Princess

Replacement plush toy retail price: $8.45
Postage (good Lord): $30.00
Actual value of goods as assessed by sending company: $5 (Canadian dollars that is) Look on daughter’s face when opening envelope with new travel Doggy: Priceless

The Princess has two teachers this year; good cop and bad cop.  This morning as I left, bad cop was in charge and she pulled the crying Princess’s hand from mine and pushed me resolutely out the door saying “the sooner you leave, the better it will be”.  True, doubtless, but brutal.  Mind you, my travails are as nothing compared to my friend who has just started her two children at a new school.  The two and a half year old is, to quote her mother “a tough little nut” but the five year old is a very sensitive soul.  When she comes to collect the younger child at midday, she finds her two children glued together in the playground.  She has to prise them apart and then her son cries and clutches the fence and says “I’ll wait here until you come back”.  When she comes to collect him at 3.00 she can see his little hand clutching the fence from afar.  Dear God, it’s all very depressing.  Meanwhile, she tells me that another Irish friend of hers has unexpectedly decamped to Dublin over the Summer because her two little girls have been offered places in a good primary school and, if they don’t take them up this September, the places will be gone forever.  Their papa continues to be based in Brussels.  So, if given a choice between a good school and a father, which would you pick?  I know that’s not fair, but really, it’s madness. 

The boys are asleep and Mr. Waffle has taken the Princess to the supermarket.  He is a hero.  Sometimes going to the supermarket with the Princess is fine.  But sometimes it is as described below.  Please note that this piece was written before the sad loss of Travel Doggy.

In the car park:

Her: Waah, waah, I want to bring travel doggy into the supermarket.

Me: No, honey he might get lost.

Her (pink in the face): Loud, snotty, tears.

In the supermarket:

Her (sob): We should have brought a doudou for me for the supermarket. 

Me: We certainly should but, instead, ahem (searches in handbag) would you like to play with my diary?

Her (sob): No.

Me: I know, how about a biscuit.

Her (miraculous and instantaneous end to sobbing): Yes please Mummy.

Me: OK, here are these fabulous Winnie the Pooh biscuits (noting they are bagged 2×2 and resigning myself to the inevitable) and you can have two!

Her: Mummy, I’m thirsty.

Me: Would you like a bottle of water.

Her: No, I want milk.

Me: OK, here’s a carton of milk with a straw.

Her (opens delightedly and takes one sip): No, I don’t like.

Her (eyeing dairy product aisle): I want a yoghurt.

Me: But you don’t like those yoghurts.

Her: But I’ll like them this time, I promise.

Me: But you won’t.

Her: But you said that, if I don’t like cheese one time, I, I, I might like it another time.

Me: Oh alright.

Her: Can I open it?

Me: No, it’ll make a terrible mess.

Her:  I only opened one Mummy.

Me: But see you can’t eat it, you need a spoon.

Her: We should have brought a spoon, Mummy.

Me: To the supermarket?  Don’t be daft.

Her (with inexorable logic): But how am I going to eat my yoghurt?

Me: Have another biscuit.

Her: I want to do a wee.

Me: Of course you do.  Come on, we’ll leave the trolley here and go across to the Quick and use their toilets. [Insert run across the car park followed by sneak into burger joint toilets]

Return to trolley.  Join queue.

Her: Can I have a go on Mr. Turtle?

Me: OK, but just one go while I’m paying for the shopping, ok [hand over a euro]?

Child skips off happily. Loading shopping takes ages. Preemptively hand over another euro.

Her: But you said just one go.

Me: I lied.  Go again.

Her: But why?

Me: I like my parenting to be consistent. Go again.

Pack everything in car, return home one and a half hours after departure, a shadow of my former self.

Last night we got in about 9.00pm and eventually found ourselves in the baggage hall with two hungry boys in a buggy, two large bags, innumerable smaller bags, two car seats, two tired cranky parents and one hyper small girl (high as a kite on smarties).

Me: Where’s Travel Doggy?

Her: He’s in my pocket.

Me: No he’s not.  Is he in your bag?

Her: No.

Me: Did you leave him on the plane?

Her (mournfully): Yes, I forgot him.

Me: How could you do that?

Her: I only have one pair of hands and Daddy was saying hurry up and the boys were crying and I had to put on my coat and…

Him: It’s our fault.

Me (about to collapse in tears – yes, really, it was a long day):  I know, I know.

Me: Let’s try to get back on the plane and see whether we can find him.

Him: Are you mad?  Honestly, you’re more upset about this than she is, let’s go home.

Me (swooping her up in my arms): I’m going to bargain with the passport official.

The passport official sent us to lost property.  The lost property guy said that the plane we came in on had already left (well, we were last off, we had already spent some time on a toilet run and feeding hungry babies takes time also) and doggy was probably on his way back to Ireland.  We got a number of contact details but my heart sank. If you saw a filthy cuddly toy would you keep it or chuck it out?  Meanwhile, the Princess was anxiously tugging my arm – “tell him that Doggy has a shamrock in his mouth and floppy ears, so that they can find him”.

