Him (wrestling children): Wonders of the peninsula later?
Me: OK.
Him: What would you like?
Me: The stockpiled rubbish town speciality.
Small prize, if you can work out what I will be having for dinner.
Mr. Waffle
Technological disaster
Michael was sick today and, this morning, he knocked over the telly while whizzing round the room on his little car. Not sick enough, clearly.
Anyhow, this afternoon when I was in charge, I promised Peter Pan to himself and his sister (poor old Daniel was off at the creche) but it turned out that the telly didn’t like being pushed over by Michael’s car and it resolutely refused to come on. It’s not like it owes us much; Mr. Waffle bought it second hand in 1995.
I moved the couch and sat them in front of the computer. Typing T’choupi into google leads to a series of cartoons on youtube about the wholesome mole. I put herself in charge of the computer and tripped in and out between the kitchen where I was making dinner and the invalid on the couch and his sister. All went pretty well though I had to turn off the rap version of Noddy she’d managed to click on and some fairly alarming looking anti McDonald’s stuff.
I told my loving husband later.
Him (outraged): You left our four year old to wander round the internet unsupervised?
Me (defensively): She’s nearly five.
Finally, I have taken this from Jando. I have reproduced her post below because there is a risk that you might not follow the link and this is the funniest thing I have seen in quite some time. I particularly liked the bit about the goats.
Before you decide to have children, try these 14 simple tests.
Test 1
Women : To prepare for pregnancy, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months.
After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for children, go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.
Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home.
Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.
Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior.
Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 – 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.
Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems:
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
3. Time allowed for this: 5 minutes.
Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door wagon.
And don’t think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment and leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
3. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Test 6
Getting ready to go out:
1. Wait
2. Go out the front door
3. Come back in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in again
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front path
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.
Test 8
Go to the local supermarket.
Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child.
A full-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Test 9
1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
7. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old child.
Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.
Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls.
4. Cover the stains with crayon.
5. How does that look?
Test 12
Make a recording of someone shouting ‘Mummy’ repeatedly.
Important: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy – occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet if required.
Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice.
Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
Test 14
Put on your finest work attire.
Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
2. Stir
3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
4. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
5. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
6. Do not change, you have no time.
7. Go directly to work
39 today
Do you think you can get a card with a badge on it that says that?
I think I will launch myself into a prolonged period of mid-life crisis which I might wind-up next year when I turn 40. How enjoyable for everyone. Let us do a tally of my achievements:
Marriage
Seems sound, husband is lovely. Tick.
Children
Three is a good number, they are nice little things but tiring. Why would I want more? Why? I am 39. That appears to be a full answer. Half tick.
Career
Job is fine. I am very fond of my colleagues who are a joy to work with. Yet the actual work is only moderately interesting. I feel that out there somewhere is the perfect job for me, if only I could find it. I also think that it has nothing to do with my experience to date so it’s probably quite poorly paid, at least initially, before they realise that I am a genius at it. I am a round peg in an oval hole. Imagine what I could achieve, if I could find a round hole. I think this metaphor is becoming unfeasibly stretched. A friend of mine says that there is no perfect job which is why she has focussed on her social life. There may be something to be said for that. Half tick
Family and friends
I have lots of both. I like them, they like me. Tick. At least, I hope they do. Half tick for manifest lack of self confidence at 39.
Car
I have no desire to buy a sports car. Tick.
Hobbies
You’re reading it. I also like reading. I wish I had some form of hobby that did not involve sitting on my bottom. All through my teens and twenties, I played hockey but it’s a bit demanding for a parent. Half tick.
Feeling my age
Unlike many people of my age, I do not feel like I am 20. But yet, I am very surprised to be 39. My oldest friend the Ambassador (clang) will be 40 next month, though, mind you, she is an Ambassador so I think that’s pretty good going for a 40 year old. Almost.
My mother says that having children keeps you young. Maybe this is true when they are teenagers but at the moment, I’m not so sure. I am sometimes so tired and stretched I feel like I am 60. I also find myself criticising young people’s grammar and marvelling at their odd musical taste. Oh yes, indeedy, I am cruising towards middle age. Half tick.
In other birthday news, if you were to take a day off work and leave your children with the childminder and decamp to Ghent to celebrate your birthday, you should a) remember, if it is Monday, the museums will be closed and b) bear in mind that cities built around canals are not so pleasant in stormy weather. Furthermore, when you return home and your three children rush into your arms and sing happy birthday to you, you should try not to be overwhelmed by love and guilt.
The day has also brought a birthday poem from my sister, a birthday missive from my parents, several nice emails, a present from husband and children – pretty good all round. You could make it even better by delurking. Go on, I know you’re out there. I think you’re out there. I hope you’re out there. Half tick.
