Me: Sorry I had to go to work before you woke up this morning. I missed seeing you in the morning.
Daniel: That’s ok, Mummy. It’s good that I get to see you before I go to bed anyway.
Middle Child
More Record Keeping
Daniel finally learnt to cycle at the weekend. Hurrah now we can all cycle. Daniel needs a little more work: he can go and he can stop but he can’t start. We are going to spray paint his sister’s old pink (I knew that colour was a mistake) bike for him.
Michael meanwhile goes from strength to strength and cycled with me to the polling station on Saturday (constitutional referendum on which two thirds of the population decided not to bother voting) and with his father to the park on Sunday.
The Princess continues her impressive prayer reading at mass. She is very pleased with herself. Meanwhile at school, they asked me whether I am doing any extra-curricular activities to “stretch her”. Do you think reading at mass is likely to count?
Hoist with My Children’s Petard
Daniel: When I grow up, I want to be an assassin.
Me: Oh sweetheart.
Daniel: What?
Me: Oh honey, you can’t be an assassin.
Herself: I thought that you said we could be anything we wanted to be.
How the Mighty have Fallen
Daniel:What are the dark ages?
Me:Well, after the Fall of Rome..
Him: With the Goths and the Vandals and the Ostrogoths..
Me: That’s it. Well people forgot about a lot of the things that they used to know and there wasn’t much science but then the renaissance came [Insert digression here on the topic “what do you think renaissance means?”*]
Mr. Waffle: But before that the flame of civilisation was kept alive by monks on a tiny island. Do you know where that was?
Children in chorus: Ireland.
Mr. Waffle: That’s right and there’s a story about how Charlemagne the great Emperor wanted to know about solar eclipses and an Irish monk had to explain it to him.
Herself (slightly sourly): And only look at us now.
*Is it any wonder my poor children tend to wander away from the table over dinner?
Last Weekend
I took the children to Cork last weekend. We went to Charles Fort again and Michael said bitterly, “Why oh why do we have to go here every time we come to Cork?” Because it’s nice and I can get in free with my heritage card. And also, Daniel got to drink hot chocolate through a straw at the Bulman. Are these not reasons enough?
Medikidz!
The boys are rather taken with a series of books called “Medikidz” which they found in the library. A group of superheroes explain various medical conditions. The texts are, I understand, medically accurate but very dull. Nevertheless, the boys are captivated. So far we have covered childhood obesity, autism, breast cancer and brain tumours. And there are lots more where those came from. I find it all mildly disturbing. Daniel said to me the other evening, “I have a headache, do you think it could be a brain tumour?” Then at the weekend I overhead him telling my brother that there are 12 different kinds of brain tumours. Oh dear.