Yesterday morning Michael was as sick as I’ve ever seen one of my children. He lay in my arms sobbing softly. He had stopped vomiting but he was very warm, even after his paracetemol. We had had a dreadful night and I was on the verge of going to the paediatric service of the local hospital when he had a few mouthfuls of food and a nap and started to recover. By this afternoon he was fine and out on his tricycle. Unfortunately, this afternoon Daniel started vomiting. So I predict, one day and night of vomiting and one day and night of feverish moaning and then a complete recovery. Poor old Daniel though, instead of being lovingly rocked by his mother and father in rotation, he will be minded by the childminder who will have no back up and the other pair to deal with as well. Who’d be a middle child?
Boys
Foiled again
Today was a trying day. Getting everyone out the door this morning was horrendous. Michael did not make matters easier by pouring water all over himself and then, once snug and dry again, getting sick. We decided, callously, because that’s the kind of parents we are, that it was only a little vomit and his cough made him do it. So Mr. Waffle whisked him and his brother to the creche while the Princess and I made our excuses for lateness to Madame Valerie.
I worked from home this morning and finished up at lunch time contemplating two hours of freedom until I had to collect the Princess. That was when Mr. Waffle rang saying that the creche had rung him saying poor Michael was sick. Mr. Waffle was going to collect Michael and bring him home. In the reduced time available, I cast aside all other tasks to write an amazingly witty and entertaining post on the comic relief apprentice show. Please don’t ask, I can’t bear it. Just as I was putting the final touches to my magnum opus my husband and sick son came in the door. The former had to hot foot it back to the office so he left me holding the latter, a wan sad little boy who promptly threw up on his mother and continued to do so at 10 minute intervals for the next hour and a half. During this period, Mr. Gates had been biding his time and, seeing that I was otherwise occupied, he automatically shut down my computer and restarted it with updates uploaded. Something he had wanted me to do all morning but which, to my subsequent regret, I had resisted. Oh, and also, the lovely German Gin tells me that she cannot read this site or comment on it. Anyone else having difficulty? Gah.
I found some old motilium (note for the childless with strong stomachs – anti nausea medicine) in the medicine cupboard. Its expiry date was April 2007 and it said keep refrigerated. I rang my parents for guidance and my father said crossly that they were at a funeral (Irish people almost always are*) but he relented when he heard why I’d called and said that they should be fine and the only reason it said “keep cool” was that suppositories (oh yes) can lose their shape otherwise.
So deftly, I changed Michael and inserted a suppository before he even had time to complain. He is my third child you know, I ooze competence. He wasn’t sick for two hours which allowed me to collect the Princess with relative ease though poor little fellow, he was slumped in the buggy looking green and he was clearly thinking “this would never have happened, if I were her first child”.
At 6.30 Mr. Waffle and Daniel came home and poor Michael was very down. It was, alas, abundantly clear that Mr. Waffle and I were going to have to abandon our planned dinner together. Poor Mr. Waffle, his birthday is on Monday and this was by way of advance celebration. Also poor Mr. Waffle because he always buys me wonderful presents for my birthday on March 10 and then, a week or so later, he gets another pair of socks, some cufflinks and a tie. So, here I am facing into a night of frantic sheet stripping instead of dining in one of Belgium’s many Michelin starred restaurants. It’s enough to make anyone want to be a parent, I’m sure.
*Irish people go to all sorts of funerals other people wouldn’t bother with, friends’ parents and grandparents, distant relatives, you name it. My husband always says that this was one of the problems the Guildford four, or maybe the Birmingham six, had. Apparently, they were all going to the funeral of an old school friend they hadn’t seen in years and the English jury just couldn’t believe that this was true. Why would you go to the funeral of a person you hadn’t seen in years? Irish people are odd this way. I read an interview with the Irish state pathologist (who is Scottish) and she said in amazement “Irish people don’t think it’s a good week unless they’ve been to a funeral”. My father is still bitter about the holiday in West Cork when it rained every day for three weeks except one and on that one day we were all at the funeral of a second cousin of my maternal grandmother’s.
Because it’s there
Recent culinary disasters or this is all very dull stuff but why should I suffer alone?
A while ago, I had some cold cauliflower which I decided to use up by turning into cauliflower cheese. I was undaunted by two significant facts which in retrospect should have daunted me: Mr. Waffle and the Princess do not like cauliflower cheese and I had never made it before. I turned to Mr. Conran for help (one of the many cookery books Mr. Waffle brought to our marriage). The quantities were for a head of cauliflower and it all seemed surprisingly complex. This is where I made my first mistake. I decided I couldn’t be dividing everything by four so I cooked the rest of the cauliflower. Then, Mr. Conran’s recipe had tricky bits in it like “make a mornay sauce†but add extra butter. So with a greasy thumb, I flicked between the cauliflower cheese and the mornay sauce recipe. And then it transpired that the mornay sauce recipe was a variant of another recipe on a different page; you know the kind of thing “as x sauce but with ingredient a instead of b and five times more câ€. So I created a lifetime’s supply of cheese sauce using recipes from three different pages of the book. It tasted quite nice too but that didn’t encourage the Princess or Mr. Waffle to indulge and a head of cauliflower cheese lies waiting in small packets in the freezer to be fed to my sons over the rest of their lives until they leave home when they will be taking the remainder with them to university.
