.
He is also an outstanding mimic with a great memory. To hear him doing Peter and the Wolf from start to finish is enough to bring a warm glow to any middle class parent’s heart.
The Princess was awarded “Gaeilgeoir na seachtaine” (Irish speaker of the week) at school today. We are unclear whether this is in recognition of her Irish prowess or because her name was drawn out of a hat. We are, nevertheless, proud and she has some crayons and paints for her pains.She has just departed for bed in a state of high excitement as Saint Nicolas (who comes to Belgian children on the night of the 5th) may come to us as honorary Belgians. We have carefully left out shoes for him to fill with sweets, beer and biscuits (there was some concern that we have no speculoos, but he will just have to manage) and a carrot for his donkey, just in case. I have told her that he only comes when children are asleep. She pointed out to me that the boys were already asleep and it would be most unfair of him not to come under these circumstances. I beat a hasty retreat uttering dire but unsustainable warnings of what would happen, if she failed to drop off.
The Princess has started ballet on Saturday mornings. I did ballet for 7 years. For 6 of those 7 years I wore white tights, a white polo neck, black ballet shoes and my hair in a net. In my seventh year, I graduated to peach shoes and a leotard. For her first lesson last week the Princess wore the required gear, namely: white tights (some things never change), a blue leotard, peach shoes, a blue cross-over cardigan thingy and a blue filmy skirt (not a tutu, that would just be too much). Did I mention that I walked to school barefoot as well?
Working on maintaining the language of Voltaire
My poor husband is resigned to continuing to speak to the children in French; he doesn’t even complain any more. However, when my sister saw him doing the Princess’s homework with her – she encouraged insurrection by saying “this is ridiculous”.
It is true that it’s perhaps a little odd to hear the following:
Him: Lis-le.
Her: “Tá RÃrá ag rith.â€
Him: Très bien.
Her: Papa, je peux arrêter là ?
Him: Non, il faut continuer. Donc, « Tá Lúlú ag léamh. »
Her: “Ta sé ag léamh.â€
Him: Non « sé » c’est lui, il faut dire « sÃ. »
And so on… I appreciate that it requires a slightly unusual set of language skills to understand the above but I thought you would like that.
I thought they might make some French friends and Irish playgrounds seem to be full of French kids so my children are always running into French people in the park. Unfortunately, the French adopt a strict protocol of ignoring other French speakers so that can be a little disconcerting but I remain hopeful.
Once, shortly after we returned, when we were in Cork a nice polite English man and his pregnant French wife approached me and said that they noticed the boys were speaking French to each other and how did we manage it. Michael used my moment’s inattention to rush for the pond so I was anxious to be off and couldn’t explain to them that this was due to our recent return from a francophone country.
Now, the boys never speak French to each other. Sometimes the Princess speaks French to them and they will reply to her in French. We have hired a new woman to replace our current French childminder (the delightful Aliette). The new person is, to my great delight, rather poor at English. Daniel was sick the other morning and she minded him. By the end of the morning he was resigned to the fact that he had to speak French to her. Though, as Mr. Waffle points out, it is a little disconcerting that the language of domestic administration continues to be French. We are getting blinds fitted and I spent many useless minutes trying to remember the French word for this so that I could tell our new woman that there was a man coming to install same. Store, if you care (pronounced differently).
Another string to my bow is DVDs which, where possible, are watched in French. Dora is hilarious. She speaks French with the odd word of English in a French accent – allons y – lez’s go! Dora’s abuela, who has become grandma, speaks French with a strong American accent. My husband observes that this particular linguistic regime makes the role of the mariachi band more difficult to understand.
God, nobody said that having notions (as the nuns would say) was easy.
Everywhere I have ever lived – 1993-1995
Brussels 1
I arrived in Brussels in October 1993 and didn’t leave again until the summer of 1995. I lived in a lovely house in a distant suburb with two French women and a half-Belgian Norwegian. It is to this period that I ascribe any fluency which I now have in French. Parisiennes do not hesitate to correct you when you make a mistake; it’s part of their charm.  After a year in the lovely house, the owner wanted it back. So one of the French girls and I moved into another house together and then another flat. All delightful. Brussels is heaven for tenants with really wonderful places to rent. I always think of this as my “Vile Bodies” period. So many parties, so many people from all sorts of nooks and crannies of Europe. I was full of energy and joie de vivre; particularly surprising since I never seemed to get to bed before 2. This, I think, is the energy that nature intended me to use for night feeds for small children.
My mother had, meanwhile, been scanning the papers for jobs in Ireland for her daughter and, eventually, she found one and I was, with some regret, lured to Dublin.
In other news, would you say that this dialogue is positive?
Me: Grandma and ?
Daniel: Grandad.
Me: Nana and ?
Daniel: Cork Grandad.
Me: Uncle G and ?
Daniel: Aunty S.
Me: Mummy and ?
Daniel: Aunty Helen?
