Recently Mr. Waffle and I both took a day off work while the children went to school. An excellent idea and something I fully intend to repeat. We did not share details of our illicit outing with the children. We didn’t say that we were going to work but we didn’t say we were not going to work either. Jesuitical. We went for low key, nearby pleasures: a walk around Glendalough and a cup of tea in Hunter’s with the paper. I was, however, made to squirm for my fun when, in the morning getting the children ready for school, herself who is an expert on guilt said to me “Mummy, I know that you are in a hurry getting ready to go out to work but I wonder could you get me another bowl of cornflakes?” Her normal form of address is “More cornflakes, minion!” so it was unfortunate that she chose that of all mornings to ramp up the politeness quotient. Oh well.
Princess
Summer Plans
Herself: Where are we going on our summer holidays?
Me: East Cork and West Kerry.
Her: But no, for our summer holidays.
Me: East Cork and West Kerry.
Her (outraged and, also quite correct): But it will be raining. Summer holidays are in the sun.
Sharper than a serpent’s tooth etc.
A series of unfortunate events
Slightly against my better judgement, I read chapter 1 of “The Bad Beginning” to the Princess last night.
Cravenly, rather than turning out her light, I said that she could read for a little longer and slunk away to the end of the news and my waiting cup of tea. I did not go up to turn off her light and for this I paid dearly. At five to eleven as Dr. House was about to solve the problems of his patients who suffer from narcolepsy (did everyone else know that he was modelled on Sherlock Holmes and Wilson is Watson?) she came into me in tears. She was scared of Count Olaf. I went back upstairs with her and it was well after midnight by the time she got to sleep.
We dragged her from bed this morning. She instantly began reading her book again. We took it away. She was extremely crabby though whether from exhaustion or a foiled desire to know the fate of the Baudelaire orphans is unclear.
In other news, both home doggy and travel doggy are lost.
Eeek
Michael is constantly injuring himself. He is our daredevil. He had to be rescued from an oncoming tram with inches to spare. At least, this is the story he and the Princess tell, I have yet to verify it independently with our childminder, F, – sometimes, it’s better not to know. The Princess insists that Daniel pushed Michael and that Daniel was not properly reprimanded by F something which the Princess is keen that I should remedy – presumably poor F was too traumatised to do anything other than hang on to Michael for dear life.
Last week, Michael managed to rip a piece of skin off his foot climbing in his bedroom. I have inspected the locus of the accident and can find nothing that might remotely be suspected of causing such a nasty cut. He hobbled for the week.
Then, their father took them to the zoo where “the dreadful fate/Befell him, which I now relate.”* Michael managed to take a square of skin off his arm climbing a fence. He got dirt ingrained in the cut and under his skin. I prodded at it unavailingly for a bit to his anguished screams of protest and then, on the advice of my father (who first verified that Michael’s tetanus shots were up to date – of course Michael’s tetanus shots are up to date), stuck on some disinfectant and a plaster and sent him to bed. “Why am I always getting hurt?” he asked mournfully. Being the mother of a daredevil is very challenging.
*This came into my head. Look, it’s my blog. Small prize (you know, having your charming comment acknowledged for a change, that kind of thing), if you can identify the source without recourse to the internet.
The Múinteoir
The children and I were having tea in a cafe after school and the Princess was still resplendant in her uniform.
An elderly lady came up to us and said to the Princess “Cén fath nach bhfuil tú ag caint as Gaeilge?” She blushed and subsided into silence and it was left to me to pick up the conversation in my very threadbare Irish (before the interruption the Princess had been telling me about how she had won a prize for speaking Irish at school – obviously not something she was going to be trying out outside the school grounds). After some rather basic conversation with me, the elderly lady turned her gimlet gaze back on the Princess. “Cad is ainm duit?” Upon being met with silence from my unexpectedly shy child in the face of this very basic query, she said quite sternly “Bi dea-bheasach!”
Memories of my own primary school days came flooding back to me and I realised that I confronted that most alarming of specimens, a retired primary school teacher. She put me forcibly in mind of big Miss O’Hea (big to distinguish her from her sister small Miss O’Hea who also taught in the school) who taught me in second and third class. She was effective (I probably learnt more at ages 8 and 9 than any point subsequently) but distinctly alarming. “Were you a teacher in my daughter’s school at some point?” She was indeed. Had she overlapped with the present (very kind, good and hard working) principal? Only for a short space of time. I see. “Of course,” she said meaningfully, “his wife teaches there too.” I see. “Agus a colceathair” she said nodding significantly. And then with no more than a pat on the head for the boys, she was gone. The Princess’s current teacher is a very sweet (very trendy) young woman in her 20s, I don’t think that she quite realised that teachers came in such formidable guises and she was pretty shaken by her encounter with the old guard. There’s nothing like a múinteoir to put you in your place.
My children’s very different personalities
The other evening they sat down to draw for me.
Daniel drew a soldier:
Michael drew a picture of me:
The Princess wrote out a passage from the bible:
Look, cut her some slack, she’s left handed, it reads “God says let my people go or I will make the rivers run with blood.” She’s very taken with the gore of the Old Testament. My mother gave her a bible for children for her birthday. It is quite sanatised and, in fact, says rather blandly of the first plague “God made the water undrinkable”. When the Princess read this out to me I was initially confused and then after a moment’s reflection said “Oh the rivers of blood.” This has taken a very strong hold on her imagination is all I can say.