Regular readers will, I am sure, recall that I bought wild boar in the supermarket months ago. Last week, I decided to cook it. I used Mr. Waffle’s “La cuisine pour tous†which is a terse French cookbook originally published in 1932. It assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader. None of your sissy modern day explanations for Ms. Mathiot although she does give excellent instructions on how to manage the hired help and how to lay a family dinner table. The recipe for the marinade gave quantities for some of the ingredients in dl. I was not sure how much a dl was and neither was Mr. Waffle and none of our cookbooks gave instructions on this point and we were too lazy to turn on the computer (foolish, foolish people). We decided how much a dl was (by looking into our hearts and comparing the results) and using the handy calpol measuring spoon we carefully spooned in what we believed to be the correct quantity of vinegar. The beast was marinaded and on Friday night served up to my misfortunate family. Actually, the boar itself wasn’t too bad. A bit gamey but not tough. Regrettably the sauce didn’t taste of cloves or peppers or sherry or red wine (3/4 of a litre) or anything really, other than vinegar. I am reassessing our guess on dl quantities. Mr. Waffle and I gamely (ha, ha) ate some but the Princess, very sensibly, refused to have any truck with it. However, later in the evening on our way to the cinema, Mr. Waffle turned to me and said “I’m not quite sure how to put this but, do you think we could stop for a toasted sandwich?â€. Who was I to quibble. And to round off the evening, the film was quite, quite dreadful. May I recommend that you avoid Code 46? Having seen Samantha Morton in this, Minority Report and Morvern Callar, I have decided that I have suffered enough and I am going to foreswear any film in which she features in future. Happy Feet, anyone?
And finally, in other news, the royal grandparents are in situ for the week, minding the Princess for mid-term. They are not yet exhausted from their labours but we aim to send them back to Dublin shrivelled husks. Mind you, the Princess refused to go out with them this morning because she wanted to stay home admiring herself in her Snow White carnival outfit. They took Michael out instead (Daniel was napping) and he nearly expired from happiness at having two grown-ups all to himself. She did let them take her out this afternoon though. I am sorry, obviously, that I didn’t mention to her grandparents that she has got into the habit of putting on as many underpants as she can at a time. Not as sorry though as her grandmother who had to take her to the toilet in the local cafe and help her out of 14 pairs of underpants.
To summarise
Daniel has been vomitting on and off all week. On our worst night we got to change his bedclothes three times. We went into town yesterday (we are your worst nightmare, a double buggy, two parents and a three year old and, yeah, we probably could have gone in during the week) and took ourselves to the Metropole to revive our flagging spirits – I recommend it, it has the cleanest toilets in Brussels. So, as we sat in splendour here it was inevitable, really, that Daniel would throw up all over the rug. With admirable calm, we stripped him down to his nappy (which he then insisted on removing but it was hastily restored) reclad him, apologised to the waiter and took ourselves and our kit to the adjoining table. On the good news front for Daniel, he has started to walk, though, understandably, not very steadily or very fast. This is unfortunate for him. Michael has gathered that there is praise to be had for walking so he either out runs Daniel into waiting parental arms or, as Daniel is balancing delicately having just stood up with great effort, Michael barges past him and knocks him over. It is not easy being a twin.
Daniel and the Princess are cautious children. I know that this is unusual and I am grateful. Michael is not cautious, I suppose that this is normal. It is scaring the bejaysus out of me. Yesterday I found him trying to surf on the coffee table. Earlier in the day I heard a tap tap noise and I sent the Princess to investigate “it’s just Michael standing on the chair and rocking back and forth”. When I sit him on the counter in the kitchen, he is dangling off it by his fingertips in moments. His sister has sat on that countertop for over three years and when she wants to get down, she still asks me to lift her.  I let him sit at the computer keyboard. He used this opportunity to climb up on the desk and on to the bookshelves. I’m a shadow of my former self. On Friday he went to the creche on his own because Daniel was vomitting. Mr. Waffle stayed home with Daniel and I took Michael in. He was a bit clingy at first but was lured away from me by a pink buggy and when I went he had barely a backward glance for me as he wheeled his treasure round the premises. When I collected him he had spent 7 hours in the creche, the longest period he and Daniel have ever spent apart. I asked how it had gone. Absolutely fine except when he woke up from his nap and looked around for Daniel. I have to say, Michael was pleased to see me, but then he always is, in the gratifying manner of young children. He ran around the room picking up little things for me and handing them over saying solemly “ank u” a noise I believe to be thank you. Daniel, safely at home with his father, didn’t seem to have noticed Michael’s absence at all. Perhaps he was doing some work on his walking.
They’re both starting to talk more. I encourage them to kiss each other and when they do we all clap hands and say “Bravo”. The other day, I was distracted and Daniel kissed Michael and I failed to react. “BWABO!” said Daniel indignantly clapping his hands. He can still say “that” and “the bath”. They can both say “Hi” as well as “Mama”, “Papa” and “bye”. It’s maybe not enough to get by in a foreign country but they’re getting there.
An old friend of mine came to visit at the weekend. He came with a friend of his whom I know slightly. His friend asked whether I was working with 3 small children. “Yes” I said proudly. “So am I” added Mr. Waffle indignantly. I think we have a mountain to climb on this feminism thing. My friend is gay and so is his friend though they are not partners. I don’t know why but the Princess was inspired to investigate the whole issue of gay marriage during their visit.
Her: Mummy, can men get married?
Me: Yes.
Her: To each other?
Me: Yes, certainly in Belgium.
Her: Are T and N married.
Me: Um, no, I don’t think so.
T and N: NO!
T (kindly): And if we were, you would certainly have made the cut for the wedding.
The Princess would like to be a flower girl.
She also wants to know who made God. Any tips?
She sings
Yes, I know, more videos of my children, well you don’t have to look, if you don’t want to. I’d like you to know that her devoted aunt thinks she may have perfect pitch. Ahem. What do you think?
Wish me luck, I’m off to collect herself from school, thereafter we go to the creche to collect the boys and then on to the doctor’s where at least two of them will have to have jabs. I quake with fear, people.