Princess

The other morning the Princess arrived into our room at 7.30 fully dressed asking whether there was anything she could do to help us. She got her brothers up and got them dressed. We were all ready to go out the door at 8.30. This exceptional behaviour has not been repeated. Sometimes, I think that she likes to taunt us.

The Princess turned six on Easter Sunday. She seems very big all of a sudden. When choosing books for her to read, I find myself hesitating. Is this picture book too babyish for her? When she holds my hand, I am conscious that she may not be doing so for much longer. She is almost too heavy to carry upstairs. She still has her doggy, though.

Archive shot of the household’s favourite dog:

I take my hat off to the Irish school system (or possibly, my daughter is a genius, I am reluctant to dismiss this possibility out of hand). After seven months in its care, the Princess can read and speak a new language. Her Irish is really quite fluent and so is her reading. Perhaps because she started to read relatively late, she has picked it up very quickly. Only a couple of months ago, very basic texts were hard work and now she is reading proper stories though it is still hard work. I was reading her “Lotta” by Astrid Lindgren who was a big favourite of mine when I was a child. She stopped me and said “I know what happens, she goes into the dentist but doesn’t open her mouth”. This was exactly what happened. I asked her father had he read it to her. He had not. I was amazed. This seems extraordinary to me for a child who a very short time a ago was struggling with “The little red hen”.

She received some “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical” material for her birthday. I am a little disturbed by this stuff. Her favourite present is a remote controlled robot but a close second comes a pen which plays a snippet from “High School Musical” with which I am now only too familiar “Towels imported from Turkey/Turkey [or possibly jerky] imported from Maaaiiine/I want fabulous that is my simple request/I want fabulous that is my simple request/All things fabulous bigger and better and best/All things fabulous bigger and better and best”. In third place is a Hannah Montana normal room which transforms into a stage set. She likes fiddling with that though rather than anything else. She also got a booklet of questions from highschool musical: “Is Sharpay fabulous?” [Your guess is as good as mine but I can tell you that she wants fabulous] ; “Can you draw your favourite animal?”; “What boy would you like to kiss?”. Spot the question which I would regard as inappropriate for a six year old. I remember when “Grease” came out we all talked about it all the time (though I can still feel the mortification I endured when I was first asked had I been to Grease and I replied innocently, no we always go to France) but we were 11 and my mother wouldn’t let me go anyhow. I don’t want to take her to see “High School Musical” but I don’t want her to be the only child in her class who hasn’t seen it either. I gather that Hannah Montana the film will be reaching us shortly. I can’t wait.

She gets on well with her brothers when she wants to. She lets them into her room as a reward for good behaviour and they would never dare to venture in at other times. She can get them to do pretty much anything and sometimes when I am desperate, I will say, “use your powers for good and persuade your brothers to come up here and wash their teeth”. Yes, I know, excellent parenting.

It must be pointed out that managing her brothers presents her with considerably more difficulty than it did when they were first in her life:

She guards her bedroom with terrifying ferocity. I am not allowed in without permission but I venture inside nonetheless. Since I spend my time in there tidying up, my passage is always apparent and she is very cross with me. “You know that you are not allowed into my bedroom without permission.” My response is always the satisfyingly motherly “I will stay out of your bedroom when you keep it tidy and I do not need to go in to clean it up”.

We continue with the smiley face regime where each evening we review her behaviour during the day and she gets a smiley face, a straight face or a sad face. If she gets five smiley faces in a row, then she gets a treat. Though she often appears to be indifferent when we talk (standing on her head, lying on the floor, playing with a toy), I think it does make a difference. One of the questions on her High School Musical booklet is what makes you happy and underneath she had written “when I get five smiley faces”.

Sometimes, I feel that we have an adolescent in the house. She rolls her eyes at us. Recently when balked on some front, she announced “I hate my Mummy and my Daddy”. But mostly, she adores us.

She never wants to leave the house. Every proposal that we go on an outing of any kind is met with a request to be left at home. Is this normal? When we do go out, she usually has a great time. We went to a playground with an enormous rope pyramid recently and she climbed up and down without any difficulty. I was very surprised how daring she has become for a child who was very cautious in the past.

Mr. Waffle has, foolishly, told her that there is no Easter bunny. The other day, she said to me, “If there’s no Easter bunny, is there a Santa Claus?” I do not want my six year old to doubt the existence of Santa. “You have to tell the truth,” she said. “Of course there’s a Santa Claus.”

She still hates mass. My parents got her a Bible for children for her birthday and she read it at mass on Easter Sunday [I have to go to mass on my birthday?] – this may be the way to go as she sat quietly reading instead of hanging upside down on the pew begging to go home. I note that her Bible skips over some of the more difficult parts of the Old Testament – Garden of Eden – yes, Cain and Abel – no, Jacob’s Ladder – yes, Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac – no [I must check that the plagues are in – her grandmother asked her to be sure and read them as they were her uncle’s favourite part of the Old Testament]. The Garden of Eden story when stripped to the level a six year old will understand looks like a quite powerful indictment of female curiousity and desire to learn, doesn’t it? Between the Bible and Hannah Montana, I feel that we are covering a wide range of gender questions.

Our girl loves to talk. She is companionable, when she is not imperious. She is kind and loving. She is stubborn but she is funny. She loves to laugh. She is endlessly curious. And, my goodness, she is six. Happy birthday my darling girl.

Geepeemama and Beth have both recently interviewed their children. I give you the Princess’s combined answers to both sets of questions.

1. What is something mummy always says to you?
Brush your teeth.

2. What makes mummy happy?
When children are good

3. What makes mummy sad?
When children are bad

4. How does your mummy make you laugh?
By doing funny things

5. What did your mummy like to do when she was a child?
Eat chocolate, I suppose.

6. How old is your mummy ?
I don’t know. 29? [This despite prolonged exposure to my rolling 40th birthday celebrations].

7. How tall is your mummy ?
Very, compared to me.

8. What is her favorite thing to watch on TV?
University Challenge

9. What does your mummy do when you’re not around?
Tidies up, I suppose [Entirely correct]

10. If your mummy becomes famous, what will it be for?
I don’t know. Drawing? [Really, very unlikely].

11. What is your mummy really good at?
Not losing her temper.

12. What is your mummy not very good at?
Being cross when children are bold.

13. What does your mummy do for her job?
I don’t know.

14. What is your mummy ‘s favorite food?
You’ve got me there.

15. What makes you proud of your mummy?
When she wins a competition [I never win competitions]

16. If your mummy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Sleeping Beauty.

17. What do you and your mummy do together?
Go to nice cafes.

18. How are you and your mummy the same?
We tidy up the same way.

19. How are you and your mummy different?
We don’t have the same hair colour.

20. How do you know your mummy loves you?
Because she’s my mummy and she’s very kind to me and she just gave me a big hug.

21. What does your mummy like most about your daddy?
He’s kind and very generous.

22. Where is your mummy ‘s favorite place to go?
I don’t know. Mummy where is it?

And now, GPMama’s questions.

1. What’s your favorite TV show? I don’t have one.
2. What’s two plus two? Four.
3. What is your favorite knock knock joke. Knock knock. Who’s there? Boo. Boo who? Don’t cry, it’s OK. [I read this out to her from GP mama’s replies and she loved it and repeated it straight back. Jokes are not her long suit].
4. What do you want for your birthday? A pirate ship.
5. If you could have one wish, what would you wish for? That fairies existed. [In more recent times, we might have added the Easter Bunny. My response on the Easter Bunny was to say that there was no Easter Bunny when I was a child so I didn’t know anything about him. Mr. Waffle’s response was to say that ther is no Easter Bunny. She was shocked and amazed: really, really? There’s no Easter Bunny?]
6. Favorite color? Orange
7. How do you make biscuits? I don’t know. You need flour and eggs.
8. Why do we exercise? To make us fitter and thinner [eh? where did this come from?]
9. What’s your favorite food that’s good for you? Plums
10. What’s your favorite holiday? Camping. But you’ve never been camping. It’s still my favourite.
11. Something Daddy did that he wasn’t supposed to? He was cross with the children.
12. Who’s a better at cleaning – Mummy or Daddy? Both.
13. What’s your favorite book? “Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book”

The Princess and I had a day off together last Friday. We went to the Metropolis exhibtion in Trinity which she found moderately entertaining and we went for tea and a bun which she probably enjoyed more. In the tea and bun shop, there was a beardy student reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. I drew my own slightly snarky conclusions about this. As he was going out the door he said to me, “excuse me, I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t help overhearing you and your daughter’s conversation (few people can help it, we are loud, alas) and what I heard of her was delightful”. I felt chastened and also slightly alarmed about the implications for the pretention levels of our conversation (this was, I would say, relatively high as the Princess had decided to demonstrate her linguistic prowess and even I, the greatest show-off alive in captivity, felt that this was somewhat overdone and kept hissing at her to keep it down – “Mais maman je veux parler en Francais, why do I have to speak English to you, ba cheart duinn Gaeilge a labhairt”)