Princess

Oversell on the Virtues of Protestantism

8 April, 2014
Posted in: Princess

Her: Do you know the way if people have been good they go to heaven?
Me: Yup.
Her: But how come they get judged again on the last day?
Me: Ooh, double jeopardy. No,um, seriously, is that not the resurrection of the body?
Her: No, remember it says “and He shall judge the living and the dead”?
Me: Yeah, I dunno, look, I’ll ask my friend C, he’ll know.
Her: Why, is he a Protestant?

This all comes from me telling her that Catholics, including her mother, are weak on theology and don’t know their Bible at all. Maybe I’ve overdone that excuse a bit.

Confirmation

29 March, 2014
Posted in: Ireland, Princess

The Princess is in a mixed 5th/6th class and, as a consequence is experiencing confirmation preparation a year early [she’ll get to do it again next year when she actually makes her confirmation which does not fill me with delight, but, small school: advantages and disadvantages]. For confirmation, children get to pick a confirmation name and this is all very exciting.

Me: What kind of names are the children in your class picking?
Her: Well, D, has chosen Razor.
Me: Razor as in razor blade?
Her: Yes.
Me: What did the teacher say?
Her: There is no St. Razor.

They are also doing lots of religion. Herself said to me that the she, the two atheist children and the Protestant child have been told that they are to stop answering questions put to the class. I was very indignant until she explained that they had been answering all the questions and the teacher wanted to give other children a chance. To no avail according to herself as, confirmation class or no, none of them seem to know anything about the Bible or catechism or indeed religion. Catholics, we’re not great on knowing the details of our religion; we’re more broad brush people.

When the teacher put the 10 commandments on the board and asked whether anyone knew them. No one, except for the foursome, did. Is this not a little surprising? The teacher explained them to the class [more necessary in an Irish medium school, I suppose]. “How did she get on with adultery?” I asked. “She stopped before she got there and said we’d come back to it tomorrow, but, I don’t think she will,” she said sagely. I suppose, if they can cover even 5 of the 10 commandments it will be a triumph given the low base from which they started. And to think that for my confirmation [or, possibly, even my communion – it’s all a bit of a blur now] I knew a little yellow catechism off by heart [Did anyone else have this catechism?]. We were told that if we didn’t we wouldn’t be allowed to make our confirmations. I now suspect that was a lie. We were told that the previous year a child had failed to answer the question “Who is God?*” correctly [as in word for word from the catechism] when the parish priest visited and she had not been allowed to make her confirmation. This [false, I now realise] tale was much discussed and focussed our minds on accurate memorisation.

*God is our father in heaven, the most wonderful person ever.

The Classics Summarised

28 March, 2014
Posted in: Princess, Reading etc., Twins, Youngest Child

We’re having a “Pride and Prejudice” moment here. You may recall that we went to see a play before Christmas and herself has read the novel. We saw the film with Keira Knightly. Mr. Waffle brought home the BBC series from the library and the Princess and I watched it together.

During that last, rather lengthy, process over several evenings, Michael annoyed us both by looking up briefly from playing on my phone [or “our phone” as he calls it] and saying, “So, Pride and Prejudice is basically about a bunch of girls who get married?”

Parent Teacher Meetings

18 March, 2014
Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We had our annual parent-teacher meetings. Mr. Waffle and I went along and wedged ourselves into tiny primary school size chairs and heard that all is well. Though Michael is inclined to question the utility of much of his repetitive labours such as colouring, writing and sums which could be done much more speedily and effectively on the computer. I got the impression that his teacher did not entirely welcome Michael’s consequent reluctance to engage in these activities. However, some kind of truce appears to have been worked out. I am pleased to reveal that only other day I was summoned to the classroom to admire a project on Ancient Greece which he, his brother and a classmate had worked on. It involved both colouring and writing and they were all justly proud of their labours.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

17 March, 2014
Posted in: Ireland, Princess

On Friday, the school allowed the children to dress up as a figure from celtic mythology or Irish history. The Princess spent weeks thinking about her costume and putting it together and eventually went as a druidess [is that actually a word?].

However, in her year, the whole dressing up thing seems to have peaked and most of the other children just wore Leprechaun hats and t-shirts saying “Kiss me, I’m Irish” [thank you America, sigh].

There were three other children in her class who had dressed up: a girl as Aoife (the evil step-mother in the Children of Lir), one boy as Michael Collins and one boy as Bobby Sands. There are quite, um, green, elements in the school.

“What did J wear as Bobby Sands?” I asked.
“His swimsuit and a blanket.”

I’m really sorry I missed that.

In other news, even though it is a bank holiday, there is still GAA training. Horrific. We skipped it. We’d already been to the parade; how much should one family have to suffer?

Climbed the Sugar Loaf over the weekend. Obligatory photos: