belgianwaffle

Youngest Child

Christmas Cheer


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We went up to Farmleigh this afternoon. It was restored for the nation by the office of public works and is open to the public when very important guests are not staying there. It was bought from the Guinnesses for €29.2 million (ah, that property boom again) and it is a, not very attractive, piece of high Victoriana, in my view. I can’t help feeling that there are many other buildings the nation might have been better off spending its money on.

Nevertheless, as our politicians are fond of saying at the moment “we are where we are”. There are markets in the courtyard and events all year round. I have been consistently disappointed in the Farmleigh offering but the fact that so many other people regularly have a great time there keeps drawing me back. Today, wasn’t too bad. The courtyard was chilly and cheerless and the Santa unconvincing but the house was warm and manned by people in 19th century gear (I am a sucker for costume – I nearly died of happiness in Upper Canada Village). In the ballroom, there was a big Christmas tree and a choir were singing beautifully. All around were people like us with small children, spellbound. Children were sitting on their parents knees, rocking back and forth – their little faces all aglow from the cold weather outside. When the choir stopped singing, you could have heard a pin drop. Two childish voices piped up into the silence:

Childish voice 1: This is boring.
Childish voice 2: Yeah, this is boring, I want to go somewhere I can spend my money.

No prizes for guessing whose children these might be.

And a good morning to you too


Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

5.45: Princess arrives into our room coughing and chatting.
6.15: Mr. Waffle gives up the struggle and gets up, goes downstairs hangs out the washing and makes the children’s sandwiches [yes, I know, a treasure]. The Princess follows him.
6.20: The Princess returns; her father would rather hang out the washing than talk to her.
6.30: I decamp to the Princess’s bed.
7.00: The Princess wakes me and says she is going downstairs, I can go back to my own bed. I do.
7.05: The cat jumps on me and starts running up and down my person.
7.10: The cat finally settles on my head with her tummy purring over my ear and her paws kneading my cheek.
7.30: Mr. Waffle gets into the shower. The cat leaps from my head so that she can stand outside the bathroom door meowing loudly.
7.45: I get up.
7.50: Mr. Waffle leaves for work – mercifully, it is only one day a week that he has to leave so early.
8.00: The Princess re-emerges. She asks for a hot water bottle. I give it to her.
8.05: Daniel emerges. He takes me by the hand and shows me that the cat has settled in his bed. He demands pancakes for breakfast. Their father, the only person who can make pancakes, has gone to work. Daniel gets cranky. I remember that my sister brought Ikea pancakes when she came to stay. I root around the freezer, find these and deploy them. Revolting though they appear, they meet the identified need.
8.20: I leave the pair downstairs and go upstairs to wake Michael. I decide, in my ultimate wisdom that now would be a good time to put away laundry. Because I have so much spare time. That must be it.
8.30: I get Michael up. He has wet the bed (alas).
8.35: The others come upstairs. I persuade them into their clothes. The Princess is helpful – hurrah. She reads a page of Dora for every item of clothes the boys put on. They are all dressed. Rejoice.
8.50: We go downstairs. The cat has, as, alas, is becoming her habit, used the time while we were upstairs, to do a wee at the bottom of the stairs and cover it with plaster from the ever growing hole in the wall. I stop the children (all in socks) on the stairs and mop up the wee.
8.50: Michael has to have breakfast. I start my morning refrain “The school has already opened its doors, there are children there already, classes are about to start.”
8.55: Pack the Princess and Daniel into the car. The Princess insists on bringing her hot water bottle. Daniel brings a library book.
9.05: Pack Michael into the car. The Princess has stolen Daniel’s library book. I tell her she can hang on to it on condition she reads it aloud. She does so.
9.15: Arrive (5 minutes late) at school. Daniel refuses to budge from the car until he has had a chance to flick through his library book himself. A free and frank exchange of views follows which ends with both parties glaring at each other. I bring the other two to the door of the school and go back for Daniel.
9.20: Ensconce boys in classroom; make up with Daniel and have a quick word with the teacher. Emerge to find herself waiting in the corridor. She wants me to accompany her to her classroom – four floors up. Do so. Am then sent about my business and told not to kiss her as this is embarrassing.
9.30: Arrive back to car (hazards flashing – I am that annoying driver) and zoom to work. Traffic miraculously light allowing me to be at my desk at the breath-takingly early hour of 9.45.
9.45: Colleague telephones to give me a blow by blow account of her difficult meeting. Sympathise. “Is it only 9.45?” she says. ” After going through that, I feel like it’s four in the afternoon.” As do I.
10.00: I realise that I forgot to feed the cat. Ring Mr. Waffle to see whether he can get home during the morning. He reassures me that he fed the cat before he left.

