Youngest Child

Weekend Round-Up

12 November, 2017
Posted in: Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

On Friday night, herself went to stay at friend’s house. I dropped her off on the way to a table quiz with former colleagues including the person who always wins pub quizzes. We won. On Saturday it was absolutely lashing. Once collected from her friend’s house in the morning and having had an hour or so to re-group at home, herself disappeared off with friends for the day. Daniel had no match (mirabile dictu). While Michael was at drama in the afternoon, Daniel, Mr. Waffle and I did some boring but necessary tasks (new football boots, wedding present, new jumpers) and then when Michael finished drama we all went to the science gallery exhibition on catastrophes which was not as thrilling as the boys had hoped. Last night Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner and a film (Death of Stalin) which wasn’t bad but wasn’t as amazing as everyone said it was either.

This morning was mass and hockey followed by (drum roll, please) the boys’ birthday party only a month and a bit after their actual birthday on September 27. We had six 12 and 13 year old boys around (which, including our own pair, is eight boys, that’s a lot of boys). We took them down to the park where they played capture the flag and football. The weather was beautiful. When they came back to the house, they had cake and settled down to play board games until we gave them pizza about 6.30. We then fell back on charades until their parents came to collect them between 7 and 7.30. It felt a bit like 8 o’clock on Christmas night when everyone is exhausted but the mood is reasonably good. I’ve had worse birthday parties, I can tell you. Herself came back from another day in the company of friends to cast an imperious eye over the first years and eat pizza with them.

I sometimes wonder what exactly I filled my weekends with in my 20s. Possibly, shopping for a more extensive wardrobe. This is what Mr. Waffle and I wore yesterday:

Confusing

7 November, 2017
Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

Our faithful former childminder, T, is coming round on Friday nights to play games with the boys and talk to them in French. They are moderately open to this and are still very fond of T who is a lovely man. Usually I leave them to it but last Friday they had a game that needed a fourth so I played too. In fairness to the boys, their comprehension is still pretty good and they both made a reasonable effort to speak some French as well. However, I noticed that Michael is getting a bit of interference from Irish. For him, it’s all about communicating and where his brother and sister would rather be silent than be wrong, he will always give it a lash and is usually broadly comprehensible. So he would say a sentence in French and often the noun would come to him in Irish so, for example, speaking about the other side of a card, instead of saying “l’autre cÃ´tÃ©” he said “l’autre taobh”. It took me a while to work out what he was getting at as he gave “taobh” the full welly in terms of French pronunciation. Poor T was, of course, utterly baffled. I trust it may all work itself out.

Hallowe’en

4 November, 2017
Posted in: Middle Child, Twins, Youngest Child

This year for Halloween, herself went to a friend’s house. At the last minute, Michael decided he was too old and sophisticated for trick or treating. Daniel, however, was still keen to go out and hadn’t arranged to meet friends because one of the advantages of being a twin is you always have someone to do things with. It turns out that one of the disadvantages of being a twin is that your brother will have no compunction about leaving you high and dry. So Daniel and I went out together. I felt we were a bit foolish as a mother and child group where the child was 12 and alone whereas all the other trick or treaters seemed to be tiny kids but thankfully Daniel didn’t seem to care. Then we caught up with a group of older children with whom he trotted around happily. I suppose it’s the end of an era though. Next year, he and Michael will go with their friends, if they go at all and certainly not with a parent in tow.

Mompromise

22 October, 2017
Posted in: Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

The boys went off today on all day birthday hike with a friend. This left myself and Mr. Waffle at home alone with our firstborn. We decided to go for a walk together. She was not keen. “Let’s try for a compromise,” I said brightly. “When you say compromise, what you mean is that we’ll still do what you want but you’ll be miserable and long-suffering about it,” said herself. Oh the blinding moment of clarity; I did recognise that person. “I call it the mompromise,” she said.

We took her for lunch before we made her climb up the Sugar Loaf. Her mood was not improved by the woman at the table beside us leaning across and saying to us, “I’ve never seen a more similar mother and daughter than you two.”

She was somewhat gloomy on the walk and although the views were beautiful,

they did not entirely melt her hardened heart.

She went up and down at a ferocious clip. Exhausted from the ascent at speed, we let her travel down ahead of us and she was waiting, only slightly impatiently, in the car park when we arrived back. She was finally partially appeased by an anxious offer of tea and a bun in Enniskerry.

When her brothers arrived back at 9 from their day long hike, which they quite enjoyed, I asked whether their walks in the mountains with their parents (usually about two hours) had prepared them for this, they said, “No, not at all.”

Alas.

