I am amused by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s estimation of itself. Reading Mr. Waffle’s Economist over his shoulder, I see that the FCO is looking for a Strategic Communications Director. All the usual requirements, blah, blah but number one on the bulleted list is “outstanding intellect”.
Apparently “[d]ynamic, high-calibre communicators will relish working in this intellectually rigorous culture”.
I’m sure they will.
The Princess was in foul form after school on Wednesday. Her friend L was mean to her and wouldn’t play with her. All the children were mean to her (inquiry on Y, nice girl I would like her to be friends with, elicits, ‘I don’t like her, she always wants to be my friend’, truly, life is complex) and only the grown-ups were nice and she had to walk around on her own.
“L said that she would kill you,” she said. “Well, that’s a very unpleasant thing to say and I hope you would never say that to another child,” I said piously. She asked, a touch anxiously, “she can’t kill you really, can she?” “Of course, she can’t,” I said. “That’s alright then,” she said, looking distinctly guilty, “because I said she could”. My poor little mite, my heart went out to her in her efforts to get in with L who blows hot and cold. She said, “I want to see my old friends” meaning my children’s friends and I thought, well at least she has them. Then on Friday, L came to visit and all was sweetness and light though I am touched by the way the Princess keeps giving L things to try to ensure her place in L’s affections. As L was leaving, the Princess gave L her helium balloon which she had played with all week and to which she was most attached. I only hope that L is a worthy object of her affection, but I doubt it. Hold the mother-in-law jokes please.
Meanwhile, Daniel is busy reinforcing the idea that Daddy is for Daniel and Michael is for Mummy. “Who wants to come out of the bath to Mama, Daniel will you come to me?” I asked. “No,” he said firmly “Michael Mama, Daniel Daddy”. “I’m Daniel’s Mama too,” I said forlornly. “No, Michael Mama” he reiterated sternly. I was heartbroken.
My husband is very bracing and robust about these things and says, “oh for heaven’s sake, they’ll all be fine”. It’s a relief one of us has a sense of perspective, I suppose.
We had some friends round this afternoon. A Scottish-Italian couple and their two children and an Italian woman and her daughter. The children started off speaking in English but quickly moved to French as the common lingua franca. The grown-ups spoke English to each other. I felt mildly embarrassed to be the main reason why two Italian women were speaking English to each other.
One of the mothers explained in graphic detail that this year, her nine year old had asked her a lot of questions about Santa Claus. So she said to her “OK, you really want to know, OK, I will tell you”. In the face of some alarm from me and the other parent with a four year old, her husband gracefully interrupted the anecdote with “So, she said to her ‘Yes, of course there is a Santa'”. That’s a relief, then. We discovered that the Befana does not bring Christmas presents to Italian children who live in Belgium which makes her presence in our lives even more baffling. We had some questions for our guests about the Befana and her ways.
Us: So Santa Claus lives in the North Pole and Saint Nicolas comes from Spain, where does the Befana live?
Guests: Elaborate shoulder shrugging, shocking ignorance.
Me (to Princess): Well, sweetheart, if the Italians don’t know…
Princess (in tones of wonderment): Are our visitors Italians?
There was some talk about multi-lingual schools because that’s what we’re like in foreign exotic Brussels and, in particular, the European School which has sections in all of the EU languages (except maybe Maltese, who knows?). One of the Italians has an Italian friend who is married to a Pole and they are sending their twins to the European School and they have put them in different classes (as the parents of twins are often advised to do) but in a weird twist, one twin is in the Polish section and one is in the Italian section. Is it just me or is this utterly bizarre?
We tossed them all out at 7.00 (none of them put their children to bed before 9.00 – shock, horror) to the regret and ire of our children. Much though we enjoyed seeing them, we were glad to see them go as we had decided to compress all our socialising for January into one day and our dinner guests would be arriving at 8.30.
And now, dinner is over, everyone is in bed and I should be too.
That is all.
Daniel is increasingly speaking in sentences. He finds the formulation “can I?” very useful. Can I look? Can I see it? Can I do it? He’s beginning to get to grips with grammar. Before when he needed help he would say “help you, help you” urgently. Now he says “help you me”. Since Christmas both he and Michael have learned to say “yes” and he has a particularly forceful and sibilant yes.
