Children: Put on Spongebob, please, please, please.
Me: Alright, alright, alright.
Michael: Not in French.
Me: It’s French or nada.
Michael: Oh, not Nada, ok then French please.
Poor Michael, as though “nada” were another new language I am about to pull out of my back pocket and force him to learn.
French
The other night, Daniel woke me up in the middle of the night. He was crying. “What is it?” I asked anxiously. “Please don’t make me watch Sponge Bob in French anymore.”
Despite having very little visible French, Michael still often uses French syntax when speaking in English. He generally describes injuries thus: “I’m sore at my knee”.
The Princess speaking about the generosity of a waiter which I considered significant and she considered no more than her due: “He only gave me one tablette, in fairness.”
Irish
I am doing a short Irish course. No sniggering. This may merit a post of its own in due course, there’s something to look forward to. I was telling the principal in the children’s school about this and the Princess interrupted me (sharper than a serpent’s tooth etc.) and said “Tá Gaeilge uafásach aige.”* In unison, the principal and I snapped back “aici!”**. I tentatively suggested to Mr. Waffle that he might like to speak to me in Irish as well as speaking to the children in French and he put his head in his hands. I am taking this as a no.
*”He speaks terrible Irish”
** “She!”
I see that Finslippy has trouble getting out the door in the morning. So do we. Part of this is because I am a late person and Mr. Waffle is a punctual person. Part of this is because the children move at the speed of flies caught in treacle and we often have to dress all three of them to try to hurry them up and get them out the door.
Take a random morning, at 7.45 Michael came into me screaming. He had dreamt that I had gone to Cork on the train and left him behind. No persuasion of mine (including my presence) could persuade him that I had not committed this sin. I am slightly hoist by my own petard here as I have very vivid dreams myself and can be quite cross with my loving husband for transgressions of which I have only dreamed. Michael continued to scream from 7.45 until we bundled him into the car at 8.45. Daniel was initially cross but calmed down and the Princess was largely good.
When we got into school, the Princess insisted that I accompany her to her classroom on the 4th floor. I panted up. Since I had gone all that way, I decided I might as well check something with the teacher. The other night the Princess came home asking for a dictionary for school. She was unclear as to what kind of dictionary it was. Was it an Irish/English dictionary or an English dictionary or an Irish dictionary? Also, there was no dictionary on her booklist. Was there some approved kiddie dictionary that I should buy? When I asked the teacher about this, it turned out that they were not using dictionaries at all. It was pure fantasy. She sounded so convincing though. She was absolutely mortified by my conversation with the teacher and turned tail and fled back down the four flights of stairs and out to the front door where her father was waiting for me. Between us we bullied and cajoled her back up the four flights of stairs and into the classroom. I really felt for her. I remember myself, the occasional awful juddering moment when school and home and truth and fantasy collided. Oh well.
Is it any wonder I’m exhausted when I get to work?
Daniel gets cross very quickly. He is liable to whack his siblings at the slightest provocation; not that the provocation they offer is necessarily slight. He used not to hit outside the family but he came home from school before Christmas cheerily labelled by his brother as a “buachaill dana”. Michael is himself a smug “buachaill deas” and his homework is good too. This is the problem with being a twin, you are always measured against your sibling. The teacher confirmed that Daniel had been whacking his little companions and had been sent to the “oifig” to reflect upon his sins. She didn’t seem too concerned and said words to the effect of “boys, what can you do?” We traced the onset of his poor behaviour at school to the time he moved table to sit beside another “buachaill dana” who seemed to bear the brunt of his aggression. The teacher has moved Daniel again and he now seems to be faring much better at the bord bui. I know I sound like some dreadful caricature mother but, poor Daniel, he does really feel things more than his two siblings (yes, I know, cold comfort to the whackee). He gets very upset, if he feels we are laughing at him or haven’t understood him. These traits are going to make for excellent teenage years, are they not?
Meanwhile being a buachaill deas is taking its toll on Michael who since starting school has begun to bite his nails and is wetting the bed almost nightly. Sigh.
They both regularly ask to go back to Montessori (particularly Michael) and speak fondly of the toys and games there though neither was at all keen at the time.
And, after extended Christmas break, they are going back on Wednesday, I wonder how that will go?
Daniel: Is there actimel in my lunch box?
Mr. Waffle: No, but there is fruit: grapes and apple.
Daniel and Michael in chorus: I don’t like grapes.
Mr. Waffle: No Michael, there is a banana for you.
Michael: I don’t want a banana.
Mr. Waffle: Well, Michael, every day you get a banana for school and it doesn’t come home so, I assume, something happens to it in school.
Michael: Yes, I put it in the bin.
And in today’s link section, an appealing post by a woman whose school sandwiches are never rejected because (insert really terrified gasp here), she homeschools her children.
Michael: Christmas is Jesus’s birthday.
Me: Yes, that’s right.
Michael begins to cry.
Me: What’s wrong?
Michael: That means Jesus gets all the presents.
Me: No, no, the baby Jesus loves us all so much that he wants all the children to have presents.
Princess: And Santa delivers the presents with help from his brother Saint Nicolas and his sister the Befana.