Michael at 12

10 October, 2017
Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael was 12 on 27 September.

He started secondary school at the end of August and for the first month he found it hard. I was slightly despairing about whether we had done the right thing. I agonised. Mr. Waffle agonised. And then, almost overnight, everything was better; he got the measure of the expectations, the timetable, the school and he seemed reasonably pleased with himself. He joined the games club on Friday afternoons. He is in a different class from his brother for the first time ever. At the beginning, I realised how much we had previously relied on Daniel to tell us what the homework was or clarify difficulties. Michael was on his own now. It did not go well initially but somehow, now it’s fine and he seems to know what he has to do all by himself. He is the ultimate pragmatist and as the school operates a stringent policy of promoting the first national language he adheres to it and has started speaking Irish a bit at home, possibly to avoid the extra effort of covering two languages. In fairness, he is quite positively disposed towards Irish: he sees it has value as an Irish person to know Irish and that is half the battle. There are also a couple of children in his class who went to English medium primary schools and are really struggling with the language and this, I think, underlines to him the very practical, current benefits of Irish.

Part of Michael’s difficulty was, I think, that everything was changing. At the same time, he went from cubs to scouts and he didn’t like that much either. It was like school, it was all rules and everyone was cross but, again, after 3 weeks he got the hang of it and he seems to be perfectly happy again now.

He has also taken up hockey. He has been pushing for this for a number of years but I have resisted partly on the grounds that I wasn’t convinced that he would really like it; partly because we don’t live particularly close to a hockey club. This year, I folded and he joined a club. I’ll say this much for Michael, he knows what he’s going to like. He really enjoys it. Hockey is mostly played by girls in Ireland and of the 30 players in his group, 28 are girls. He doesn’t care. Daniel came along one Sunday and asked, “When will we get a match?” and the answer, for boys, is basically, probably never. Daniel decided against pursuing this interest; Michael continues to be perfectly happy to continue playing. The only difficulty is that training is at 11 on a Sunday, miles away. Daniel and herself sing in the choir at 11.30 mass locally and Daniel, in particular, wanted to stay involved. This means we are doing mass in two phases: Mr. Waffle and Michael at 10 and myself and the others at 11.30. It is unsatisfactory but I am quite pleased that Daniel actually wants to go to mass.

Michael still loves to read. Every break in school he spends sitting contentedly reading his book. His brother, his sister, his fellow students and his anxious teachers have all asked him whether he is ok on his own; it would appear that he is.

[Can I just say that it is despite his parents’ best efforts that he often wears socks and sandals?]

I find him completely delightful; his brother and sister refer to him as the arch-manipulator. He knows exactly how to behave to get what he wants; I suggest that they should learn from him rather than indignantly outing his behaviour. Funnily enough, that does not seem to appease them. He and I get on like a house on fire except in relation to his homework; if I ever try to help him, we both get furious. He is so lackadaisical, I am so unreasonable. In fact, Mr. Waffle is much better at this which is a surprise to all of us.

He continues to eat almost nothing. It was a sad day for me when, over the summer, he decided that he was no longer going to eat cereal. Cornflakes and milk was his major food group and this has now been replaced by toast and honey which I have to regard as a backward step.

He gets on very well with his brother. They have loads in common and they spend many happy hours together. He also gets on with his sister, they seem to mostly travel in parallel grooves but the odd time they interact, it’s all perfectly cheerful. Being in the same school again has allowed for much greater interaction between them which, on balance, they seem to find mildly interesting.

He is cycling in and out to school which is a bit heart-stopping but, like his Irish, his cycling has really improved. I think it’s good for him.

He’s still a complete home bird. Unlike his brother and sister he had absolutely no interest in signing up for the school tour to Germany: “All day on a bus, looking at boring museums with teachers on my holidays.” He thought the other pair were certifiable. He is doing German at school and it is alright. We are trying to keep his French up at home by having a former childminder come and play games with them – through French – for a couple of hours a week. When I got home from work last Friday, Michael was sweeping the board in Monopoly but not bothering to say, in French, any numbers higher than 10 (numbers below 10 are not a big requirement in Monopoly), slightly to the childminder’s despair. We’ll see how it goes; it’s nice that he and his brother are so pleased to see the childminder who we had for a number of years and was a firm favourite.

He continues to like to wear exactly the same clothes he has always worn. This is a problem as he is growing and many of his trousers are approaching mid-shin length and he will not let them go. I keep trying to introduce new elements and sneak away the old but he is having none of it.

He loves babies and small children and when we were in Tesco recently bag packing for the scouts he went up to all the babies and made them smile. He is absolutely charmed with his new baby cousin from London.

He continues to be really interested in history and is always reading books about history and regaling us with tales from the past. He loves “The Big Bang Theory” and “The Simpsons” neither of which is really appropriate for someone who turned 12 last month. He spends many happy hours glued to his phone watching people commenting on games they are playing, a form of entertainment entirely baffling to his parents.