Today’s lovely links:

One of my favourite bloggers is back. Hurrah.
Pretty pictures.
Knowledge of French and Belgium required to appreciate this one; but very much worth it, if you fall into this category.
Dot supplies the answer to a question that has been plaguing the Waffles.
Our Justice Minister is
upset about yesterday’s soccer match.
I really like these little google videos. Health warning: my husband thinks that they’re creepy.

Car games


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

Boys [singing]: Stop, in the name of love, before you break my heart.
Me [singing back]: Think it oooover, haven’t I been good to you?
Daniel [speaking]: I don’t know.

Daniel: I spy with my little eye…something lovely.
Michael: Mummy!

Quality Time


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

I don’t work on Wednesday afternoons. I collect the children from school and bond with them.

Last Wednesday, there was a demonstration and I arrived late to collect them. A guard shouted at me as I tried to manoeuvre past the crowds of marching off duty guards, nurses and prison officers (cross about pay cuts). The children were full of reproaches. The school had sent text messages to parents asking them to come early as they knew about the demonstration. I didn’t get a message. I could tell that neither the principal nor the children believed me though it was quite true. Thus, I was feeling weak when the Princess asked whether we could to the vile greasy caf adjacent to the school.

I tramped in crankily. I had exactly €7 in cash on me and cafs do not take cards. The children were told that they could spend two euros each. Michael and Daniel each got a drink and the Princess got a particularly greasy bacon sandwich which she devoured with every appearance of enthusiasm. This was the cause of some friction with her brothers who were anxious that she should share and got a microscopic piece of bacon and some crisps each (of course, the sandwich came with crisps). The Princess told me that Brian Cowen was taking all her teacher’s money. I endeavoured to explain to her the financial crisis and the arguments for cuts in public spending. Very cannily, she instantly asked whether her father and I worked in the public sector or the private sector.

Having only parked the car for a quick scurry to school rather than an extended snack, I realised that I would need to feed the meter. I abandoned my children with the injunction not to move and left them in the care of the Polish greasy caf lady. I came back to find them all still in situ. We finished, put on coats, went outside, got to the traffic light and the Princess announced “I want to go to the toilet”. Excellent. We all traipsed back in, everyone went to the toilet. While Michael was in the toilet, herself asked whether she could have a drink of his juice. He said yes but, when he emerged from the toilet, he discovered she had taken more than he bargained for. He began to cry and we put on coats again and traipsed out of the cafe with a howling Michael bringing up the rear.

Having reached the safety of the car, I said to the Princess “I assume that you have your school bag”. But, of course not. I left them in the car and flew back to the cafe where it was sitting waiting for me.

An hour after emerging from school we were finally on our way to the science gallery which has consistently provided entertaining exhibitions and did not let us down on this occasion. The children happily created a number of new animals and I would have loved a go myself but they were not in the mood for sharing. We met a colleague of mine on the way back to the car and they all said hello politely and she said “what nice polite children” and I was ecstatic (low bar these days) until two seconds later when Daniel started tugging my sleeve and saying “Muuum” in that whiny voice that small children sometimes favour.

On homewards where we had to settle down to homework. I promised a half an hour of television when homework was over. Homework, normally a 15 minute exercise lasted ages as herself had an impossible word search which stymied me (Mr. Waffle of course, found the last word instantly and annoyingly on his return home). So a bit hard to get dinner on and general fratchetiness all round.

Over dinner, Daniel turned to me and said anxiously, “Will F be collecting us from school tomorrow?”