He loves dental floss and reaches a chubby arm for it the second he gets into the bathroom. He will pull out metres of it, if let. He loves getting his teeth flossed as well. I would like to put this on youtube for my dentist but I cannot. The second I pull out my camera, Daniel runs around to the back and says “can I see?” Remember waiting weeks to get photos and they were all the tops of people’s heads?
He does not seem to need much sleep. This is a matter of considerable regret to everyone; particularly Michael who shares a room with him and needs lots of sleep. Often of an evening, Daniel will be bellowing for room service (‘more milk woman, make it quick’) and Michael will be rocking in his cot moaning with his hands over his head.
Michael seems to be a born leader and Daniel is happy to follow him into whatever mischief he proposes.
A couple of weeks ago, Michael wore an underpants for the first time. He showed it proudly to Daniel and got a hug for his achievement. This was short-lived as he wet himself about 5 minutes later and we were disheartened and decided to hold toilet training for another day.
Michael is, according to the creche, ready to be toilet trained. At home this manifests itself as follows:
Me: Michael before you get into the bath, do you want to do a wee?
Michael: Yes, Michael the pot.
Michael sits on the pot. Nothing happens and I put him in the bath where he, invariably wees straight away.
Michael (gleefully): No the bath Michael, the pot!
Both of them are obsessed with sticks, Daniel particularly so and he likes to pick up a stout stick when we go out for walks and attack innocent saplings with it.
They are both counting, Daniel with rather more success than Michael – getting to 10 more or less (usually less 5 for some reason) and learning colours. This latter is proving more challenging and they constantly point to items and say a colour at random “red!” “no, sweetheart, that’s black”, “yes, black!”
They both spend a lot of time saying, “c’est qui ca?” which means (to them) who or what is that? Mr. Waffle found himself held up for several minutes outside the newsagents identifying Johnny Halliday, Carla Bruni and the like while Daniel pointed persistently at pictures saying the magic words. I was at home with Michael at the time confirming in response to repeated requests that each of the 16 bottles on the windowsill in the kitchen contained milk.
Our paediatrician says that we mustn’t compare; oh dear.Â
I heard an extraordinary thing on the radio the other morning. In Britain they are debating allowing the development of crossed human animal embryos for stem cell research, though not, as one of the speakers made clear for implantation (that’s a relief then). Is it just me or is science getting a bit beyond us?
In other news, I see that the US FDA has approved cloned meat for serving up for dinner. I rest my case.
Him: Where to?
Me: The airport.
Him: Where are you going?
Me: Brussels.
Him: Just for the day?
Me: Actually I live in Brussels.
Him: Department of Foreign Affairs?
Me: Er, no (elaborate on current job).
Him: They speak Flemish there, don’t they?
Me: Some elaboration on the Belgian language regime.
Him: Je ne parler pas Francez.
Me : Oh well, never mind.
Him: Aber ich kann sehr gut Deutsch sprechen.
Me (surprised): Ich habe Deutsch an der Schule gelernt aber jetzt sprech ich sehr slecht Deutsch.
Him: Long and apparently fluent spiel auf Deutsch which is almost entirely unintelligible to me.
Me: Oh right.
Him (starting a new tack): Was Santy good to you?
Me: Er, alright. Was he good to you?
Him: He was good to the wife, she got a Fendi bag, an iPod nano, a big gift set of beauty care things and a diamond ring [carats specified but now forgotten by me] mounted in platinum. The wife has a few nice pieces. [Reminisces] I was in Antwerp in the diamond district once and I got two diamonds [again, carats specified but now forgotten by me] and then I had them mounted in platinum earrings by a friend who’s a jeweller here. Oh yes, the wife has a few nice pieces.
Me (reeling): Gosh and um, what did Santa bring to the children?
Him: A 28inch flat screen wall mounted television for their bedroom, a Wii (?) player, stocking fillers and the rest.
Me (reeling further): And what did you get yourself?
Him: A gun.
Me (faintly): Oh yes.
Him: Full details of the gun.
Me: Where do you shoot?
Him: Open land.
Me: What do you get?
Him: Rabbits, hares, deer, pheasants, ducks.
Me: Do you eat them all?
