Princess:Â Mummy, Mummy come quickly Michael is playing with electricity.
I arrive in to find Michael has plugged in the television and turned it on. He is sitting mutinously on the couch, clutching the remote and challenging me to remove it from him on pain of hysterics.
Please note that his older sister still does not know how to turn on the television.
For a child who is physically daring, Michael is a scaredy cat. He was terrified of our pumpkin for Halloween and it could only be deployed for about half an hour before we had to abandon the effort in the face of his terror*. He still points to the windowsill and says “Pumpkin, scared” even though it has now been taken away and incinerated by the bin men. It also extends to a fear of pumpkins on the street or the supermarket. He is scared of the wolf music for “Peter and the Wolf”. He is scared of me, if I pretend to tickle him. He quite likes being tickled, it’s when I wave my fingers about in the air that he gets nervous and has to bury his head in my shoulder and tremble.
NaBloPoMo – H is for Heyer, Hustvedt and Hornby.
H is a fruitful letter. Georgette Heyer is my favourite author. I am not exactly proud of this but I am proud to be at an age where I can admit it. I read my first Georgette Heyer on a camping holiday with my family when I was 12 or 13. My mother remembers me pumping up air mattresses with my nose deep in a book. I remember sneaking round to the back of the tent to be left in peace to finish off “The Reluctant Widow”. I can still remember my surprise and shock when the heroine married the hero. “But she hated him” I thought to myself. I had much to learn in the ways of romantic fiction.
I only like Georgette Heyer’s regency romances, not her historical novels or her detective fiction. I have read these books so many times that the plots are horribly familiar, alas. But still, I suspect I shall read them many, many more times, at least there are about 20 of them so I can alternate my pleasures. If you care, my favourite is “Cotillion”.
Siri Hustvedt is probably my next favourite author in an entirely different way. Whereas Georgette Heyer is a comfortable old pair of slippers, Siri Hustvedt is a slinky black dress. Her books are really, really interesting. I come away from them bubbling with excitement, full of new and interesting ways of thinking about things and desperate to talk about them. She writes beautifully. I took “What I Loved” to hospital with me when the Princess was born. I can’t imagine ever finding a Siri Hustvedt book disappointing.
Nick Hornby completes the H trio. I like Nick Hornby’s books. They’re entertaining and readable. I would always buy a new Nick Hornby but I probably wouldn’t be rushing to reread the old ones.
Any H suggestions? Tomorrow we will have, wait for it, i.
*On reading this post, my husband said that he thought only George Bush was allowed to use the word “terror” that often in one phrase.
Introduction
Like his big brother, Michael was two on the 27th of September (he was born 25 minutes after Daniel). He is a Mummy’s boy. He loves his Mama. He will always give a (generally snotty) kiss when asked. He also loves his doudous and now will only go to bed if he has his doudou (t-shirt belonging to his father), his nounours (a teddy bear wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Brussels police service – it is difficult to imagine a less cuddly body of men and women though my husband points out that some of them are round and others are furry) and a bottle clutched between his teeth.
Appearance
He is a slight wiry little fellow and has the most hair of any of my children. Of all of them, I feel that he is the one who looks most like me though they all look very like their father.
Character Traits
Despite this apparent softness, he is as tough as nails and will never cry, if we are cross with him. He regards all efforts to criticise or amend his conduct with deep hostility. He loves sticking his finger up his nose, a habit as unsightly as it is unsanitary. The other day, I again remonstrated with him and removed the offending finger. He looked at me balefully, held up two fingers and stuck one up each nostril. Today I was absolutely furious with him because he would not keep on his t-shirt and went howling about the house saying “tummy, tummy”. I lost my temper and pulled off his t-shirt. I think that this is the first time I’ve lost my temper with him and he was shocked and appalled. He ran into the hall and found his father and grabbed him while pointing tearfully (unusual that) and furiously (much more common) at me. “Mama, méchante!” he said with considerable bitterness. Ah yes, a whole year of being 2, I can’t wait. I now have only one child with whom I have never lost my temper. No prizes for guessing who that might be.
When his brother or sister is sad then he will run to get a doudou to comfort him or her, unless he is the cause of the chagrin, in which case he will run around the room crowing with delight.
Michael is dangermouse. He likes to abandon his family and play with the big children. He likes to climb. He would run under cars, if he could. He thinks “careful†means please climb on the table and jump from it on to the couch.