Domestic bliss


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

Daniel (shouting): Mummy, I wanted to put out the washing with you.
Me: But you were in your pyjamas.
Michael: I want an actimel.
Me: OK.
Michael (shouting): NOOOO, you took off the lid, I wanted to take off the lid.
Me (crossly): Every child in this house has shouted at me this morning.
Daniel: No, that’s not true, my sister is still in bed. [Pause] She’ll shout at you when she gets up.

Alphabet soup


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

They say that God never gives you a burden you cannot carry. This is why I have three children but only two birthday parties a year.

Yesterday we celebrated the boys’ fourth birthday with their friends. Even when we sent out the invitations, I knew there were too many. We did get some refusals but then other parents brought siblings along for the hell of it. In the end there were 19 children under 7 in our tiny house. Had the weather not been fine, we would have gone insane.

The showing from school friends was disappointing. There were only three:
-U, a lovely, gentle, quiet boy who wandered around hoping that his father would come back soon;
-Z, who wedged herself between the sofa and the bookcase and only emerged in the last half hour and
-S, whose sister is a good friend of the Princess’s so was therefore invited though both boys loath him (the feeling appears to be mutual). S’s sister J came as company for the Princess. As the day went on, J started to wilt. The poor mite had a cough, a headache and a temperature. We did not have her parents’ number. Her father arrived to collect them an hour and a half late (car broke down) by which time poor J was asleep on the sofa and even I was going off her brother S.
The other 6 children invited from school didn’t come. Possibly just as well.

Montessori school produced many more attendees:
-S2 whose father asked could he drop sister C as well (age 2) – S2 was a very well-behaved little boy and C, despite my misgivings, a confident and self-contained two-year old. I was charmed by S2 who came up and kissed my hand – he will go far. S2’s father shares a name with a friend from college and cross-examination elicited the information that he is my friend’s first cousin. Small country and all that.

-D who was great and, of all the girls, the most up for participating in the running and jumping games – at one point, I saw her holding 4 boys up with a Ben 10 laser gun – her mother turns out to be a former girlfriend of the man whose wedding we attended two weeks ago – small country again;

-E who is a big, boisterous, noisy boy;

-J whose parents didn’t bother to respond to the invitation (bitter moi?) but who turned up unexpectedly with S2’s delegation and also an arm in plaster. I distinctly heard the plaster crack on at least one occasion but to be fair to J he was a very tough, chirpy child and there were no tears. I passed the information about the cracking noise on to S2 and C’s father who collected J and considered my duty done.
M who used to be the boys’ teacher in Montessori and does parties at the weekends in exchange for a fee. She face-painted and made balloons but in retrospect we would have been better off having her do crowd control in the garden.

Then there were the neighbours:

-S3 and two-year old D from next door. I was slightly startled when their father dropped them and scooted off saying, “If there are any problems, drop D back”. I had expected that, given his tender years, a parent would stay with him but no. In fact, like our other toddler C, he was no trouble. He promptly sat on top of his tractor, which had been passed over the garden fence some time previously and not returned, and stayed there. He and his sister are vegetarians and impressed me by a) staying away from the cocktail sausages and b) asking for rice cakes and carrot sticks, which were really only on the table to impress the parents, and which the other children treated with the contempt they deserved;

– M, a shy only child, asked to go home several times but in the end, stayed the course;

O, another only child but a more forceful one. She spent the afternoon in the back garden with nothing on but a party dress accessorised by goose pimples despite repeated attempts to get her into a cardigan. When her father came to collect her, I didn’t recognise him at first. “How can you prove you’re her father?” I joked on the doorstep. “You can keep her,” he said with alacrity. That’s a convincing response, I have to say.

C who is 2 and whose mother mercifully stayed with him. C, I feel got a rough deal as he had to eat the rice cakes and carrot sticks but was clearly desperate for chocolates. He lives entirely on a diet of healthy, organic food. Can this be right?

And finally ourselves:

Cousins J and G. The waffle-in-laws had hoped to drop J and depart for a couple of hours to bond with their daughter but it was not to be as we desperately needed them to stay and help with crowd control which they dutifully, and very effectively, did. We have pledged ourselves to come and repay the favour when J turns 4 in March.

