belgianwaffle

Archives for March 2008

Mr. Waffle’s quotes of the week


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

They must be very excited in the Canaries.

On being told by his wife that the Spanish government plans that all major Spanish cities would be only two hours by rail from Madrid and that no place in the country would be more than an hour by rail from a major city (information which she had on the authority of the 22 year old trainee who clearly hadn’t thought it through either).

Not only have you endorsed this weird new religion, but you’ve made her its high priestess.

On discovering that despite the fact that the Easter bunny never came to Cork or Dublin, he is now a feature of our lives brought home by the Princess from school and necessitating a panicked run to the video shop to buy up egg shaped sweets at 10.30 pm on Easter Saturday.

I guess, [pause] I mean, I suppose.

On being asked whether he thinks our daughter has started speaking in an American accent because we let her watch too much television.

There’s never a good time to start toilet training but I would have thought 3,000 metres up in the Alps would be a particularly bad time.

On being told by his loving wife that we really must start toilet training Michael now as he goes into the bathroom and takes off his nappy when he wants to do a wee. Have I mentioned that we’re going skiing tomorrow for a week?  There will be no blogging until we get back unless all the snow melts. How much are we looking forward to the 6 hour train ride?  Yes, that much.

Will our new Government last beyond the Summer?


Posted in: Belgium

Me: Which Minister is that older man there in the middle of the picture? He’s the only one who looks happy about the new government.

Mr. Waffle: That’s the king.

Me: Oh right and is this the woman who is Yves Leterme’s protegee?

Him: God no, that’s Joelle Milquet, she’s known as Madame Non because of her position during the negotiations.

Woe is me


Posted in: Boys, Princess

Every time I am left on my own with the children for an evening, it turns into a disaster. Witness tonight.

6.30 Arrive home. All is well.

6.35 Telephone rings, it is the children’s father ringing to say goodnight. Daniel wants to answer the telephone, the Princess gets it. He bites her hard. I remonstrate. He cries, she cries and Michael says placidly into the phone “Papa”.

7.00 Michael decides he wants to go to bed and starts wandering around the house with his doudou, nounours and a bottle clutched between his lips. Daniel gets into the bath which due to his insistence that the taps remain on is sufficiently deep for him to swim in and therefore requires my anxious presence.

7.05 The childminder and her two children come back looking for something she has forgotten. The children are perplexed but excited. Daniel gets out of the bath and drips around the house after them. The Princess gets into her pyjamas unbidden, I am delighted. All is under control.

7.30 The boys are in bed. The Princess and I go to make our dinner (the boys have eaten earlier with the childminder, I am not a bad mother).

7.45 The boys begin to howl. The Princess goes and gives them a bottle. They are clearly all enjoying this.

7.50 I sing to the boys in their darkened room while the Princess makes the noise of a cackling witch outside. Our mood is interrupted and I go outside and yell at her highness. All is silence except for a hysterical giggle.

8.00 The Princess brings the boys their third bottles of the night.

8.15 We eat. Well, I eat, the Princess refuses my offering and has salami from the fridge instead. Shortly after she brings a record fourth bottle to Daniel.

8.20 The Princess goes to wash her teeth and I hear an anguished roar from the boys’ room. Apparently a litre of milk is Daniel’s upper limit and he has got sick. I carry him to the parental bedroom while he liberally bespatters the corridor, me, the clean clothes in the basket and himself with vomit.

8.30 The Princess is a bit of a star and brings water and sponges as I mop up and change Daniel and put him in our bed. She then goes to wash her face while I change Daniel’s bed clothes and clean up the vomit with the aid of several floor cloths and some wipes to try to get out the bits between the floorboards. For the duration, Daniel burbles happily from our bed, where he is feeling much better and Michael screams bitterly from his bed that he wants to get up. He feels that there is fun elsewhere. Sensing that I am implacable, his screams turn to “Méchante Maman!”.

8.45 The Princess’s face washing has been over-enthusiastic. She is soaked to the skin. We put on new pyjamas but while doing so doggy falls into the toilet. He will have to be washed. This news is greeted with displeasure.

8.50 The Princess is finally in bed. Michael appears to have fallen asleep in exhaustion but Daniel is still wide awake. I offer to read the Princess’s story. She wants an Angelina book with a stage. She starts moving the cut out Angelina and friends around the stage and insists that I stay to watch. After ten minutes of this, I abandon her to it. As I leave her room I hear Daniel chatting hopefully to the by now comatose Michael “Where hibou, Michael, MICHAEL?”

9.00 I put on the washing machine. I clean up after dinner, I tidy up a bit. I go to turn off the Princess’s light. She is dutifully snuggled up to bed with the Angelina characters put away but she refuses to let me turn off the light. I decide to leave it as she will be asleep in a minute anyway.

9.15 I go and try to get Daniel to sleep. He is delighted to see me and very chatty. I sing to him, he talks to me: “Mama singing”. The phone rings: “what’s that”. “It’s the phone never mind.” We both hear the Princess getting up to answer it: “what’s that”. We hear the sound of the Princess padding round the flat. I put Daniel back to bed. He howls, Michael stirs. The Princess is starting to cry.

9.30 I go out to the Princess: “I thought I was all alone”. I comfort her, put her back to bed and assure her that we would never leave her all alone. She looks at me balefully – and you haven’t washed my doggy yet either. I go and wash doggy.