He is immensely sociable and from when he was very young would smile ingratiatingly at strangers. In the park he likes to run off and play with other children and never gives a backward glance to his family. This is good practice for when he is a teenager, I suppose.
Communication Skills
His vocabulary is unsophisticated but not ineffective. “Sleep, asleep†he says hopping into our bed pulling the covers around him and clutching his array of doudous. This is a boy who would love to get out of his sleeping bag and cot and into his own bed. Unfortunately, since his father and I place no dependence of his staying quietly in bed the way his sister did when she transferred out of her cot, this is a desire that is unlikely to be fulfilled for some time yet. When his nose runs, he says imperiously to his parents “nose, nose!”.
He is very polite and as he sits down for dinner he will say, before chucking it around the room “thank you, Mummy, thank you Daddyâ€.
He adores talking on the phone and will say to my mother “Hello Nana†which they both seem to enjoy. He often picks up the phone and has imaginary conversations with his grandfather.
Leisure and Culture
He loves to run and to walk on the street, a pleasure he rarely enjoys as trying to stop him and his brother tossing themselves under a bus is a task that requires two parents and a well behaved sister.
He loves balls. He once caught sight of a ball on the street and wept for absolutely ages when he was not allowed to play with it. He loves kicking balls and is quite good at it. He knows no greater pleasure than trying to tackle me while with deft and fancy footwork I pass him.
He likes to be read to and is particularly fond of “Slinky Malinki†by Lynley Dodd (whom my genius husband guessed might be from New Zealand by looking at the illustrations in her books). He is also taken with the tale of “PJ Funnybunny†who having considered a number of options (spoiler alert) decides he wants to be a bunny after all. As we turn each page he identifies all the animals PJ tries becoming. Since it’s an American book, the animals PJ goes to live with are not very familiar to me and it is mildly amusing to see my small son pointing at a picture of a very odd looking animal which I have never seen before saying authoritatively “possum!â€.
Dining
He eats most foods but doesn’t like sweet things. We think he may be the reincarnation of a 50 year old man who died of a heart attack. He once insisted on tasting his father’s wine. We allowed him to, sure that he would spit it out. He loved it and demanded more. Actually there is form for this in my family. My brother who was four at the time got drunk by finishing off the sherry (it was the 1970s) that guests had left in their glasses at my sister’s christening. My parents were actively concerned about him as he rolled on the floor giggling helplessly until they caught a whiff of his boozy breath. I digress. One day we were having mustard with our sausages. Michael demanded some and when we watched to see how he would react, we were amazed to see him cast aside the sausage and start tucking into the mustard with his spoon. He also eats pesto by the spoonful. If he were allowed, he would eat mountains of salt.
Conclusion
Michael is Thursday’s child – he has far to go. Assuming that he makes it to three. He is extremely charming, yet lethal, particularly, if crossed. Maybe he will grow up to be a spy.
And to celebrate his survival of another year, here is a slideshow covering 12 months of my darling, daring boy.
Michael is very sociable. On Sunday we went to a christening and while the other two stayed near us, other than for forays to the cake table, Michael went everywhere. Feeling increasingly flustered, we found him in the back garden worming his way into the middle of a group of small boys poking the hedge with a stick; we found him chatting up the caterers; we found him poised to try that trick of pulling a tablecloth off a table while leaving all the glass ware in place, in fact he was only too anxious to abandon his loving parents.
I’ve noticed this before. I remember once going to the sandpit and establishing myself, the Princess and the boys in one corner with all our stuff to see Michael striding out to the opposite side to ingratiate himself with the children over there. The combination of this sociability and physical daring bordering on foolhardiness reminds me of both his uncles, in a slightly unnerving way.
No prizes for guessing which boy is busy trying to imitate the Princess in her death defying leap; this despite the considerable handicap of not actually being able to jump yet and also the added difficulty that when he falls over on his back he has to lie there waving his limbs in the air like a stranded beetle until someone comes and rescues him. In this house, that can take ages. I have no video evidence of his jumping, partly because somebody has to catch him and partly because the moment he hears the camera being switched on, he comes haring over to have a look at old photos of himself.
