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.
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).
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?
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.
Michael was sick today and, this morning, he knocked over the telly while whizzing round the room on his little car. Not sick enough, clearly.
Anyhow, this afternoon when I was in charge, I promised Peter Pan to himself and his sister (poor old Daniel was off at the creche) but it turned out that the telly didn’t like being pushed over by Michael’s car and it resolutely refused to come on. It’s not like it owes us much; Mr. Waffle bought it second hand in 1995.
I moved the couch and sat them in front of the computer. Typing T’choupi into google leads to a series of cartoons on youtube about the wholesome mole. I put herself in charge of the computer and tripped in and out between the kitchen where I was making dinner and the invalid on the couch and his sister. All went pretty well though I had to turn off the rap version of Noddy she’d managed to click on and some fairly alarming looking anti McDonald’s stuff.
I told my loving husband later.
Him (outraged): You left our four year old to wander round the internet unsupervised?
Me (defensively): She’s nearly five.
Finally, I have taken this from Jando. I have reproduced her post below because there is a risk that you might not follow the link and this is the funniest thing I have seen in quite some time. I particularly liked the bit about the goats.
Before you decide to have children, try these 14 simple tests.
Test 1
Women : To prepare for pregnancy, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months.
After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for children, go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.
Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home.
Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.
Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior.
Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 – 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.
Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems:
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
3. Time allowed for this: 5 minutes.
Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door wagon.
And don’t think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment and leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
3. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Test 6
Getting ready to go out:
1. Wait
2. Go out the front door
3. Come back in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in again
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front path
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.
Test 8
Go to the local supermarket.
Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child.
A full-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Test 9
1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
7. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old child.
Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.
Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls.
4. Cover the stains with crayon.
5. How does that look?
Test 12
Make a recording of someone shouting ‘Mummy’ repeatedly.
Important: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy – occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet if required.
Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice.
Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
Test 14
Put on your finest work attire.
Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
2. Stir
3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
4. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
5. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
6. Do not change, you have no time.
7. Go directly to work
We have a copy of Walt Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp” in book form and the boys love it. We also have a book of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and this is also much loved. I’m not sure where they came from but they are among the boys’ favourite books despite our constant attempts to plug works we prefer.
The boys, have, however, totally confused the two works. As a special treat we got out “Beauty and the Beast” on DVD and they were transfixed. At first sight of the beast, they were both terrified and sat there pointing at the screen saying “Ladybeast, Ladybeast!”