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Archives for July 2006

How was your weekend?

31 July, 2006
Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle

Dinner on Friday was delightful.  Because he loves me and, clearly, we are made of money, Mr. Waffle had tried to book Comme Chez Soi (much posher and more exclusive than its, frankly alarming, website makes it seem) but it was closed for the holidays – as he pointed out, July 28th is a great day to get married but not a fantastic date for restaurant reservations.  Fortunately, Brussels abounds in opportunities to spend all your money on excellent food and he opted for L’Ecailler du Palais Royal  where we lowered the average age in the restaurant considerably, which, let’s face it, doesn’t happen to us so much any more, and were the only people there who a) were not Belgian and b) did not have fat bank accounts in Luxembourg.  The food was fabulous and we had a delightful evening even allowing for a little embarrassment about the bill.  It’s hard to know who was more embarrassed, Mr. Waffle for pointing out that they had inadvertently charged €111 euros rather than 11 for my dessert or the waiter who was absolutely mortified and entered into detailed explanations about how their bill totter had knocked off for the night and someone else was adding up etc. etc.

It was as well that we had a lovely evening on Friday, because we needed that rosy glow to sustain us over the weekend.  Daniel was awake all Saturday night with a temperature (cheering thought – start of chicken pox perhaps?).  Michael was awake all Sunday night for the hell of it.  The Princess wet the bed on Saturday and Sunday night (having been accident free for weeks) and refused to nap on Sunday when we really, really needed her to have a nap.  And Bill Gates is torturing us.  His latest update says that we may be a victim of illegal counterfeiting. We are not.  Our installation disk, however, which will allow Bill to check that this is really the case, in 14 simple steps, is in the cellar under mounds of baby rubbish. Bill will not let us deinstall our latest update and nor will he stop annoying us with little windows telling us that we may be victims of fraud. I suppose we’ll have to set aside a couple of hours to dig out his bloody disk.  Time when we could be SLEEPING.

And I am seriously beginning to wonder whether exhaustion is making me lose my mind.  I cannot remember anything for more than two seconds.  Sample conversation with my spouse:

Him (to Michael): Voilà un beau papillon.

Me (a little later): Michael has dropped the whatchamacallit.

Him (tending to Daniel): Eh?

Me (tending to Princess): Can you give Michael the yokeemebob, the er, the umbrella.

Him: What?

Me: It’s all your fault you said papillon and that made me think of parapluie and that made me think of umbrella.

Him: Do you want me to give Michael back the butterfly?

At least the weather has broken.

My perfect husband

28 July, 2006
Posted in: Mr. Waffle

Him: Are you tired?

Me: Yes.

Him: Fed up?

Me: Yes.

Him: Did you know that today is our fifth wedding anniversary?

Me: Oh God, I forgot.

Him: I have booked a babysitter and dinner.

Clarification

26 July, 2006
Posted in: Princess

Her: I brought Doggy downstairs.

Me: I don’t like you bringing him out of the house, you know that.

Her: Why?

Me: Because we might lose him.

Her: And what would happen?

Me: I would cry.

Her: Your cheeks would be profaned by a tear?

Me: Yes.

Nana 25 July 1984

25 July, 2006
Posted in: Family

My employment barrister friend says that the law library is full of young barristers trying to give themselves additional gravitas by employing the tics of older colleagues.  Then, as time goes on, they keep up the tics out of habit.  She thinks it’s quite likely that some particular tics have been knocking around since the 19th century.

I look at my (currently still poxy, since you ask) girl and I can see that she uses my turn of phrase. When I say “would you like to do whatever” she doesn’t say “yes” she says “I would”.  Mr. Waffle maintains that this is an Irish thing in general as there is no word for yes or no in the Irish language, Irish people tend to answer questions by repeating the verb.  But this is mere quibbling.  She also has the same hand gestures as me when she’s talking. This isn’t a genetic inheritance, it’s a hanging around with me inheritance, like the barristers in the law library.  Meanwhile, I can hear myself turning into my mother.  And I suppose that my mother is like her mother, my Nana.  And I can’t tell you how pleased this realisation has made me because my Nana was fabulous and I adored her. 

Poxy – Further installment

24 July, 2006
Posted in: Family

The Princess is firmly on the mend and her spots are no longer sore. They are revolting though and falling off all over the place [“Mummy, I don’t want my yoghurt” – “Why not, honey?” – “My rash fell into it” – Delightful]. We are watching the boys anxiously for signs of spots. They had to go to the doctor for shots this morning and he reassured us that the spots on Michael’s face are just a heat rash. Our paediatrician is very nice and everything but he assumes that we know everything. “No fever, no disease, which of course you know”. Er, no, actually. “For the chicken pox, no aspirin, which, of course, you know”. Er, no, didn’t know that either. Of course, it’s not nice to be patronised by your doctor, but surely there must be a middle ground. I am reminded of a post by GP mama some time ago (which I cannot find to link) where she described lecturing medical students and asking them where their prostate was and none of them knew. She said “remember this moment, because in years to come, you will think that you learnt where your prostate was at the same time as you learnt where your tummy and your arms and legs are”.


Over the weekend the Princess developed a spot on her eyeball, painful, alarming and according to google (bloody google), potentially dangerous. On Saturday night after they were all in bed we agonised about what to do. Should we call the paediatric service in the local hospital? But suppose that they said come in and we would have to wake her up. When she had gone to bed at
MIDNIGHT on Thursday and 10.00 on Friday and we were teetering about on the end of our tether. Eventually, concern for our daughter’s welfare (just) outweighed our desire to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Some tired doctor from the paediatric service was summoned to talk to us (who’d be a doctor?) and she said, unlike the internet “oh yeah, very common, buy some zovirax ophthalmologique”. Excellent, another medicament to acquire which she won’t let us apply, at least it may be useful for the boys or for us.

Oh yes indeed, a series of checks with our parents has revealed that neither Mr. Waffle nor I have had chicken pox. My mother waxed eloquent on mumps and measles (“you were deaf for two years between four and six, you became an excellent lip reader” – a skill I have, regrettably, not retained) but no chicken pox. By all accounts, chicken pox is very infectious and deeply unpleasant for adults. The best dressed diplomat sent me an email with what, I am sure, she intended to be cheering words: ‘if it’s any consolation, it’s much better they get it at this age. The older you are, the sicker you are. I got it in my mid 20s [and it was dreadful]… [s]o you’re saved the trauma of being the middle-aged mother of a twenty-something driven to tears and the foetal position.” Not, in fact, cheering, in the circumstances. Let us trust that our parents have just forgotten our suffering through the pain and anguish of chicken pox.

Poxy – continued

23 July, 2006
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

Her: I have as many spots as there are stars in the sky.

Me: That’s a lot of spots.

Him: Though it’s daytime now and there aren’t any stars in the sky.

Me: Yes there are, you just can’t see them.

Him: That’s what YOU say, Columbus.

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