OK, not flu
The doctor came round this morning and examined myself and the Princess. Mr. Waffle didn’t feel we were sick enough to justify this indulgence but this being Belgium, there is a team of doctors out there whose job is to come to your house and they don’t care how sick or well you are as long as you pay their very moderate fees.
He said that I might have flu but they hadn’t seen much flu this year so he was reluctant to diagnose, though it was odd that I had suffered four days of high temperature. He said I should be better soon. I see no sign yet. Still, I wasn’t expecting to, I just need a cert for work once I’ve been off for three days. It would be much cheaper and handier for everyone, if they’d just trust me. Moan, groan, grizzle, whinge.
The Princess really is sick now though and he seemed quite impressed by her illness. Shall we say a full novena that the boys don’t succumb?
Confusion
Michael (combing his hair and looking at himself in the mirror): Michael est belle.
Mr. Waffle: Michael est beau.
Michael (crossly): Michael est BELLE.
Mr. Waffle: Ta soeur est belle, tu es beau.
Michael (furious): MICHAEL EST BELLE.
Mr. Waffle: Michael est belle.
Too many cooks or, possibly, this is what it sounds like when doves cry
Late on Sunday afternoon we went out for a short walk and it was not a success. The Princess lost interest in walking; Michael and Daniel demanded to be carried and so did she. We had to carry them and cajole her back home and by the time we got there, the four senior members of the party were annoyed to various degrees. Michael having had his demand met; to be carried home reclining in his mother’s arms not on her hip was pretty sunny.
When we got home, it was about 6.40. “If we are going to have roast chicken, we will not eat until 8â€, I announced gloomily. Mr. Waffle was keen that we should have Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding with roast chicken is an abomination but he was adamant as it is one of the few things the boys will eat at the moment. 8 was too late for dinner, we decided. “I’ll make the chicken and mushroom thing†I said. To my horror, Mr. Waffle remained adamant on the Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding with rice, mushroom and chicken in a cream sauce is an unspeakable abomination. I stomped off to the kitchen and chopped up an onion and some garlic. I hunted high and low for the mushrooms which I knew we had bought the day before. I stomped in to where Mr. Waffle was reading to the children and asked where the mushrooms were. “Ah, gosh, yes, I used them all yesterday in the beef stogonoffâ€. I stomped back to the kitchen and threw the onion and garlic in the bin in a marked manner and started preparing parmesan chicken which does not require mushrooms or onion or garlic (very nifty recipe actually). Mr. Waffle came into the kitchen, he wanted to make the Yorkshire pudding batter. “Fine†I said and flounced off conscious that it would have only taken me two minutes to get the chicken into the oven where it could start its half hour bake (should I explain that the kitchen isn’t really big enough for two and somebody has to stop the children from killing each other). He did his evil work with the batter, I subsequently polished off the chicken and put it into the oven.
It became apparent that the Yorkshire pudding and the chicken would not coincide. “We can have the Yorkshire pudding as a starterâ€, I said bitterly. I then realised that, really, I would have to make gravy as Yorkshire pudding without gravy is etc. etc. I went into the kitchen and looked longingly at the chopped onion I had fired into the bin in a rage and chopped another and set to on the gravy. As I was adding stock to my butter flour mixture (I believe people who can really cook call it a roux m’lord) and anxiously whisking the very hot mixture seeking to avoid lumps (something I have never actually done in any circumstances, however ideal), Mr. Waffle came into the kitchen to pour the Yorkshire pudding mixture into the oven. I glared, he retreated nervously, I stomped off.
The Yorkshire pudding was ready 15 tense minutes later. The children tucked in delightedly to their lumpy gravy and pudding feast. I grudgingly had one. Mr. Waffle, damn him, is a dab hand at the Yorkshire pudding and it was really very tasty. This from a man who had never even tasted Yorkshire pudding before he met me. As you can imagine, this did not make things any better. Inevitably, my chicken and rice offering was spurned with contumely by my children. Mr. Waffle ate enthusiastically, nervously heaping praise on the cranky chef.
Later as we were giving the boys their bath, my loving husband said to me that I was still cross. Normally, though lots of things make me cross, I haven’t got the energy to stay cross for long and like my father and my brother I am inclined to get over things quickly and forget my rages. But I had a brief insight into what it is like to be my mother or my sister both of whom are very even tempered but once roused are very difficult to calm. I knew I was being unreasonable and I wanted to stop being cross but I just couldn’t let go. I think I may have been talked down later after a soothing cup of tea.
And while we are talking about family disharmony, do you think there was some unhappiness preceeding the insertion of this announcement in the birth announcements in this weekend’s Irish Times:
Stevenson – Kilsheimer (Washington D.C.) – My grandmother in her eagerness to announce my arrival (Irish Times, Saturday January 19, 2008) unfortunately gave me the wrong names. I am called Miles Andrew.
