I took this picture before I went into work the other morning. Observe, my noble bicycle carrying my handbag, both boys’ schoolbags and my briefcase.
Middle Child
Sic Transit
I am at home with the children this afternoon. The boys were gratifyingly pleased to see me. We chatted. Then Michael said he was going to the kitchen for a snack. “Can you come with me to talk to me?” he asked. “Of course,” I said. “Not you, Mum,” he said, “Daniel, I want to talk to Daniel.” “Although,” he added kindly, “you can come as well if you like.”
Attending
Daniel did a big tidy up of his room before Christmas. He lined up his various trophies thematically on the mantelpiece and on top of his chest of drawers. For the first time I noticed that he has loads of school attendance trophies. While his brother and sister often miss school due to illness, he almost never does. My son is a man of steel (I am unclear why he has two for 2010/11 – possibly user error saw the school use the wrong date one year). Anyhow, I was suitably impressed by this evidence of robust good health.
There’s Still a Mountain to Climb
Mr. Waffle was up with Daniel at the GAA club before Christmas. A number of players from the women’s and men’s county teams were there to talk to the children and do some training with them. There were about 500 boys and girls there.
One of the Dublin team players said to the children, “Who’s the best at handstands?” Mr. Waffle said all of the boys immediately put their hands in the air. Very few girls’ hands went up. Instead, the girls started talking amongst themselves, “Are you the best? No, I’m not the best, maybe X is the best.” And so on. Ironically, given that far more of the girls are doing gymnastics (yes, a gendered space that), de facto it was likely that far more of the girls could do handstands. Capacity doesn’t really seem to matter in these contexts though, does it?
Nervous
I had lunch with a friend yesterday and she asked me how I had told my children about the Trump presidency. “I kind of let them draw their own conclusions,” I said.
But on foot of that I was talking to them this evening and asked them what they thought. They started to sing “Duck and Cover“. This is a song which we heard when we visited the war museum in Caen a couple of years ago and it has stayed with us for its hilarious understatement of the effects of a nuclear bomb. It’s from a US public safety video from the 1950s. Herself stopped singing and said, “But now we know that hiding under school desks is not going to save us from the nuclear bomb.”
“Well,” I said, “remember [very tall Dutch friend] who works inspecting nuclear power generators?” “Yeah,” she said, “sitting under the desk is definitely not going to work for him.” “No, no, it’s just that he said that radiation goes for the thyroid and the most serious damage is done straight after the blast. If you take iodine tablets straight away, then your chances of survival are pretty good.”
Reassuring. I thought you would like to know. I think I was right that the children had drawn their own conclusions about the Trump presidency though.
Bitter, Bitter, Bitter
The boys found the classic “Owl Babies” on the bookshelf. It’s the story of three baby owls waiting for their mother to come home. Looking through it, Daniel said “They’re like us; an older girl, a middle boy and a younger boy.” They looked nostalgically at the illustrations for a while, then Michael piped up, “Not really, because the eldest owl isn’t playing on her mobile phone.”
The Princess got a phone as an early Christmas present from her uncle and aunt and we have not determined what the rules are about usage and into this vacuum has seeped 24 hour usage by herself and an ocean of bitterness on the part of her brothers. Not our finest parenting hour, something will have to be done. Sigh.