Youngest Child

The boys were three on Saturday. Incredible as it seems, BT (perfidious Albion again) has still not given us the internet in the privacy of our own home so, here I am frantically tapping in a smart hotel where I have been “thinking in”. Insert sigh here.

However, despite the personal cost, I could not let this major landmark pass without a post.

Daniel (the elder)

Daniel has settled into his new Irish environment particularly well. He likes the structure of Montessori school and I think that he is happier than he was in the crèche in Belgium. He likes having his family around him and is fond of all his relations, particularly his baby cousin as he loves babies.

He is good at speaking and my mother-in-law says he sounds like a foreign child who has been taught English. In three weeks at school this has more or less disappeared and the other evening he asked for a “spoo-en plee-as” (the unfortunate Dublin habit of inserting extra vowels in words)

He likes to wear socks on his arms, like long dancing gloves. This is endearing until the moment when you try to take them off and put them on his feet and he screams like a banshee.

He is very affectionate and sympathetic. He is always the first to sympathise with his siblings and parents on their various bruises and ills (“show me, show me! – very sore”). In the evenings when I say good night to him, he always wants to give me a big kiss and a rub on the arm.

When we are cross with him (often for throwing things – an activity of which he never tires – it will be a project for the next year to teach him about John Vavassour de Quentin Jones who, as you will know, lost a fortune by throwing stones) his mouth turns down and he says as he squeezes out bitter tears “You made me cry.”

He still does not sleep through the night (you offer advice on this at your peril). Usually once but sometimes twice, he wakes up and cries for a bottle. A parent struggles to his bedside and matters play out as follows:

Me: Yes, sweetheart.

Him: NOOO, I want Daddy. [Note, he invariably wants the parent who is still in bed]

Me (knowing I should challenge him but feeling the lure of my nice warm bed and worrying he might wake Michael): OK

Mr. Waffle goes downstairs and gets him a bottle.

Daniel: NOOO, it’s too cold.

Mr. Waffle renukes.

Daniel: NOOO, it’s too hot.

Mr. Waffle pours half down the sink and tops up with cold water.

Daniel: NOOO, I want a little bottle.

Mr. Waffle pours half of it down the sink.

Daniel consents to take the bottle.

We are hoping that this will stop sometime before he turns 18. Only 15 years to go.

The other day he told me “Me not sweetheart.” 

Me: Oh dear.

Him: OK, a little bit.

Me (confused): A little bit what?

Him (helpfully): A small bit of something.

How little does he think I know?

Michael (the younger)-

Michael’s father took him to get his hair cut.  While Daniel looks like Boris Johnson with his floppy blonde hair, Michael has a shaved head and looks like a thug.  Mr. Waffle points out that his appearance now matches his temperment.  This did not placate his cranky wife.

Michael is adamant that the only people in the world he likes are his mother, his father, his sister and his brother.  Everyone else is greeted with the words “I attack you”.

He has endless enthusiasm.  Any activity that is presented to him in the appropriate tone will be welcomed with the words “that be fun!”.  On Saturday, for their birthday we all went on the Viking Splash tour of Dublin which involves wearing a viking helmet and roaring at innocent tourists.  He loved it.

He has recently expanded his diet to add cheddar cheese.  We are delighted.  We were all tiring of pasta and pesto.

He is a bossy little person and never tires of telling me, in imperious tones, to read him a story.  He loves stories and will sit spellbound by anything pretty much regardless of how difficult it is.  I am hoping to be able to start reading the paper aloud to him shortly.

Despite his very tough exterior, he is quite a nervous boy and will rush to me in fear at the sight of all kinds of things.  The other night, he confided to me that there was a monster in the bedroom and I had to stay and hold his hand until he fell asleep.

He does like to sleep.  He is his mother’s son (he is also the child who looks most like me – I once shaved my head too, I was in my 20s, it seemed like a good idea, it wasn’t.  I remember I arrived into the pub where my then boyfriend was waiting for me: “it’s rotten, isn’t it?” I sniffed – I also had a cold.  “It’s cool,” he said.  “Really?” “Yes, especially with the sniff, it makes you seem like a drug dealer.”)  He sleeps through the night and from about six in the evening he is begging to be allowed go to bed.  Have you any idea how hard it is to have this conversation with a small child:

Him: Mama, please can I go to bed?

