In the toy shop.
Princess identifies Disney toy doll “Sow Ite, Sow Ite”.
Me to Mr. Waffle “Look, that’s the first brand she’s recognised”.
Mr. Waffle “Snow White isn’t a brand she’s the heroine of a popular fairy tale”.
Who’s he trying to kid here?
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Mr. W : Have you read “American Pastoral” yet?
Me: No, it’s on the bedside table.
Mr. W: But, it’s been there for years. Philip Roth has written two more books in the time that book’s been sitting on your bedside table.
Romance
Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner last night in our favourite restaurant in Brussels. It is small and full of velvet and mirrors and the food is fabulous. It was cold and wet outside. It was warm and candlelit inside. We held hands. We stopped talking about the Princess for minutes at a time.
Glamour
For the night that was in it, I wore a rather daring (but subtle) outfit that I haven’t donned in a while. The babysitter (a middle aged Polish lady) raised her eyebrows, Mr. Waffle admired and the rather older gentlemen sitting on either side of us in the restaurant peered.
Excitement
When we came home, herself was up and playing with the babysitter. I took her into my arms and Mr. Waffle drove the babysitter home. I hadn’t even had time to take off my coat when the Princess vomited all over me – getting coat, outfit and, for good measure, boots. Pausing only briefly to consider how many florets of broccoli she had swallowed whole, I began to mop up. When Mr. Waffle returned, it was to find his wife clad in a distinctly unglamourous dressing gown and playing with a wide-awake baby in the marital bed. Although she had been a bit upset at vomiting, within minutes she was her usual chirpy self. As a vomit veteran, she bounces back quickly.
Attempts to persuade madam that she might be better off in her own bed were unavailing, so the next hour was spent picking up doggy from the floor and passing the Princess from parent to parent before, finally, we all collapsed from exhaustion.
on 13 November 2004 at 17:00
A simple case of seeing off any possible opposition, by the sound of it…. 😉 
1
Sweetie(s) given
on 13 November 2004 at 19:14
bw, see what you’ll be missing when you go back to work!
jd, as plausible as your theory sounds, it never worked with any of my dates.
Over the weekend we went swimming, we went to the Salvation Army shop where we bought all sorts of things we don’t need, we walked around the area round the shop and saw vats of wholesale olives for sale, the Princess nearly lost her life as we dragged her away (she is inordinately fond of olives) and we went to a tapas bar and a photograph exhibition and the park and dinner on Saturday night. We’re shattered.
Dinner on Saturday was interesting. It was at the home of my oldest friend. Not the friend I have known longest but my friend who is oldest. There were two other couples there who I had not met before. Mr. Waffle and I had the distinction of being the only couple who came from the same country (the issue of Cork’s independence being still undecided). There was much talk about bringing up bilingual children. Since most of the people there had children in their twenties they were able to speak confidently of their success. Oh the sophistication of it. Then we sat down to dinner. For reasons which are now not entirely clear to me, the issue of Cyprus came up. I said something flippant along the following lines: “weren’t the Greek Cypriots bad to vote no to reunification?” Then, as everyone looked at me in horror, the Greek man across the table leapt in and asked me about the knowledge of the agreement. Detailed knowledge. Ladies and gentlemen my knowledge is scant, very scant. It is gleaned from scanning cross items in the Economist. This was quickly revealed by my opponent and after that my downfall was inevitable. As I drowned in Greek facts about the number of Turkish troops on the island, I cast a pleading, desperate glance around the table. Mr. Waffle looked at his plate, the nice Canadian lady tried entirely unsuccessfully to change the topic, the Greek gentleman’s wife tried to draw him off but to no avail, he had scented blood and was closing in for the kill. Somebody murmured “Mr. Verheugen (EU enlargement commissioner, if you really want to know) is in complete agreement with you”. Like a drowning man clasping at straws I said “And he’s Dutch” and pointed at my immediate neighbour, a Dutch gentleman in the hope that he would then take the fall for the EU commissioner’s views on Cyprus. It was then that Mr. Waffle decided to intervene “um, actually I think Verheugen is German”. Oh you do, do you? I can tell you there were words about this in the Waffle mobile on the way home. Anyway, my straw was snatched away by my husband and we were off again “Oh yes, I remember being at dinner parties in 1974 saying Turkey would invade Cyprus and they laughed at me…”. I was a shadow of my former self, I can tell you.
And then on Sunday, I was looking at myself in the mirror and pawing anxiously at my hair. “I look like one of the Hardy boys” I moaned. And for the first time in living memory my husband made a negative comment about my appearance (well, he’s not stupid). “It could do with a cut alright” he said.
