The boys had some bug over the weekend which they transmitted to their sister. Daniel was sick regularly, Michael occasionally and the Princess once. Daniel took us by surprise, vomiting for the first time on Saturday at lunch time. We rushed to comfort him and change him and remove our own vomit covered clothes. We returned to find Michael happily splashing about in the pool of vomit on the floor while the Princess looked on in profound disapproval. The washing needed to keep pace with three vomiting children is phenomenal. This was why when I heard a choking sound while holding Daniel in our bed, I spun him round to spare the sheets and managed to get vomit on the mirror, the wardrobe the walls and the door. All wipe clean surfaces you will note. As of Monday morning, the waterfall of vomit seemed to have ended. Although poor Michael, got sick in his sleep on Sunday night and when we got him from his cot on Monday morning, he was cold and clammy which, obviously, will help him recover from his hacking cough. No vomiting all day Monday but on Monday evening Daniel got sick (once) as did Michael (twice) and Mr. Waffle (once). Today only Daniel got sick (twice). Could it be that matters are improving?
LRB winner
And the winner is…
The panel* was very impressed with the level of all the entries, and congratulates all who took part. Candidates might have scored higher marks for mentioning the Iraq war or the works of Jacques Derrida, but this did not detract from the generally high standard. Sadly, there can only be one winner, so here are the comments in reverse order.
In third place, Daddy’s Little Demon. A good piece which captured much of the LRB’s style – but failed somehow to convey the smugness of the original. For future reference, name-checking Derrida or Lacan would have carried more marks than Maslow, who is now seen as very pre-post-modern.
In second place, Disgruntled. The piece showed great self-confidence but was too short for the panel to judge whether the tone could be sustained over a longer composition. Also, although the use of the word “bildungsroman†greatly impressed the panel, a true LRB author could never begin a German noun with a lower-case letter: the pedantic urge would be too strong.
In first place, Heather. A fluid piece, effortlessly using many LRB favourites (like “signifier and signified†and “cultural paradigmâ€) and most accurately capturing the spirit of the original. It may be asked whether Heather, like Disgruntled, should lose marks for spelling “zeitgeist†without a capital. However, the New Oxford Dictionary of English still treats “Bildungsroman†as a German word (with capital) while “zeitgeist†has now been naturalised long enough to be spelled without a capital. Therefore, the use of the word in an actual LRB article would spark a fruitful exchange of correspondence between lexicographers, Germanists and assorted pedants, which could spread over several subsequent issues of the Review. It can therefore be seen as the icing on the cake of this audacious effort.
The winner is Heather.
*Mr Waffle – who took a break from cleaning up vomit to write this – more of which anon.
Shopping
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.Â
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:Â 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.
The most powerful women in the world
From: Mrs. Waffle
To: Her loving husband
Subject: Mary McAleese comes in at 55
Merkel beats Rice as world’s most powerful woman
German chancellor Angela Merkel has come top in a Forbes magazine list of the world’s most powerful women, beating US secretary Condoleezza Rice despite Berlin‘s first lady not even featuring in the 2005 ratings.
http://euobserver.com/9/22313/?rk=1
From: Mr. Waffle
To: His loving wife
Subject: RE: McAleese comes in at 55
And Dooce?
Kerry
It all seems so long ago. What with the trauma of Doggy and the drive to Dublin and everything (no sign, since you ask, no reply to the pathetic fax either). The parents-in-law rented a house to which we were all invited to stay (and do your parents-in-law organise holidays for you? No, hah, you should have chosen your husband with greater care). Our holidays are now officially the cheapest part of your year as we live off our loving parents.
Despite rain almost every day, we also had sunshine almost every day – that’s Kerry for you. The publishing exec who spent all her childhood summers in Kerry had memories of golden sunshine and she packed accordingly. On her first morning (need I say that the Princess was overwhelmed with excitement upon catching sight of her aunt – for a normally articulate child, all she could do was yelp) she arrived down to breakfast (early, the disadvantage of being beloved by the Princess, she likes the objects of her affection up good and early) scantily clad. She was preparing to go to Skellig Michael with the piccolo cugino and his insane parents (by the time we had arrived they had already been kayaking and visited Daniel O’Connell’s house, later they snorkelled and the brother-in-law ran up a mountain – you may determine on which of these ventures they brought their son). Her father and I looked at her converse runners, skinny jeans and skimpy top dubiously. Oh she said airily “I have a woolly jumper”. How we laughed when we realised that she meant something like this rather than this. So off they went. The Princess and I had contemplated going but were spared the ordeal by inertia. For ordeal it was. As the publishing exec said “those monks were hardy”. As you know hermits like to retreat to the desert. Ireland has always been thin on deserts (that rain again) so they went to Skellig Michael as next best thing, it being remote and miserable. They all came back looking like refugees on the telly (except the piccolo cugino, who seemed fine). The publishing exec said that they had sat on the boat on the way out with a crate around their feet to try to keep warm and while the boatman’s assertion that there was a covered space on his craft was technically accurate, I think that the party had envisaged something more than a small square of tarpaulin which would cover only one person at a time. The island was very beautiful and so on but the steep steps, no handrail and knowledge that they would have to go back on the boat kept the party suitably nervous.
Meanwhile, we were having a lovely time back at base deploying the expert babysitting services that were a feature of our time in Ireland. At least once every day we went out with no children at all. Gasp. We went to a smart restaurant. The unfortunate publishing exec spent hours on the beach with the Princess starting before 9 one morning and only coming back at lunch time. No greater felicity can be imagined for all parties involved. Except maybe the publishing exec. And probably, the parents-in-law were tried pretty high the night we came back to find all three children up and the Princess bouncing off the walls saying “this is ridiculous, we should be in bed”.
We got to see a bit more of the piccolo cugino on this trip. He is the best child. Smiley, gorgeous and sleeps through the night. Of course, my children are smiley and gorgeous too but you will spot the significant respect in which they differ. I wonder could it be diet. I watched in awe as my sister-in-law spooned home made mush (cinnamon and sweet potato) into her willing son’s mouth. “What are you feeding the boys?” my mother-in-law asked me, perhaps worried that I would feel left out. “Um, I forgot to look at the label”. “Maybe carrot” opined the Princess looking at the orange gloop in the bowl. A low moment. When the piccolo cugino abandoned one of his meals in Kerry, I surreptitiously swooped it up and fed it to the boys. They were delighted. It was unfortunate that, as they finished it off, the piccolo cugino decided that he would like some more; I can see a lifetime of this torture by his big cousins ahead of him. Poor mite.
The Princess had a fabulous holiday and, if she’s happy we all are. She adores her relatives and seeing her interacting with them makes me sad that we don’t live in Ireland. We went to the beach every day. I swam twice and one of those times it wasn’t raining. We went for walks, we went to the hotel for drinks. It was very like the holidays I had with my parents and we loved it. Even the kiddies in the hotel were like the ones from my youth. No ipods, no playstations, just down in the basement playing with the moth eaten toys in the game room.
Back in Dublin we got together a number of our friends with children and sat around marvelling at our progeny and exchanging news briefly between bouts of “what a gorgeous baby, clever boy, good girl etc.”. Unfortunately, one friend does not have children. The poor man, he should never have been invited. It was hard to tell which part of the afternoon was the worst, was it when I sneezed on him (I seem to have become allergic to Dublin), when one of my friends and I sat opposite him on the sofa breastfeeding or when the Princess came in and took off all her clothes? I bet he’s really keen to have kids himself now or maybe allergies?
The tragic incident of the dog in the plane
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 himâ€.
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 (â€Doggyâ€) 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?â€