9.40 She’s asleep, the boys are asleep. I start typing.

10.00 My husband returns from his labours. I think he might like a cup of tea but he’ll have to read this first.

Easter Weekend


Posted in: Belgium, Family

The positively American shortness of the Easter break (two holiday days only) was something of a relief as we had nothing planned and our inner resources are very limited.

On Saturday, we went to the town hall where there was a children’s festival. What a wonderful way to spend our taxes, arguably, less wonderful if you have no children but the beauty of it is that, if you have no children, you won’t even have noticed it was on. There were local functionaries dressed up as wizards and witches trying to explain in an amusing way to young children what the commune does. There were real magicians. There were three bouncy castles (not quite clear what services these represented), there was a storyteller (library services), a place to draw and paint where you were asked very easy questions (creche services), witches testing your five senses using phials and boxes (unnervingly, services for foreigners), a quiz on the rules in relation to hygiene – apparently there is a rule that dogs can’t poo on the street, personally, I’m amazed (environmental services), a free photograph of your kiddy sitting in front of the gates of a castle dungeon (some wit had set this up outside the mayor’s office), face painting (social services, I think, I’m a little confused), free candy floss, sweets and the like (in the salle des marriages) and a magic show to round it all off (in the salle du conseil). Aside from being a very pleasant way to spend a cold, wet Saturday with the children, it did strike me as a very good introduction to local government and its management for little citizens.

On Easter Monday, I decided we would go an outing. Given that it was absolutely freezing, we felt an indoor attraction would be best. We took ourselves to the Sea Life Aquarium in Blankenberg, most famous, in my mind for providing a sandy beach for English people to duel after it became illegal in England (thank you Georgette Heyer). We thought that it would be deserted like its sister aquarium outside Dublin. As we queued in the snow and the children bleated we had cause to rethink that assumption. When we got in, it was fine, if a little crowded. When we emerged, the driving snow had not abated and we scurried to the car where we ate our cold roast lamb sandwiches. (I cooked lamb for Easter Sunday  – aren’t you impressed ? The children refused to touch it on Easter Sunday on the grounds that this might be the tool they needed to drive their mother over the edge). The Princess said that the beef sandwiches were very nice. I was forced to point out to her that they were lamb. A real lamb? Yes, but it’s dead now. “Oh” she said and continued eating.

Since we were at the coast, we decided we would have a look at the beach. We went to a café first and, if you and your offspring are ever stuck in Blankenberg and looking for somewhere for a cup of tea near the seafront, you could do worse than take yourself to the Kiwi café. Despite the name, it’s done in traditional Flemish style with heavy beams and big dark furniture. Ideal for a cold, cold day. I wouldn’t recommend it for lunch as the apple tart I ordered, though inordinately large, was quite, quite vile, but definitely a good tea and pancake location. Fortified by our experience in the Kiwi we went to the beach which was absolutely perishing. The children were unaffected by the weather but we were frozen and miserable. The children wanted to stay and stay but we eventually managed to tug them back to the car with Daniel squirming and yelling (and that boy can yell) that he wanted to go SWIMMING.

Yesterday, we woke up to 5cms of snow, so Mr. Waffle took the children out to play on the road before we all went to our various places of detention. They were all wearing their moon boots and Mr. Waffle was wearing his hiking boots. The zip broke on my faithful black boots and as the ideal pumps to wear in the snow, I chose a pair that I had bought last Summer in America. I had never worn them before because I just never found anything to match them properly (don’t look at me like that, I’m not that kind of person at all) but I decided that they were the most likely to be waterproof. I was wrong. The soles are made of tweed. No, really, tweed. Why? By the time I found out, it was too late but I was not a happy bunny yesterday, I can tell you. The snow has melted today but my boots are still broken and my tweed soled shoes are still damp.

Being an expatriate


Posted in: Belgium, Mr. Waffle, Princess

Me: We have a new government, I heard it on the radio on the way home.

Him: We who?

Me: We Belgium.  And there’s a woman Minister for Foreign Affairs, Karen something or other.

Him: Karel De Gucht?

Me: Yes, that’s it.

Him: He’s a man and he’s the one who was Minister for Foreign Affairs before.

In other news, the Princess and all her little friends wore their pyjamas to school yesterday and got dressed and had breakfast in the classroom. It was the best thing ever.

Hubris


Posted in: Mr. Waffle

I am constantly in search of presents for Mr. Waffle because he is difficult to buy for and Christmas and birthdays come round every year with monotonous regularity.

A couple of months ago, I saw that he had cut out from the paper a book review so, stealthily, I went to the bookshop and ordered the book.   I paid for it, I had it gift wrapped and I stashed it in the bottom of the wardrobe.

A short time ago, we were going through our piles of stuff on the desk and I innocently picked up the review and said: “ooh what’s this?”

“It’s a review of a book set in Brussels and I thought it looked interesting” he said.  Cue much inner glee and outward indifference on my part.  “But you can throw it out, I looked at some sample pages of the book on the internet and it’s really dull”.

He got it today anyway and expressed suitable (but, presumably, utterly feigned) enthusiasm.

It probably wouldn’t be so bad, if he didn’t keep buying me perfect presents.