Me: No, sweetheart, it’s too early.

Him:  Please, Mama, when can I go to bed?

Me: After dinner.

Him: No, Mama, please now, please, please.

So, there it is, landmark noted.  A very happy birthday to my gorgeous boys and on the very day they were born, my parents got married (well, obviously, not actually the same day but the same date) so a very happy 41st wedding anniversary to my wonderful parents too.  Rejoicing all round (insert trumpets here).

When I thought about school for the boys initially, I had assumed that I would put them in the same class.  Then the school told me that, normally (or normalement as we say in Belgium, how I will miss that expression), they put twins in separate classes.  I decided that this was cruel and heartless.  I consulted and both twins I knew said that they had been in the same class as their twin siblings and they seem like pleasant, well-adjusted people.

Then, I was talking to the women who work in the creche whom I find very helpful and reliable.   They said that Daniel wants to play with Michael all the time.  Some days, Michael does not want to play with Daniel (fair enough) and then Daniel gets cranky (who could blame him?).  Apparently, there are never times when Michael wants to play with Daniel and Daniel does not want to play with Michael.  Their advice would be to separate them at school.

I had noticed that Daniel says that Alice is his friend but when I enquired at the creche, they said that Alice and Michael tend to play together and Daniel waits until they have finished and grabs Michael. My poor little mite.

They are both, of course, great fantasists, like their sister.  Whenever they hurt themselves, they both say “It’s not funny.”  When I ask them why, they say that Manon laughs when they hurt themselves at the creche.  On enquiry, creche staff confirmed that Manon, who seems like a very sweet little girl, is in fact a sweet little girl and very gentle. However, on hearing the context, they explained that some time ago Manon had fallen over and hurt herself and Daniel and Michael had both pointed and laughed at her whereupon they were both severely reprimanded.  On the plus side, it does look like they’ve learnt their lesson. On the minus side, I don’t think that they are ever going to forgive Manon for her imaginary offence, she remains a hate figure who mocks the injured, chez nous.  I digress.

At home, it is clear that Michael is the ringleader and Daniel dutifully falls into line.  We call Michael “dangermouse”.  He is the only one of our children who likes risk.  Daniel is by far the most obliging of our three children.  If we want to quell a fight over a precious object, it is most frequently Daniel who is called upon to give up his claim; because we know he will.  I know this isn’t fair but we’re tired.

On closer questioning, both of my grown-up twin advisers (one of whom is, handily enough, the dominant twin and the other the passive), agreed that on balance, it probably would have been better had they been in different classes from their twins at school though, at the time, they certainly didn’t think so.

So, what do you think?  Were the twins you know in the same class in school or different classes?  From what age?  What worked best?   I await any comments with bated breath (well, I always await comments with bated breath but in this case particularly bated breath).

“Daniel, come to dinner.” “I finish my book”.

“How!” – Daniel as an Indian with arms folded stiffly and a solemn expression.

Daniel using the wooden spoons as skis.

Daniel using the wooden spoons as violins.

Daniel using the wooden spoons as lethal weapons.

The boys running down the corridor with their towels on their heads flapping out behind them.

Sounds from the bedroom.

Daniel: Scream.

Michael: Giggle.

Michael: Scream.

Daniel and Michael: Giggle.

Dialogue

Daniel (in bed): Ehhh, mmh, waah (general whimpering noise).

Me (tiptoeing to his bedside in the dark): Daniel, what’s wrong?

Him (delighted): Moi, je fais “Ehhh, mmh, waah”.

Today, I explained to the creche that when the boys leave in July, we are moving back to Ireland. Since they would be finishing in July anyway, if they were going to school in Belgium, we hadn’t explained that we were actually leaving the country. It was funny because the women who worked there all said “ah, that explains a lot”. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought that the boys were aware of the proposed move at any level, but it seems that I was wrong.

Daniel insisting on silence before speaking and saying to each of us in turn “Can I talk?” or “Je peux parler?” before imparting an item of information such as “The house is big.”