The Princess, who was very virtuous – she lured Z out of her safe place between the bookcase and the sofa, made sure that she was fed and brought her upstairs to her room to play. At one point, I noticed that 2 year old C was missing and found her safely with the Princess playing with dolls.
Michael had a great time. He was a green monster (face paint) and he and friend D (also a monster) went around roaring at the other children.
Daniel enjoyed himself too but was slightly more weepy about various injustices (I wanted to be first in the race). Much of his time was spent torturing me to open presents. I always feel that it’s rude not to open presents as children arrive but after yesterday’s excitement, I can really see the merits of putting the presents aside until everyone has gone home. Almost every item the boys received was attached to cardboard backing by an intricate series of wires which required all one’s attention to unpick. Undivided attention was in short supply. I have no real idea who gave what. Pieces of important looking plastic wrapped carefully in film littered the floor, separated from the toys to whose successful functioning they were integral. We have finally and definitively lost the battle against plastic toys. We now have to swim on a sea of plastic to get anywhere. I was astounded that they got no books at all.

This motley crew had to be entertained. By far the most successful game consisted of running past Mr. Waffle (who was a monster with a scarf tied over his eyes – the advantages of a classical education) to the end of the garden.
Three legged races were less successful due to poor co-ordination and similar problems were encountered with the egg and spoon race.
Pin the tail on the donkey and find the matching card hidden in the garden were regarded as very dull by the hard chaws from Montessori (let’s put it this way, J didn’t break his arm pinning the tail on the donkey).
At one point, in the vain hope of exhausting the punters, I promised a prize for everyone who could run up and down the garden ten times. As I distributed my spot prizes (purchased in the €2 shop only the previous day), the children of the new Ireland rose up and protested to a man: I don’t want a pencil, why has he got a car?, I want the baby’s bottle full of sweets. It was hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.
Pass the parcel, musical chairs and statues had to be rejected as they would have involved the terrifying prospect of bringing everyone indoors (for music).
M toiled away inside making balloons and painting faces.
We pitched the two-man Ben 10 tent which the boys had received as a present. The children piled inside – thoughtfully removing their shoes first (they seemed to feel it was the right thing to do – we didn’t ask them to). Of course, they never put their shoes back on. We were therefore able to hit a new low in party child care. Not only did the children not wear their coats when in the back garden but most of them weren’t wearing their shoes either.

People, that was the longest two hours of my life. When I was growing up, my mother always had wonderful parties, all afternoon parties, for all of us and my father didn’t even help – I don’t ever remember him being there (though we did have Cissie – the lady who minded us). To be fair my mother had a big house and garden but even so, I have a whole new found respect for her organisational skill and daring.

There was no dinner that night. There was certainly no bath. I did my best to remove the spiderman/green monster face paint with make-up remover. I was only partially successful and the boys went into school this morning looking, respectively, pink and jaundiced.

I crawled into bed last night at 8.45 where I slept undisturbed until Michael joined me about 9.15 and put his freezing feet all over me and then again until Daniel woke me at 2.15 asking me why I had gone off with the woman in the hat. A mystery.

And, in what can only be called spectacularly poor timing, tonight I hosted my bookclub. This would merit a post all of its own under normal circumstances. Michael came downstairs every two minutes until 9.30, one of the participants got hopelessly lost and rang regularly for directions.

The evening went like this.

Michael (popping a cautious head round the door): Mummy, it’s dark, I can’t sleep.
Carry him back to bed.
Lost attendee: I’m outside a Maxol garage.
Michael: Mummy, I fell out of bed.
Carry back to bed
Lost attendee: I’m on the Dublin ring road.
Michael: Mummy, Daniel frightened me.
Lost attendee: I’m at a Superquinn.

And so on ad infinitum. My friend C suggested it was like a Beckett play and the lost attendee would never actually make it. More like a Greek play with a chorus said another as Michael yet again stuck his head round the door.

On the plus side, it won’t be my turn to host again for months.