Her: You know the double helix?
Me: Eh?
Her [with a sigh]: As discovered by Crick and Watson [pause] and Franklin?
Me [fighting back]: Ahem, was that a pause before Franklin?
Her [winning]: Yes, for dramatic effect.
Princess
November
Herself: Not the bus, I hate the bus.
Me: Yes, the bus.
Her: I shouldn’t have to get the bus.
Me: I beg your pardon? There is nothing wrong with the bus. You get the bus home from school most days. Why would you say that?
Her: Those November Nablopomo posts aren’t going to write themselves, you know.
Yes indeed, we’ll be here all month.
End of an Era
When the Princess was a small girl, she used to hit people. Her grandmother, the psychologist, said it was much better to incentivise than to punish as, she observed wisely, “You run out of punishments.” So for many years, at the end of the Princess’s day, if she hadn’t hit someone she got a smiley face. Relatively early on this turned into a complete win for her as she didn’t hit people very often and every time she got five smiley faces she got a small present. Efforts to extend the smiley face criteria beyond physical violence to other forms of misbehaviour were largely unsuccessful due to the less definite descriptions of the fault and the consequent room for debate. In time, the regime was extended to her brothers.
Her involvement was phased out and replaced with pocket money of €5. In recent years, the boys are in her former situation, where physical violence is minimal and smiley face presents are many. Since the smiley face presents are almost always a magazine, we have recently negotiated with the boys that their smiley faces will be replaced by a subscription to the Beano. And just like that, a regime which has been going since 2007, at least, is over. On balance, the relief in not having to find smiley face presents makes it all worthwhile.
I hope that, in the absence of incentives, it doesn’t all return to primeval chaos here.
Halloween Prep
L to R: dead bridesmaid, minecraft zombie, evil lumberjack
The Pain of the Parish Pedant
We had the parable of the unjust judge at mass recently. The archbishop came. He gave a great sermon but it contained the following line: “scripture scholars tell us that it was not that this judge was corrupt or took bribes, it was just that he was disinterested”. I said to herself after mass, “Well what did you think of the archbishop?” She replied, “He doesn’t know the difference between uninterested and disinterested.” That’s my girl.
Bread
The Princess is experimenting with yeast. It’s all going very well. Oh rejoice. Thank you Great British Bake-Off.
