The 27th of September is a busy day for my family. The boys were 2 yesterday and it was my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. If I weren’t sick as a dog, I would compose eloquent posts on both these topics but it will just have to wait while I go back to bed and keep coughing.
Boys
Late, late, late
I am one of life’s tardy people. My father always says that my mother has no appreciation that time is finite and I have inherited that flaw. I always think things will take less time than they do.
Yesterday I had to take leave to mind sick Daniel (poor Daniel, he’s fine today, thank you for asking) because, alas, my husband is off in foreign parts and I am holding the fort. In between being sick Daniel slept, so it could have been worse. At 5.30 our student babysitter came to mind him (he had been made safe by a motillium suppository and, if you don’t know what that is, you’re better off) and I drove off to pick up Michael from the creche and the Princess from the childminder. The traffic was dreadful and I didn’t get back until (eek) 6.30.
I fed the children and the babysitter (well, otherwise when was she going to get dinner?) and then we bathed the boys and put them to bed and then while K got the Princess cleaned up and ready for bed, I got ready for my dinner with a delegation visiting Brussels for work. I felt mildly self-conscious applying my make-up in front of a beautiful 21 year old but, never mind.
At 7.30, I drove to the school in pouring rain and finally found parking at 7.45 and ran in, late, for the parent-teacher meeting that started at 7.30. This was a mildly depressing experience. Mostly from pragmatism but partly from principle we put the Princess into the school nearest to our house. It is a school with pupils who are overwhelmingly the children of poor immigrants and the remainder are the children of poor Belgians. On the whole we have been very happy with the school and very smug about our choice. However, it is undoubtedly true that we were also aware that a lot of the children in the Princess’s class didn’t speak French but, to be honest, I would have thought that in their third year in the school system (Belgian school starts at two and a half – it keeps them tough) with significant extra language tuition, that problem would have disappeared. Apparently not. Madame Christine tells us that she is still gesturing to get her meaning across. There are children who do not understand “folder” (OK), there are children who do not understand “school bag” (less OK) and there are children who do not understand “put” (not OK at all). Lots of the children don’t know their colours. This is daft, they’re FOUR. I was telling the Princess an edited version of last night’s encounter this morning and asked her did she know her colours and she said “oh yes and when Madame Christine does the exercises on colours, she keeps saying to me ‘stop, you’re going too fast, give the others a chance.'” I don’t think this illustrates that my child is vastly gifted but my smug four year old clearly does.
At the end of last year, the teachers found that the children didn’t know what things were made of. Sample dialogue:
What’s this made of?
A fork.
Yes, I know it’s a fork, but what’s it made of?
Pointy?
Sample dialogue with the Princess at breakfast:
What’s my spoon made of?
Metal.
What’s your spoon made of?
Plastic.
What’s your bowl made of?
China.
What’s the cornflake box made of?
Cardboard.
I’m hoping that this business of what things are made of is not the key learning for the year. I know that she needs to learn lots from school other than ‘academic’ things, how to socialise, how to work out her place in the world, how to become autonomous but I know that the problems her classmates are having are almost certainly not experienced in the posh communal school down the road (which had no places by the time her feckless mother called them).
Funnily enough, the Princess’s school is private (as it’s Catholic) and the posh school is public. The fact that it was catholic was one of the selling points of our school for me until the head ‘reassured’ me that it was Catholic in name only. I see where he’s coming from, although there are lots of statues of ‘dead Jesus’, if the Princess is to be believed, there doesn’t seem to be any religion in the classroom. This is also funny when you consider the situation with faith schools in the UK as outlined recently by the GPmama. In fact there is a (Catholic) friend of Mr. Waffle’s in London who is still doing the flowers in her local Protestant church because she cosied up to them in the hopes of getting her daughter in. Unfortunately, the daughter didn’t get in despite all that creative use of oasis.
So, 8.15, I really had to go though I would have liked to stay until the end because, you know, when you get worried about things like this, you like to have a complete picture so that you can drive yourself insane. Bucketing down and I was supposed to be at the restaurant near the office and was striding womanfully across the school yard. I rang and said, quite mendaciously, that I was circling looking for parking and they should go ahead without me. Oh no, they would wait. Alas. Mercifully parking very easy on arrival so no one was forced to eat the table.