We emerged into arrivals with Mr. Waffle pulling two bags, the Princess seated on my shoulders while I pushed the buggy with a car seat and various bags balanced precariously on the handles (no trollies, mais naturellement, it was that kind of day), to see a single business man leaping into the only taxi big enough to take 5 people.  Eventually home by 10.30.  The boys were surprised and delighted to see their home but, alas, anxious to play.  Nevertheless, they were unceremoniously bundled into their beds much to their upset.  The Princess was a tougher nut to crack but, eventually, Mr. Waffle and I were able to collapse into bed whereupon Michael woke up with a nasty cough.  He spent the remainder of the night in our bed where he alternated sleeping with bouts of weepy coughing and sniffing and delighted handclapping (I said that they were pleased to be home).  Mr. Waffle and I are feeling fresh as daisies today.

Furthermore, you will be disappointed to hear, this morning the Belgian authorities told Mr. Waffle that they had found no trace of Doggy and the Aer Lingus automated reply said, if you have a complaint put it in writing otherwise go to our website which will have everything you need (patently not the case).  He sent them a pitiful fax (text below for your delectation) but I am not hopeful.

“My three-year-old daughter left her favourite toy on flight EI 638 from Dublin to Brussels last night.  By the time we realised, it was too late to get back to the plane.  The Brussels airport lost property office says it does not deal with items left on planes, and the ground handling firm (Flightcare) has not seen the toy.  Both suggest we should try you.

The toy (”Doggy”) is a small brown dog with a shamrock in its mouth.  It is small and worn but it means the world to a little girl.  If it has been found we would be extremely grateful to get it back (we can send somebody to collect it in Dublin airport, or pick it up in Brussels).

Could you get back to me on the above numbers or by e-mail?”

At the weekend, while Mr. Waffle put in time with the spotty boys at home (honestly, my beautiful babies look like creatures from the crypt, or adolescents, I suppose), the Princess and I sampled the delights of the annual foire du midi.  We started with a tame ride on the kiddie merry go round.  She came off electrified.  She was high as a kite from the adrenalin rush of being carried around in slow circles by a panda while Gloria Gaynor’s I will survive played in the background (oh Gloria, how the mighty are fallen).  She wasn’t quite ready to go again (just too terrifying) so she suggested that we go on the big wheel.  It was my turn to be unnerved.  “We’ll have to ask the lady behind the counter whether you’re big enough”.  Yes she was.  There were people with small babies in those circling teacups.  With low railings and no seat belts.  For the five rotations of the wheel, I clutched the railing behind me with one hand and the Princess with the other while muttering fervently through my teeth “don’t stand up, don’t stand up”.  There is a picture of her at the high point of the wheel’s rotation which I took with my feet. 

Nothing was denied her, ice cream, candy floss, chips, a waffle, apple fritters she had them all.  She went on all the merry go rounds that she was interested in; mostly they were just “terrifying!”  – said in tones of horror with hands held over her eyes.  She must be the world’s most prudent child.  We found one further merry-go-round which met with her approval.  True it did go up in the air but only if you pushed a button.  She sat in and we buckled her belt.  As she went around the boy sitting in the front untied her buckle and I thought she would lose her life.  She bawled as she proceeded around in sedate circles.  When the thing stopped she hurled herself into my arms weeping.  Nevertheless, she was game to give it another go.  We searched the apparatus diligently and found one other capsule with a working seat belt.  Safely strapped into a slightly sinister looking clown, she clutched her steering wheel nervously.  I really don’t know why she puts herself through this.  When the ride ended, she propelled herself out of the clown with such speed and vigour that I was caught unawares and slipped from the step at the side of the clown onto the ground in an undignified heap (saving herself from injury, I hasten to add).  As I sat on the ground assessing my injuries (one swollen but not unwalkable on ankle, one very bruised hand – this information is brought to you by an eight fingered typist) and state of cleanliness (poor), the Princess jumped up and down beside me saying “Mummy, were you worried that I would fall out of the clown, were you, were you?”.  On dragging myself to my feet, madam announced “Mummy, I’m too tired to walk, you’ll have to carry me”.  I picked her up with my good arm and limped to the tram stop.  

When we got on the tram it was full and my prudent three year old was too scared to stand because the tram rocks so I held her in my arms all the way to our stop.  When we emerged from the tram, sweaty and dishevelled, I insisted that she cover some ground on her own.  Very shortly thereafter she said “I want to do a wee Mummy”.  “Can you wait until we get home?”  I don’t know why I ask that question because she probably can’t and, in any event, her sense of direction is such that we would probably have to be outside the front door before she could assess how long it would take to get from any given spot to home.  So, we had an emergency toilet break at the side of the road about five minutes walk from home and, due to her mother’s ineptitude (eight operational fingers, remember), she managed to soak her underpants, her sandals and my sandals.  Cunningly, I was able to secrete her damp underpants in an empty packet of paper tissues.  Equally cunningly, I was able to persuade her to keep her skirt down and not show passers-by that she wasn’t wearing any underpants.  We arrived home exhausted.  I said to Mr. Waffle “we brought you an apple fritter, watch out for the wet underpants in the bag.”  And in the day’s final indignity he looked at the bag in alarm and said “whose?”