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Youngest Child

A Practical Arrangement


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael completed his toilet training some time ago with almost no accidents.  So much for boys being bad at this.  This process has given me some unexpected insights.  It’s actually relatively hard for boys to aim with any accuracy but I am amazed how much easier it is for small boys to wee in public without wetting their clothes than it is for small girls.  I suppose I knew in theory but I never really expected to know in practice in quite so much detail.

A friend (mother of two daughters) tells me how she had a little boy to stay and after he had been to the bathroom, it was soaked.  He had stood at the toilet but every time he heard a noise outside the bathroom he had twirled around to see what it was and sprayed liberally as he turned.

Too much information?

Pasta


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael loves pasta.  His diet largely consists of pasta and pesto.  My first mouthful of pesto only passed my lips when I was 19 years old and spent a summer as an au pair in Naples.  I do wonder whether, if I’d paid a little more attention to the whole picking basil from the garden of their country house and sticking it in the blender with pine nuts and so on, I might have been Ireland’s answer to Nigella.  I digress.   So intrinsic is pasta and pesto to the modern Irish child’s diet that when I went to Perugia a couple of weeks ago, it was to find that my cousin had brought pasta and pesto with her from Ireland to feed her children.  She was a little defensive about this decision but it’s hard not to sympathise.

Anyhow at the supermarket Michael, took a packet of pasta from the shelves and clutched it to his bosom until we got to the check-out whereupon he briefly handed it to the cashier and then reclaimed it and carried it tenderly to the car.  “Mummy,” he said to me hopefully “me eat pasta after my dinner?”

Is there no end to the guilt?


Posted in: Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

Michael is sick today.  Nothing serious just a bit of a cold and a temperature but he stayed at home this morning with his father while the Princess, Daniel and I went to mass.

As we were walking along the Princess commented on how fortunate it was that it wasn’t a creche day and Michael could stay at home. The fact that this was precisely what I was thinking myself in no way mitigated my discomfort.

Chi Chi Chorizo


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

This is what the children shout when they travel alone in the lift in our building. Why is that?

The boys also say “big stop” while chasing each other round the house with a magic wand (Daniel) and a piece of the supporting architecture of the Fisher Price garage (Michael). They appear to be holding these items as though they were guns. Obviously, they haven’t got toy guns. Are we or are we not fully paid up members of the middle classes? Though I have fond memories of my own toy gun with caps for extra loud bangs. I digress.

In the creche they told me that Michael made a little girl cry by trying to knife her in the back (with a plastic knife) saying “je vais te tuer”. Wouldn’t you cry? “Je vais te tuer” is a very popular expression with the boys at the moment. Where did they get it? I know that the knifing in the back comes from Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, they are very taken with that and constantly re-enact it with one of them chasing the other round the house with whatever implement comes to hand. I keep telling them that Gaston is a baddy but they don’t seem to care. Sigh.

They are, however, all talk and no action as can be seen from their interaction with a dangerous cat earlier today (well, given that it was dark in there you might not be able to see the cat’s utter indifference but you can certainly hear the boys’ terror when it turns its head to see what the noise is).

Boys


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

Language

The boys are talking a lot. Daniel will say “Mama say ‘mountain’, Daddy say ‘montagne’. Michael is not as able at distinguishing languages. They both, however, mix up English and French and, as yet, show no real ability to unmix them. Although, funnily enough, in the creche which is entirely francophone, I am told that they only speak French. Over the past couple of weeks I have been collecting some linguistic infelicities:

Bicycle like Michael aussi;

Petit boy;

Moi, je comb the hair;

Moi, je geddit;

Belle, reading son book;

Mange avec spoon et fork;

C’est my!

Help you me;

Where un autre spoon?

[Describing those chasing the little gingerbread man] mechant fox, vache, horsey;

Moi, je puttai it;

un, deux, trois, jump;

moi, je go a la creche;

Moi, j’ai not stuck;

La baguette est broken;

Can I have ça ?

Moi, je goé à la supermarket;

Turnez OFF the light!

C’est MY de l’eau!

Poor Daniel is not enjoying the creche at the moment and, every time we sit into the car he says “pas creche” or, in English “creche, no thank you” (see, my efforts on please and thank you are not wasted). He also likes to point out everyone who is wearing glasses: “glasses, like me” he says.

Eating
Michael appears to be ambidextrous. He can take a spoon in each hand and eat perfectly competently from each in turn. He doesn’t often choose to do this as, in his quest to drive his father over the edge, he has, largely, abandoned eating solid food. We are told that, at the creche they go to eat separately and, when they return, each looks for the other to give a quick kiss before going about his business.

Odd little habits

They both totter when they first wake up. I love to see them walking jerkily but determinedly along the corridor to see what excitement is available at the breakfast table.

Daniel yells as loudly as his mother; that’s pretty loud.

They are both extremely keen that we should all sit in the same chairs when we sit at the table and woe betide any parent or child who sits in the wrong chair.

It’s harder than you might think to string this information together coherently. Did you notice?

Bloodbath


Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

The other morning, Michael had a nosebleed. I’m not sure why though I can imagine several explanations. He wiped blood all over his face and clothes. While I had my back turned Daniel fell or was pushed and cut his lip and bled freely over his chin and onto his t-shirt. Then the child minder arrived; it’s hard not to be defensive in these circumstances.