My delegation being on a bit of a break from their day jobs were very relaxed. I meanwhile had my mobile phone on the table waiting for a call from the babysitter to tell me to come home because Daniel had been sick. She didn’t which was just as well because we were paying for dinner and it would have been difficult to do before people had finished eating which they didn’t until gone midnight; you will recall that they were relaxed. I dropped a couple of my Brussels based colleagues home (because I am kind) and pitched up about 12.30 all apologies to saintly babysitter who had an 8.00 am lecture next morning. Called her a taxi, put out the bins and went to bed at 1.00. Up with the boys at 3 and 5 and the Princess prodded me out of bed at 6 so that we could have breakfast alone together before the boys woke up.
Arrived into work this morning to hear young colleague complaining that she is exhausted; jet lag from her trip to LA. Firmly buttoned my lip.
Middle Child
I often feel poor Daniel gets neglected between the histrionics of his drama queen sister and action man brother. He is the most placid child and very stoic. When he was vacinated, he didn’t flinch; Michael brought the house down. When he is sick, he is stoutly uncomplaining. He is happy to sit in the corner and flick through a book (often upside down) while the others demand attention.
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He does, however, have a temper. When he is frustrated, most often by Michael whipping something from his hands and using his superior speed to carry it away, he will crawl into a corner and bellow or hit anyone who is to hand (usually not Michael who has nipped sharply out of the way). If Michael is foolish enough to stay within range he will generally get a bite on the hand from Daniel. This means that Daniel ends up in the coin colere or, at the very least, is spoken to sharply. Despite his macho appearance, Daniel is a sensitive soul and reprimands of any kind are a source of great distress and, once he fully understands that he, yes he, is being reprimanded, lead to copious tears (Michael, in similar circumstances, just glares balefully or laughs).
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Daniel is always anxious to make amends and with his rolling walk (like a cowboy after a long day in the saddle) will go over to Michael and give him a big kiss. They tell us that in the creche, he often looks for Michael saying “calin, calin†(hug, hug) and gives him big hugs. He has great fun with his brother and he loves it when they poke and push each other and try to close the door on each other’s fingers. Oh yes, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
Daniel loves to talk and the Princess has taken his education into her hands. “One†she says. “Two†he replies. He will repeat almost anything she says to him and can make good efforts on most things. He still hasn’t strung many of his words together though. He has a really lovely smile but he does not dole it out easily. Mostly when I try to get him to engage with people he says “a shy” and buries his head on my shoulder. For all that, he is often more courageous than the other pair, wading into water and patting strange dogs while they cower.
One night when he would not sleep and I was desperate to get to bed, the two of us ended up watching a nature programme about barn owls on the BBC. He loved it. It was a gentle ten minute look at the owls and various other farm animals (quack, quack, baa). I have one question for the BBC – why would you schedule this at 9 in the evening? I digress. Now he makes hopeful hoo hoo sounds at the television screen in Brussels in the hope that somehow the magic owls might come back but, so far, no joy.
Because Michael spends most of his time welded to my hip, Daniel gets much less time in my arms. He is devoted to his Daddy. Do you think I should worry that he occasionally says “Mummy, Mummy!” to my loving husband? Poor neglected mite.
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What my mother would call burning the candle at both ends (she has a special tone of voice for that)
In the past three weeks we have been to Spain, I have travelled for work, twice, I have had three delegations in Brussels and I was at work dinners on Monday and Tuesday night.  On Monday I had a migraine (I should have cancelled, why didn’t I cancel?) but I took two paracetemol and struggled on.  Stupid. More particularly since I had the rather alarming experience of not being able to talk.  I knew what I wanted to say (“pass the saltâ€) but couldn’t say it (“pash, the thank youâ€), it was a little alarming and it made me uncharacteristically silent and probably not the best dining companion for my colleagues.
On Wednesday, Mr. Waffle was travelling for work, so I picked up the boys and herself and brought them all home, fed them dinner which they refused to eat, tucked them into bed (the Princess holding out to 9.00 much to my chagrin), cleared up dinner, swept, put away toys and clothes put on the dishwasher, put on the washing machine, put on the dryer (I know, I’m pushing the climate change doomsday clock all by myself here) and at 10.30 sat down to have a nice cup of tea.  Watched some dreadful television and went to bed at 11.30 to polish off the Sunday papers savouring the unusual pleasure of being able to read in bed (I am the owl in our relationship).  Overdid the reading in bed and only turned out the lights at 12.20 and gave the boys their first bottle at 12.40.   Then all was silent and the house slept.