Him: Long description of how to gut and hang animals followed by information on some of his favourite recipes. They were having venison burgers the following night.
Me: Isn’t venison tough?
Him: Very detailed recipe.
Him: The young fella (9) had a day off school yesterday for a teacher training day so I took him shooting with me and we bagged nine hares. He’s an excellent shot.
Me (making mental note to stay off open land all the same): Good for him. How did you learn to shoot? Did you grow up on a farm?
Him: No, no, Dublin born and bred. I was in the army for 15 and a half years.
Me: Ah right.
Him: Medical discharge, got blown up in the Lebanon. Was in the Lebanon twice, Kosovo once and Somalia. [This was covered at some length, I have compressed it for you. I am merciful].
Me: What was the Lebanon like? How did you get on with the Israelis?
Him: We had this guy used to come and do our washing. We called him Paddy Joe, he called himself Paddy Joe [I doubt this somehow, not to his family and friends]; he was a nice old fella, seven or eight children. We were driving along the road one day and we saw him with all his gear on his ancient van. The CO said to pull over and we did and asked what happened. The Israelis had flattened his house that morning. We had a whip round for him; it wasn’t much but there were tears in his eyes when we gave him the money.
Me: There aren’t many Irish soldiers who have been in the Lebanon who have fond memories of the Israelis.
Him (indignantly): They were always shooting at us.
Me: Do you miss the army?
Him (a bit sadly): I do, yeah. You’d miss the old camaraderie and that.
Me (bracingly): Well, I’m sure that driving a taxi in Dublin is interesting too. Did you start when they deregulated?
Him: I did but they’ve handled that very badly.
Me: Have they? Why?
Him: Do you want the politically correct version or the real version?
Me (hopefully): The politically correct version.
Him: Momentarily nonplussed
Me: Alright, tell me.
Him: I’m not xenophobic or homophobic or anything like that. But the taxi regulator doesn’t do background checks on foreigners [or gays, clearly]. A woman is entitled to know she is safe in a taxi. I had a girl before Christmas, a big girl, who told me that a black taxi driver asked to touch her breasts.
Me: A foreign black taxi driver?
Him: They could be putting people in taxis who have previous convictions for rape or sexual assault, look at this.
He points me towards an article about a Czech national who has been convicted of raping and murdering a 37 year old mother of two.
Me: Was he a taxi driver?
Him: No, but he was a foreign national he should have been checked, the guards should have known where he was.
Me (leaving aside the questions of penal policy and its efficacy): Well, he was from an EU member state and, you know, we have the right to move freely in all the EU member states and it’s reciprocal. I mean, there could well be Irish rapists in the Czech Republic.
Him: I lived in Germany and they checked my papers all the time.
Me: And those of the Germans too, they have an ID card system. Would you like us to have an ID card system?
Him: Absolutely.
Me: Silent smugness as I feel I backed him into a corner. There is no way a taxi driver wants ID cards. It’s just against nature.
Him (new tack): Are you from the Southside?
Me: Very southside, I’m from Cork.
Him: Went to Cork on holidays a couple of years back. Beautiful place. After Dublin, I’d like to live there.
Me: Restrain myself from pointing out the error of his ways.
Him: We’re going to Majorca this summer.
Me: Very nice too, I’m sure.
Him: The wife went to book in December, do you know how much it cost for two adults and three children?
Me: No (though I am sure you are going to tell me).
Him: €3,700.
Me: Gosh, that is dear.
Him: That’s what I thought so I was down at the wife’s parents on new year’s night, just looking at the computer, right, and do you know what I found? Two weeks in a villa with a pool and a hired car and room for all of us an the wife’s parents as well. Guess how much?
Me: I couldn’t.
Him: : €3,900
Me (thinking): YOUâ€RE A TAXI DRIVER. WHAT DOES YOUR WIFE DO?
Me (saying): God, that was fantastic.
Him (clearly psychic): I won’t be driving the old taxi for much longer now.
Me: No?
Him: No, I’m starting my own business.
Me: What are you doing?
Him: I’ve patented a system for sorting municipal waste. My accountant has raised €5 million capital.
Me: Gobsmacked silence.
On recounting this to Mr. Waffle, he said that when the taxi driver asked where I worked, I should have said that I worked for the revenue, audit division.