belgianwaffle

Princess

I Used to Write All My Own Material


Posted in: Princess

When an idea pops into my head, I stick a note on the phone and then, in due course, I elaborate it into morsels such as you are now reading.

Just the other day, I wrote “How will I get the children to write thank you letters for Easter eggs I’ve eaten?” as a prompt to myself to share this difficult dilemma with you. When I came to the computer, I checked my phone for my reminder, and there it sat. Underneath, someone had typed in “Buy more eggs and let us eat them and it’ll be our secret.”

Happy Easter

Another Milestone


Posted in: Princess

We recently taught our 9 year old daughter to tie shoelaces. Velcro has a lot to answer for.

Over-enthusiasm


Posted in: Princess

A colleague who used to be a maths teacher pressed a book upon me and I am really enjoying it. The Princess and I were out for a cup of tea and each of us was reading her book. I looked up and said to her, “I’m really enjoying this, the author says that finding something in maths is like discovery not invention. Isn’t that clever? It’s out there waiting to be found. And you can see that’s true. I mean look at pi. It’s a constant for any circle and it’s true for every circle even if we didn’t know what it was. Isn’t it fascinating?” Pause. “Do you know what pi is?” Herself, coldly, “No, I am only 9, you know.” I returned to my book, suitably chastened.

Time Marches On


Posted in: Ireland, Princess

I was in a bric-a-brac shop with herself and there was an old bakelite phone which she rather liked. The nice lady behind the counter said, “I have one plugged in here, do you want to try ringing your mother’s mobile?” We laughed as she poked at the cumbersome dial in amazement. Of course, she went wrong half way through and had to start again. “Push down the buttons where the receiver goes until you get a dial tone” we said. She looked at us in disbelief – really how primitive was this system? Wait until I tell her you had to wait three months to get a phone when I was a child. And that you rang the operator and gave the name of the town and asked for a number, in the case of our country cousins, this was 42. It turns out that 35 years is quite a long time.

Finite Incantatem


Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

For the last number of weeks, the children have been waving chopsticks around and shouting “Stupefy” and “Expelliarmus”. They have printed off lists of spells from the internet which is disturbingly thorough in this regard. They are working their way through them. This game is showing no signs of palling. Daniel, who is chameleon-like in relation to accents, has decided that an English accent is best for casting spells, so we have a little boy with glasses running around, waving a chopstick and shouting out Latin(ish) words in an English accent. It’s all very odd.

Drill and Practice


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

Mr. Waffle: Do you know how brackets work, Miss?
Herself: Yes, you do the operation inside the brackets first. We did that last year.
Mr. Waffle: What is the Irish for brackets then?
Herself (coldly): Maths is a universal language.*

*Translation: I don’t know.