Her: I was glad that Santa didn’t give me a lump of coal.
Me: Me too.
Her: Who does he give coal to?
Me: Bad children.
Her: Am I sometimes bad?
Me: Well, yes, like when you had a hissy fit in the supermarket on Saturday and everybody looked at us and I was mortified.
Her: What do good children do?
Me: When their parents say they can’t have something, they don’t make a fuss.
Her: Not even a small hissy fit?
Me: Not even a small hissy fit.
Her: Are there any good children in real life?
Her: Look Mummy, a Smart.
Me: Actually, sweetheart, it’s a Cinquecento. You know Mummy used to live in Rome and a lot of people have Cinquecentos there because they’re easy to park.
Her: Did you have one?
Me: No, I had a moped.
Her: What’s a moped?
Me: Like a motorbike only smaller, I’ll show you one someday.
Her: In a museum?
Her: When I grow up I want to be a fishmonger?
Me: Why sweetheart?
Her: I want to know about fish.
Later.
Her: When I grow up, I want to be a thief. Pause. I don’t want to go to prison though. Further pause. Mummy, you said children don’t go to prison, didn’t you?
We had a parent-teacher meeting for the Princess the week before last which I found very comforting. Her teacher showed an admirable level of knowledge about our little girl which, considering that there are 26 kids in the class is, I think, no mean feat.  She showed us how the Princess was progressing on acquiring the range of skills that children are supposed to know by the end of the year and it was all very welcome and illuminating.  That child is so like me (she is a fidget – when I eat dinner in Cork, my father places all the condiments out of my reach so that I will not irritate him by unconsciously playing with them –  and a daydreamer) and her father (she is too cautious to do many of the exercises in gym and she is stubborn as a mule). For me, what was best was that she said that the Princess was very like 70% of children and just didn’t make friends in a way that we would understand the term. I can see that this is true from her interactions with other children but I’m relieved to hear that its completely normal.
Following an admirable tradition thought up by the Dutch Mama, soft toys in our house are called after their donors. The Princess won a giraffe at the fair and we asked the stall holder his name so that we could pass it on to the giraffe (suitably feminised as the giraffe was definitely a girl).
“Francoise” said our girl “what a strange name”. Her father and I protested that it was a classic French name. “Like Manon”. She shook her head. “Or Sophie.” “No, but”, she volunteered hopefully, “we have two Imanes in our class”.
At mass on Sunday, there was a table with markers and paper set aside for small children. The Princess bounded up. There was another little girl ensconced colouring a little Kitty picture slowly and deliberately. “These” she said covering them with an arm “are my markers”. Although there were lots of other markers, it soon became abundantly clear why she had brought her own as none of the church supplied ones worked at all well. The Princess was distraught. Had I a biro? I had not.
There was another small girl drawing at the table with a solitary pen her grandmother had given her. She said to me “would your little girl like to borrow my pen?”. I nearly hugged her. Great rejoicing ensued and the two children bonded and shared the pen and at the sign of peace wandered round the church together and cordially shook hands with everyone in the congregation.
There’s a moral there somewhere.