Her: Where did you put my plasticine?
Me: I put it back in the box where it belongs and I wish that you could pick up after yourself and not leave things lying around on the floor.
Her: Where did you find it?
Me: On the floor.
Her: I thought I left it in my room.
Me: Well wherever it was, it wasn’t in the box where it belongs.
Her: So, you admit that you don’t even know where you found it.
Me: God, you’re being very annoying!
Her: I prefer to call it being a born lawyer.
Baby Steps
I read the Free Range Kids blog. Partly because it makes me feel smug; American children seem far more circumscribed in their movements than their European counterparts. However, let those of us without sin cast the first stone. I try not to be over-protective, but I suspect that I am. For example, I would never allow my children to ride from Oklahama to New York, unaccompanied, on horseback. Let me tell you about my recent tentative adventures.
I was in the city centre recently with the children. We went to a café for a treat. When we arrived, Michael liked none of the offerings. “Why can’t I have a packet of crisps?” he said. It wasn’t that kind of café. Herself said that there was a shop at the end of the street and she could go and buy crisps for Michael. It was a very crowded city centre shopping street. It was a slightly rough part of town. On the other hand, it was four o’clock in the afternoon. “You never trust me to do anything,” said my nine year old girl. I handed over the money and sent her off. As I watched her retreating form, I thought she looked very small. But then I remembered the small boy with his violin case (surely no more than 7) who I had seen trotting alone along a Paris footpath when I was last there. I held my breath. She came back ten minutes later with the crisps delighted with herself.
Fortified by this, when she went to her week long summer camp on a college campus, I dropped her at the car park and let her run in alone. My confidence was somewhat shaken by seeing her go in the wrong direction on two mornings. Clearly, she has inherited her mother’s sense of direction. Nevertheless, my task for the summer is to let her out more alone. Wish me luck.
Overqualified
We were in town buying new shoes the other day. Michael languidly extended his foot to the shop assistant. “Stop acting like a little pasha and put the shoe on yourself,” I said. “What’s a pasha?” asked Michael. The shop assistant replied, “A pasha is under a sultan – do you know a sultan? They were in charge of the Ottoman empire and it was very important although they were defeated by European forces in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Do you know the poem, “Lepanto”? “Don John of Austria is going to the War..”
Ah, so that’s where our arts graduates are going.
Yuck
Daniel and Michael asked me to read to them from a book called “Yuck” the other night at bed time.
I have never read a more disgusting book in my life. Yuck is the most repulsive child. I actually started to feel vaguely ill as I read. Picture the scene, Yuck is in his bedroom playing. He goes to the wardrobe and gets out a bag of bogies from which he proceeds to build a castle which he fills with creepy crawlies. As his mother comes upstairs, he quickly hides it under his bed. His mother and sister come into the room. He empties another bag on to the floor filled with dried scabs [lovingly described]. “What are you doing?” asks his mother? “Playing tiddlywinks,” he says and flicks two scabs into his sister’s mouth.
I am foreswearing Yuck. If they want him in future, they can read him themselves. Need I say that they were rolling around the floor laughing as I read this revolting story?
For the Day that’s in it
Daniel (dividing Jenga Blocks into piles): Is 26 half of 52?
Me: Yes.
Daniel: These Jenga Blocks are James’s and these are William’s.
Me: Who on earth are James and William?
Daniel: Don’t your remember the Williamites and the Jacobites?
Once More, With Feeling
I was telling a bunch of friends about my brother’s experience in Poland and one of them came up with this story from her youth.
She had just qualified and was hitching home to the midlands. She was picked up by a man and she told him all about herself and her qualifications. She decided it was time to give him a chance to say something. “What do you do yourself?” she asked. “I’m in the music business,” he said. “Are you a roadie?” she asked. “No,” he said, “do you know Foster and Allen? I’m Allen.”