At 5.30 yesterday morning, I heard the patter of little footsteps. The Princess was wandering round the house hysterically looking for her father.  “He’s away†I said. “I want Daddy,†she said at the top of her voice. She was red in the face with tears streaming down her cheeks. Given the combative relationship she and her father usually enjoy in the morning, I can’t imagine why she felt he would welcome this were he, in fact, home but I suppose she was hysterical from lack of sleep.  She would not go back to bed and the boys were now roaring for my attention.  When I got into their bedroom, they were standing up in their cots chatting loudly to each other across the room (mostly they chat in animal noises – moo, ack ack, I know, baa, neigh).  I tried to persuade them back to bed but it was a forlorn hope. There we were, all up to face the day at 5.45.  The children, their evil demands granted, were in great form and played quite happily together.  I wept bitter exhausted tears in the shower listening to their happy squeals from my bed next door which, as one, they had determined was the best place to burn off their excess early morning energy.  I comforted myself with the recollection that the childminder would be coming at 8.00 and, at least, I didn’t have to get the boys dressed and heft them to the crèche.  Well, I did until she rang at 6.30 to say that she was sick (for the first time ever) and wouldn’t be able to make it.
So, we all got dressed and prepared to leave. Just thought I would mention that when I drew the curtains in the Princess’s room they fell down, and when we came to the lift some idiot had left the door open downstairs so I had to walk down 2 flights of stairs with a boy on each hip – 22.5 kilos altogether, since you ask – and their various accessories clamped in my jaws; it was that kind of morning.  As well as being the lark in our relationship, Mr. Waffle is also the ant to my extravagant, heedless grasshopper.  This is why it is necessary for him to say to me, every Wednesday when I have a half day from work “will you buy some bread this afternoon?â€Â Since he was away, I had not bought bread the previous day and the Princess needed sandwiches. I packed the boys into the buggy and we all went to the bakery on the way to school.  It began to dawn on me that though we had been up since 5.30 in the morning we were still going to be late for school which must be something of a record.  The Princess was so tired on the way that she bumped into a lamp post and a post box and I had to carry her (15kgs) weeping for much of the journey while pushing the double buggy with my other hand. I delivered her to the relative safety of the classroom, took the boys home and strapped them into the car to go to the crèche.  Although we have a childminder three days a week we pay for the crèche five days a week as back up, just in case – alas, we have no relatives in Belgium.  Possibly not alas for them. I allowed myself a moment’s smugness somewhat undercut by reflection on the Princess’s very just observation that someone would have to collect her from school, if the childminder was not there. I contemplated leaving her in the after school “garderie†but knew that she would be horrified so, dutifully, rang around babysitters until I found one available to collect her.
Finally got into the office at 9.45, bright eyed and bushy tailed and more than ready to do a full and productive day’s work.  Ahem. Is it any wonder that I decided that I’d better take today off.
Some things
We buy 30 litres of milk a week.
The Princess continues her fascination with the largeness of our Dutch friend and why food needs to be dead before we eat it. She brought these together neatly the other night.
Her: Why is the quail dead before we eat it?
Me: Because it tastes nicer cooked and it would be hard to eat it, if we had to chase it round the room first.
Her: It would be easier to catch if it were bigger. It would be good to have a quail the size of the Dutch Papa running around the room
Me: Actually, it might not be.
At school they had some eggs and watched them hatch into chickens and turn into hens. They did lots of work on the chicken life cycle and pulled it all together in a bound folder she brought home. “Look” she said “my dossier de l’oeuf”. Ah, the romance languages.
I am heartless, I only care about our holiday
We had planned to go to Spain tomorrow for a week for M and R’s joint 50th birthday parties which will be held in the little town where they have a house. I was very much looking forward to the trip. What do you think my sentiments were when I got a phone call from the creche mid-afternoon telling me that both boys were sick with high temperatures. Mr. Waffle wants to cancel, I want to go. We’ll see how the night goes. The poor mites were very warm this afternoon and, I suppose a 2 hour flight followed by a nice long drive might not be ideal, if all they really want to do is lie in a darkened room, bleating feebly. Keep your fingers crossed.
