Daniel having hurt his toe: Oh God, please take the pain away it’s so sore.
Me: Sweetheart, I’m not sure that’s how prayer works.
Daniel: Oh God, PLEASE take the pain away and give it to Michael.
Boys
The Age of Reason
The Princess turned 7 today. This is the first year of my own life which I remember with some clarity and I wonder whether it will be the same for her.
I took a half day from work and picked her up from school as a surprise. We bought high school musical stationery (ah girls and their love of stationery), sandals to celebrate the change in the weather, tea and a bun which we enjoyed in silence: I read my book, she read her Beano. Then we browsed in a bookshop amicably together and went home. When we got home, we found that the boys and the childminder, M, had put up balloons and bunting and made her a cake. M had also bought her a present. Relatives called to wish her happy birthday. Shortly after M’s departure, my brother and sister arrived weighed down with presents. And we finally got the walkie talkie we gave her in the morning to work. She had such a great day. And that is not always the case. For example, she spent much of her birthday last year sulking in her room.
I seem to remember that 7 used to be regarded as the age at which children can give uncorroborated evidence in court and I can see why. The Princess is much better at seeing things and describing them in ways other people can understand. Smaller children can describe what they’ve seen but it’s as though they have no points of reference in common with you. They’re speaking another language. She has lots of points of reference in common with adults.
Mind you, sometimes, I think that we attribute more knowledge to her than she has. She really startled me the other day by saying that she had thought that you got change from every commercial transaction. When she paid the exact amount some months ago (counted out by me, she was buying a stuffed turtle), she was surprised not to get change. I remember the incident and I would never have thought that, at that stage, she didn’t really understand how money worked. She has a very extensive vocabulary (today she described herself as “tempted by several different cakes to the amusement of the people at the table next to us) which she does not always deploy in a manner which indicates understanding but she does like words.
She reads a lot and she hates to be told anything. I suppose, as an eldest child, she suffers from the full weight of her parents’ didactic tendencies (poor Daniel is always begging to be asked sums but we seem to have used up all our energy on herself). And sometimes, she does know surprising things. One day, in the wake of one of their unhappier interludes, I described herself and her father as being like diamond on diamond. “Why do I say that?” I asked her. “Because diamond is the hardest thing.” “That’s right and you know what’s interesting about diamond? It’s made from carbon atoms and do you know something else that’s made from carbon atoms?” I asked, about to trot out everyone’s favourite science fact. But she answered “Yes, coal.” “How do you know that?” I asked. “I read it in my science book.” That science book gets a lot of reading. I’m unclear how much she understands but she loves it.
It seems almost incredible that this whole loving, clever, beloved little person with views (oh how she has views), likes, dislikes, friends, conversation and a personality (lots of personality) was once a tiny baby. Although seeing her closing her eyes and sucking her thumb when I put her to bed tonight reminded me that she’s not so big as all that. Of course, it’s easy for me to check what has changed as, unbeknownst to herself (insert appropriate quantity of guilt here) my daughter has lived a life online. I hope that, on balance, someday, she will be pleased that so much of her youth is set out here. I think it might be interesting to read about what happened to her when she was little from a grown-up’s point of view and match it to her memory. She is part of the very first generation of blogged about children – it’s different from being in a book or being in a newspaper column. It’s more anonymous yet more detailed. I think that it is also less intimate than a book where more seems to leak out and, of course, it’s much, much more common and that’s probably a good thing. If the worst comes to the worst, all this can serve as a basis for her PhD research.
Happy birthday my favourite girl in the whole world.
A Mother’s Lot
A (very religious) friend said to me that he thinks that some people take their children to mass like they take them to swimming lessons – it’s something useful for them to know. I felt a distinct twinge of guilt. Especially when I recollected my maternal pride on hearing that the Princess had collected an Easter egg at her Sunday school thing by identifying the man who helped Jesus carry the cross. Your best guess in the comments below please. No googling.
The Princess has dropped out of her holiday course in the Alliance Française. Due to her idiot mother’s assumption that the course would be for bilingual children, she was forced to spend the day learning to count in French. Although she explained to the teacher (in French) that she could already count and even say her name in French, she was not let out (well where would they send her?). She was very cross. I was very guilt ridden. On the plus side, the Alliance say that they will give me my money back. Hurrah.
As I entered the house after a long day at work, the childminder was leaving it. “What’s it like in there?” I asked her. Normally she is resolutely upbeat. “It’s murder,” said she, “they are all tired, cranky and whacking each other.”
Michael wants a Nintendo DS. He can’t have one. “Why? Jack has one.” “Because you’re four and I say no.” A river of tears follows.
The country has given all its money to the banks. In fact, money that it hasn’t got. Every public servant in the country got pay cuts of between 10 and 20 per cent and it saved the exchequer 4 billion. Apparently we’ll need 30 billion to keep the banks going. Do you think that the public servants would like to work for nothing? I am annoyed with the banks. I am also unclear who benefited from the reckless lending. Not the shareholders, not the taxpayer, not the banks and, it appears, not even the developers who took out the massive loans we and our children will be paying back. Unless the developers all have Swiss bank accounts. Aha. Of course, now that the State effectively owns the banks, we can regard the forthcoming increase in interest rates on our mortgages as a saving really.
And it’s snowing today. Appropriate.
Vignettes from the babysitting dungeon – in case you were wondering how my sister got on last weekend
A phone call.
Me (sitting on a chair by a pond in the Tuileries): Hi, how is everything going?
Sister (in Dublin minding offspring): Not great, I am making pancakes, the smoke alarm has gone off, the children are screaming and the cat is pooing in the kitchen. How are things in Paris?
A further phone call
Me (sipping tea in a Parisian cafe): Hi, how is everything going?
Sister (at the side of the road in the car): Not great. Your daughter won’t stop saying “church in a church” and it’s driving me and the boys insane so please will you talk to her.
Daughter: Church in a church, church in a church, church in a church..
Me: What does that mean?
Daughter: Church in a church, church in a church, church in a church…
Me: Unless you stop saying that straight away, there will be no Club Penguin for a week.
Daughter: Eek.
Sister: Thank you that seems to have worked.
Card Sharp
Michael is very good at cards. So far he has only played memory, happy families and snap/beggar my neighbour but he has shown remarkable competence at all of them. He is capable of beating his brother and sister hollow. If he loses a trick, unlike his siblings, he is unconcerned and never leaves the table in a huff. The other day, I came in from work and he replayed for me a losing hand of beggar my neighbour explaining how he had, very unluckily, lost his jack (the most valuable card) as his sister had put a queen on top. I see a career in bridge beckoning. Next time I go to Cork, I think I will get my mother to initiate him into the mysteries of 110.
Old Testament and New
Princess: What’s Passover?
Me: Why?
Her: It’s on my Lenten calendar.
Me: Oh right, well you know the plagues of Eygpt, locusts, frogs, rivers of blood and so on?
All three children: YES!
Me: Well the last thing was that God said he would kill all the first born children of the Egyptians, if they wouldn’t let the Israelites go.
Daniel (in shock): GOD WHO LOVES US?
Me: Well, yeees…
Daniel: Really?
Me: Weelll, you know, it’s um, anyway, moving on, the Jews ate a special meal and put a mark on the door so that the Angel of Death would pass over their houses, “pass over” get it? Hence Passover.
Daniel: Maybe God was joking and he wasn’t really going to kill them.
Me: Um, yes, maybe he was.