Yesterday afternoon he drank a cup of cold tea I had left on the coffee table (the very one that features in the death defying leap) and last night he woke at 2.00 and stayed awake chatting manically until 5.22. Mr. Waffle watched some telly with him but he kept flicking and I tried to talk to my sister in Chicago but he grabbed the phone from me and repeated excitedly “hello, hiya” until we both gave up. I hope Michael never encounters stronger drugs than caffeine.
The boys love to go out. Michael often follows me round the house clutching his shoes and looking at me hopefully.
The boys have one pair of shoes each and one pair of sandals each. The weather has turned nasty and we have discovered that one of the shoes has disappeared. In rotation, our unfortunate sons have been guilty of the fashion solecism of wearing sandals with socks. Also, more worrying, they have taken my keys and hidden them. I foresee vast expenditure.
When my father was a student in the 1940s, he had a friend who was a physics student. His friend said to him one day “I can’t wait for the Summer when I can get out of shoes again.” There is something about the juxtaposition of not wearing shoes and physics that appeals to me.
Today was a trying day. Getting everyone out the door this morning was horrendous. Michael did not make matters easier by pouring water all over himself and then, once snug and dry again, getting sick. We decided, callously, because that’s the kind of parents we are, that it was only a little vomit and his cough made him do it. So Mr. Waffle whisked him and his brother to the creche while the Princess and I made our excuses for lateness to Madame Valerie.
I worked from home this morning and finished up at lunch time contemplating two hours of freedom until I had to collect the Princess. That was when Mr. Waffle rang saying that the creche had rung him saying poor Michael was sick. Mr. Waffle was going to collect Michael and bring him home. In the reduced time available, I cast aside all other tasks to write an amazingly witty and entertaining post on the comic relief apprentice show. Please don’t ask, I can’t bear it. Just as I was putting the final touches to my magnum opus my husband and sick son came in the door. The former had to hot foot it back to the office so he left me holding the latter, a wan sad little boy who promptly threw up on his mother and continued to do so at 10 minute intervals for the next hour and a half. During this period, Mr. Gates had been biding his time and, seeing that I was otherwise occupied, he automatically shut down my computer and restarted it with updates uploaded. Something he had wanted me to do all morning but which, to my subsequent regret, I had resisted. Oh, and also, the lovely German Gin tells me that she cannot read this site or comment on it. Anyone else having difficulty? Gah.
I found some old motilium (note for the childless with strong stomachs – anti nausea medicine) in the medicine cupboard. Its expiry date was April 2007 and it said keep refrigerated. I rang my parents for guidance and my father said crossly that they were at a funeral (Irish people almost always are*) but he relented when he heard why I’d called and said that they should be fine and the only reason it said “keep cool” was that suppositories (oh yes) can lose their shape otherwise.
So deftly, I changed Michael and inserted a suppository before he even had time to complain. He is my third child you know, I ooze competence. He wasn’t sick for two hours which allowed me to collect the Princess with relative ease though poor little fellow, he was slumped in the buggy looking green and he was clearly thinking “this would never have happened, if I were her first child”.
At 6.30 Mr. Waffle and Daniel came home and poor Michael was very down. It was, alas, abundantly clear that Mr. Waffle and I were going to have to abandon our planned dinner together. Poor Mr. Waffle, his birthday is on Monday and this was by way of advance celebration. Also poor Mr. Waffle because he always buys me wonderful presents for my birthday on March 10 and then, a week or so later, he gets another pair of socks, some cufflinks and a tie. So, here I am facing into a night of frantic sheet stripping instead of dining in one of Belgium’s many Michelin starred restaurants. It’s enough to make anyone want to be a parent, I’m sure.
*Irish people go to all sorts of funerals other people wouldn’t bother with, friends’ parents and grandparents, distant relatives, you name it. My husband always says that this was one of the problems the Guildford four, or maybe the Birmingham six, had. Apparently, they were all going to the funeral of an old school friend they hadn’t seen in years and the English jury just couldn’t believe that this was true. Why would you go to the funeral of a person you hadn’t seen in years? Irish people are odd this way. I read an interview with the Irish state pathologist (who is Scottish) and she said in amazement “Irish people don’t think it’s a good week unless they’ve been to a funeral”. My father is still bitter about the holiday in West Cork when it rained every day for three weeks except one and on that one day we were all at the funeral of a second cousin of my maternal grandmother’s.