Princess

Email from a good friend describing a telephone call to our house:

Princess: Hellooo?

Me: Is that the Princess?

Her (delighted): Yes!! It is!!
Me: Is Mummy there, Princess?

Her: Emm, yes. Who are you?

Friend tells the Princess her name.

Her: What? I don’t know that name…(mumble, sings a little)

Me: I’m a friend of Mummy’s. Is she there? Can you get her?

M: I don’t knoooow.
Me(trying new approach): Is Daddy there?

Her: I don’t know. Bye.

She hung up in boredom at around that point. But she sounds very like you when she says hello.

The very thoughtful and suspicious way in which she said she didn’t know that name was rather disturbing (no, that name is not on our records, do you have a file number?)I see a future as a visa officer in the Dept of Justice…or the Indian Embassy perhaps.

I try to always answer the Princess truthfully. Insofar as possible, given my ignorance of the world and her relatively limited comprehension, I also try to explain to her everything she asks.

This is a random list of things I have attempted to explain to the Princess:

why a watched kettle never boils;

what a microscope is and how it works;

how to try the patience of a saint (in this regard, I have been a little too successful, the other day she said to me “Jaysus, Mummy, you’d try the patience of a saint);

why cold taps are blue and hot taps are red;

why it is rude to comment on the appearance of others, unless you want to say something nice;

what a passport is for and why it would be bad to lose one;

how Jesus was crucified (we had a Thomas like inspection of the holes in his hands and feet on the pieta in the church, peering at the blood on his chest the Princess pronounced, in her penetrating tones, somewhat to the surprise of nearby worshippers, “he has blood where his breasts would be, if he was* a woman but he’s not a woman, so he doesn’t have breasts to give a baby milk like I will when I’m a grown-up and I have a baby);

why eggs go bad, milk goes off and bread goes stale;

why it is important to tell the truth but not necessarily important to tell guests, when they ask whether Mummy made the biscuits, that no, she bought them in IKEA;

why it is inappropriate to arrange a crib so that the baby Jesus is watched over tenderly by Mary and an ox while Joseph is relegated to the background, thereby giving the erroneus impession that the baby Jesus’s stepfather was an ox.

Honestly, it’s like trying to answer the British citizenship test. Except, I suppose, you don’t get deported, if you don’t have the detail of how the whips’ office works.

There are only two exceptions to this rule:

exact details on where babies come from; and

the truth about Santa Claus.

*Look, I know we both know that it should be “were” but she’s not perfect.

The GPmama is rather disapproving of the depressing nature of many fairytales – think “Babes in the Wood”, “Snow White” and so on. Myself, I’m not too pushed by the violence and misery depicted, mostly because the Princess seems to enjoy it so much (sort of like you might enjoy watching a scary film through your fingers) but even I draw the line at Irish legends. She, however, does not.
The Princess received “Irish Legends for Children” from friends of ours and she absolutely loves it. It features, inter alia, the following tales:

The children of Lir

Lir’s wife dies. He remarries and his new wife hates his four children. She turns them into swans for 900 years (leading incidentally to this poem which we learnt in school – just thought you’d like to know). Then when they hear a church bell, they turn into very old people and die.

Oisin in the land of Tir na n-Og (apologies to Irish purists for lack of fadas – accents to the rest of you).

Oisin meets beautiful Niamh on a white horse, she invites him back to her place. Off he goes promising family and friends to return shortly. He falls in love with Niamh in Tir na N-Og and marries her. After a couple of months he wants to go back to Ireland for a visit. Niamh begs him not to but eventually lets him go stipulating that he must not get off his horse. If I tell you that “Tir na n-Og” means land of youth in Irish, I think you can see where this is going. Back he goes to the old sod only to find that all his friends and relations are dead, it’s 300 years later and the new generation of Irish people are nothing like as strong and generally fabulous as their ancestors which is why he gets off the horse to help them move a heavy stone (the eejit). Guess what? The horse gallops off, he turns into an old, old man and dies. Are you beginning to see a theme here?

Deirdre of the Sorrows (I think we are forewarned by the title that this is unlikely to be a happy story)

Deirdre is born, the druids say kill her, she will bring great sorrow to Ulster. King Connor says, no, don’t kill her, send her off to be raised in isolation and I’ll marry her when she’s old enough. Just before ancient King Connor marries her, she meets a nice young fella called Naoise, they fall in love and after various travails, King Connor finds them and kills Naoise and his two warrior brothers and Deirdre dies of a broken heart. This unfortunate incident leads to a lot of unhappiness in Ulster and war breaks out (you will note that they’re still at it) as predicted by the druids (Cassandras for Northern climes). In the version I read in school, trees grow from Deirdre and Naoise’s twin graves and entwine but the Princess’s version rigourously eschews that kind of ersatz sentimentality.

Do you want to hear one of the more lighthearted stories where the only dead body is that of a faithful wolf hound? An English friend says it sounds like “Greyfriar’s Bobby”. I am not familiar with that work, but I somehow doubt it.

In negotiations, the union side has again raised the vexed issue of “mashed potatoes” or “purée”. Management is accused of stalling on this despite the issue being raised repeatedy, first at local level and then as a formal complaint (“Waah, I don’t want!) Assurances from management that the new year would see a full and final resolution of this issue by the introduction of a daily sandwich in substitution for the hot meal offered by the school were characterised by the union side as “too little, too late” (or words to this effect). On the more general issue, the stand-off between unions and management on the question of productivity and time-keeping continues. The unions threaten a walk out if management insists on the proposed frequency of school attendance (“Do I have to go every day Mummy?”). In its opening offer, management has suggested parking the issue for two weeks over the Christmas period. The union side has not yet given an official response but early indications are that this will be insufficient to stop drastic action.

Middle management fears that if school starts up again in January without any agreement, industrial relations will become stretched to breaking point. The union side could retaliate with, at best, a go-slow and, at worst, an all-out cessation of co-operation in the matter of morning dressing. A work to rule is already in operation (e.g. the Union side refuses to wear jumpers as these are not part of the basic clothing package; the union wishes to go out clad only in underpants and vest). In this explosive context, the slightest friction (e.g. over shoes) can quickly get out of hand.

Negotiations are scheduled to continue indefinitely with neither side showing any willingness to compromise on the core issue. Management maintains that ongoing schooling is essential to the viability of operations and without daily school attendance, the future of the project is at serious risk. The union side, for its part, chastises management as being “a big meanie”.