Goodness, it’s been one disaster after another here.
on 11 October 2004 at 15:29
Mr Waffle just gets better and better. You must feel like a third wheel in this blog at times, behind your bilingual cursing daughter and your punning Euro-know-it husband.
on 11 October 2004 at 21:04
This is Mr Waffle. I’ll write quickly as I don’t have much time – she may catch me at the keyboard any second. Silveretta, stop getting me in trouble ! If this goes on –aargh, got to go
on 11 October 2004 at 21:57
Did you see it? Just for a moment there, this blog seemed to shine more brightly. It was a form of spiritual and actual enlightenment the likes of which I can only hope we live to witness again. Really, it’s like breathing the exhalations of the Dalai Lama.
on 12 October 2004 at 14:25
Stirring is an art-form and should be admired as such. Keep up the good work silver. (not that I could possibly comment myself for fear of retribution).Anyways – personally, I think the hair looks wonderful. No Hardy Boy ever looked so stylish.
on 12 October 2004 at 18:50
We are all allowed to make an utter and absolute bollock of a dinner party once in our lives. Of course any further invites – not wholly impossible, given how forgiving older folk can sometimes be – to the location of the blood-letting should be approached with a more appropriate level of homework & tact…. Or send Mr Waffle on his own, just in case….
on 13 October 2004 at 20:15
Jack, I didn’t think it was that bad…Silver, there will be trouble, I’m warning you.
Mr. Waffle says it’s dodo not do do, so now you know, just in case it ever arises. Dodo in French is one of those false friends.
He further points out that her first sentence was a French one. She said “Meunier tu dors“. In fact she says “Meunier tu dors” a lot. This is the first line of a French song her papa sings to her. It means “Miller, you sleep”. It goes on to describe the terrible consequences to his windmill. I’m guessing here, but I suspect that she doesn’t know precisely what it means, so I’m not sure that counts. I therefore submit that the jury is still out on the first sentence.
on 08 September 2004 at 23:40
To be honest Loco, I thought it was something you trod in – not that I’m in the habit of treading on dead birds. Anyhow, I think it’d be so cool if the first words a child of mine spoke were French. Actually, I’d be quite chuffed if they weren’t swear words, but still – big up the Princess.
on 08 September 2004 at 23:41
I’d comment on this entry except that I’m still miffed about being stuck in the corner; lonely and unloooved…. And anyway, I reckon what she said was ‘moon ear two door’.And that’s not a sentence, even in Cork.
on 09 September 2004 at 19:57
Lucky Princess, I was very jealous of friends at school who were bilingual – it’s so exotic…
on 10 September 2004 at 10:59
Loco, I was hoping for the Banks, obviously. Silver, touched by your enthusiasm and, yes, swear words are a problem – we’re doing good work with darn now though. Jack, come out of the corner, we still love you, it’s only for your own good, it hurts me more than it hurts you etc. Lauren, early days really, so far she’s not even monolingual, but hope springs eternal.
I’m going to tell you something I have been keeping from you. Mr. Waffle spent his very early years in Canada. French Canada. And then when he came home, he went to the French school and he stayed there when his parents went to South America (except he went to the Venezuelan French school, if you see what I mean – as he tells it, it was all kind of similar, lots of stuff about “our ancestors the Gauls”). And so now, he speaks perfect French. And this is very handy. And we do live in a francophone country. And it seems a shame to waste all this knowledge. So, to cut a long story short, before the Princess was born, I persuaded him that he should speak French to her. He was reluctant, but I was a pregnant juggernaut.
This has led to a number of difficulties which I had not anticipated. Firstly, Mr. Waffle spends a lot of time worrying over “bringing up your child to be bilingual” websites and secondly, whenever we meet Irish friends (from whom my loving spouse has spent a lifetime concealing his perfect French, for reasons I can’t entirely fathom, something to do with not showing off, I think) my husband communicates with his daughter in grunts.
A third difficulty has just emerged. The Princess is starting to talk. Before our holidays, she had a range of English words but due to intense hot housing from her father over the summer holidays, there’s no doubt that la francophonie is pulling ahead. You may think French is hard but there are a lot of easy words like “l’eau” for water and “la” for there and “dodo” for sleep (important note here, in case you might be hoping to use this expression in France – now that you regard this website as an authority on the French language – grown-ups say dormir but do do is permissible for the under 3s). And “oui” for yes. Despite my promotion of the English alternatives, she is very taken with the French. Our conversations go like this:
Princess, pointing at fountain: L’eau, l’eau
Me: Yes, water.
P, in tones of impatience: L’eau, l’eau, l’eau.
Me: I see the water.
P, with pathetic sigh: L’eau.
Or another favourite:
Me: Would you like to go for a nap?
P – Blank expression.
Me: Nappedy wappedy (stop sniggering at the back).
P – Continues blank.
Me: Lie face on hand and make snoring noise.
P, in tones of delight: Ah, dodo, oui.
on 08 September 2004 at 20:12
Well, before we undertake that kind of commitment I’d like to know what your nap schedule is like.
on 08 September 2004 at 23:32
2-6, noon and night, occasional dribble naturally, and I get kind of needy if I’m not given a bottle of an evening.
(Homepage)
on 09 September 2004 at 15:54
on 10 September 2004 at 00:45
Silver, you’re on. Thanks Krista, fingers crossed and all that. Beth, this is ominous. Maybe we’ll just have to send her to the French school so that she can learn about her ancestors the gauls..