He is obliging and even, if he wriggles out of things, which he can do, he, disarmingly, instantly goes to rectify whatever the fault might be – “Of course,” he says cheerfully when asked to tidy his room. If he is annoyed, it very rarely shows and that makes him delightfully easy to live with.

While his brother and sister are keen to be older and more independent even with the responsibilities that brings, Michael is happy just where he is, if anything, he wouldn’t at all object to being younger, particularly, if it meant less homework.

He is very sensitive to the moods of others – if people are down, he tries to cheer them up. He is a pleasure to be with: warm and funny if occasionally dogmatic.

I am curious about what the next number of years will bring but for the moment [she tempts fate] all is well.

Cycling Gloom

1 October, 2017
Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

I seem to have become obsessed by cycling infrastructure. It was not always thus. I have always cycled. I cycled in and out to school from when I was 12 and I never stopped. I don’t remember being concerned about cycling infrastructure and safe cycling until my own children started cycling in Dublin. It has been regularly heart-stopping. But I persist. I want them to be able to cycle: it’s good for them, it’s good for the planet and it’s handy. It’s also scary.

Herself has been cycling in and out to school since she started secondary school a couple of years ago. I was really nervous at the start but increasingly less so. She is on top of it now, I hope. I note from the most recent census that of the approximately 250,000 girls in secondary school, about 700 cycle. This is a significant percentage increase from the last census where only some 500 girls cycled to school but it’s not exactly a sea change. This is what the census says:

Cycling

The 25 years, from 1986 to 2011, saw an 87 per cent decrease in the numbers cycling to secondary school. 2016 saw the reversal of this trend with a 10.5 per cent increase since 2011, bringing the numbers of secondary students taking to their bikes to over 7,000. Over 90 per cent of these student cyclists were male, but the number of female cyclists has grown by over 30 per cent since 2011.

Her brothers started secondary school in September (more on this anon) and have been cycling in and out together, at first with a parent and, now, alone. It is unnerving stuff. September 8 is etched on my brain as the first day they cycled in and out unaccompanied and came home alive. I enjoyed the following conversation with Daniel:

Him: If I am run over while cycling to school, whose fault will it be?
Me: I am sure that you won’t be run over. When you say “whose fault” what do you mean?
Him: Will it be mine for cycling carelessly, yours for letting us cycle to school or [my sister’s] for refusing to cycle with us?

This was a bit depressing and, honestly, it is absolutely no wonder that people don’t send their children cycling to school in the same numbers as in 1986 (when coincidentally, I finished school) because there are far more cars on the roads, they’re faster and they’re much bigger, squeezing cyclists to the edge of the road and the car seems to be king in Dublin.

I am getting increasingly annoyed about this. So far, my only action has been to follow people who share my annoyance on twitter so, more work may be needed on my part. I was deeply depressed to see that the Liffey cycle route has been shelved because of inability to reach consensus in Dublin City Council. I mean Paris, Paris, is able to put in place better cycling provision than Dublin. Every time I visit my parents in Cork, I am impressed, yet again, by what can be done by a city with far fewer cyclists and much more rain than Dublin. I’m not saying Cork is perfect but it has more segregated cycling options in the city centre than Dublin. An action group has recently been formed and they are standing in human chains trying to keep cycle lanes free for cyclists. I applaud their efforts. However, with the best will in the world, there are many cycle lanes in Dublin which are so poorly designed that even sympathetic drivers who keep an eye out for cyclists (like me when I drive in town, which I do occasionally) find themselves crossing over them and squeezing cyclists. The motoring lobby says that the City Council is anti-motorist and in the grip of the cycling lobby. If only this were true or there were some evidence that this is the case in the form of half way decent cycling provision. I despair.

In unrelated cycling news, my bicycle was nicked a couple of weeks ago from the shed. Mr. Waffle, sneaked an illicitly purchased folding table (long story which you may well hear in due course) into the shed at lunchtime on a Sunday. When we went out to the shed in the afternoon to go for a family cycle, one of the family bikes was gone. It transpired that the â‚¬700 door we purchased after someone last tried to break into our shed hadn’t worked. It turns out that, for it to be really effective, it has to be locked.

I got the bike in 2015 on the bike to work scheme and, sadly, you can only claim relief once every five years so, I was alone on the purchase of the new bike. I got a second hand one and it was grand but I was a bit disappointed by the reaction of the guards with whom I had registered my stolen bike. They didn’t hold out any hope of getting it back and suggested that I look on donedeal.ie which, um, you know, I suppose, I might. Sigh.