belgianwaffle

Youngest Child

Feis Ceoil


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

The school had a singing and recitation competition on Saturday. The boys were both very brave but failed to scoop any medals. Michael took this very hard. “I try and I try, but still I don’t win,” he sobbed as the kindly adjudicator mouthed “sorry” at me over his heaving shoulders. The same adjudicator proceeded to award his sister second place in her category which she regarded as no more than her due. If I were giving out medals, I would have given one to Daniel, I think, who did his impression of a child from the Connemara Gaeltacht.

In completely unrelated news, herself walked a neighbour’s child home this afternoon and came back carrying a bag full of swag. Apparently, every day when coming home she, the childminder and the boys, meet a nice lady who lives on the street. The Princess had informed the lady that her birthday was coming, as indeed she has informed everybody. The lady acted on this information and as the Princess was passing her house this afternoon, she came out with various offerings. Unfortunately, the Princess has inherited my sense of direction so she has no idea in which house exactly her benefactress lives nor is she aware of other useful identifiers like the lady’s name. She has composed a thank you letter to hand over next time she meets the lady in the street and that is the best we can do for the moment. Who says the big city is an unfriendly place?

Busy Lives


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael came into the parental bed looking bleary eyed this morning and greeted me with, “What are we late for today?”

Why you Should Try to Keep your Small Children away from Police Stations


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

To renew the children’s passports, we have to bring them to a police station and let a Garda look at them. This may or may not be because Mr. Waffle was not born in Ireland but in a country well known to harbour dangerous subversives (Canada, since you ask). So on Sunday we trooped into the station where the Gardaí duly looked the children over and pronounced that they matched the photos. During that time, I fielded the following questions from the Princess based on a series of posters on the wall:

What is rape? [Having looked at these excellent but disturbing posters]
What’s human trafficking?
What’s a drug dealer?

While doing this, I had also to break up a fist fight between the boys on the subject of Daniel’s wellingtons.

Unrelated: Praxis, please advise on the capitalisation of the title.

Round Up


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

Parent teacher meetings: Herself, v clever, but continues to coast along without making the slightest effort (this is all very well in primary school but I can see disaster looming in the long term). Michael, too early to tell whether clever or not, but does not apply himself, particularly to colouring (try to care but just cannot, am clearly a bad mother). Daniel, tries very hard and worries a great deal about what everyone will think of his efforts. Due to power of will alone he can now nearly, nearly read. I think I should rely on Daniel for my pension. None of them shows the slightest interest in Irish or desire to speak it despite encouragement from all quarters. Sigh.

Went to see Tutankhamun exhibition on Saturday at the request of the children who are learning about ancient Eygpt in school. We queued for an hour with our pre-purchased ticket but, as a fellow queuer pointed out, at least it wasn’t raining. It was a bit dull in the end but the children, amazingly, seemed to enjoy it. Probably because they were given headphones.

Incident


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

The childminder took the children to the park yesterday. Some big bold boys ran after them, tried to kick them, shouted at them and called them names. The childminder departed with the children in tow and the bullies following. They only left when the children got on the bus home. The Princess is particularly upset, pointing out that they tried to kick Daniel she said, “I can do that, but no one else is allowed to.” They were all a bit shaken up. Later in the evening, Daniel said to me, “Mummy, the mean boys in the park called me [insert nasty racist epithet here] what does that mean?” Lovely. Proof that racists are stupid, I suppose. Mr. Waffle said to them, that these were children who weren’t looked after properly and taught properly and they probably wouldn’t have very happy lives. I was much less inclined to go with the wishy-washy liberal approach than usual and just said that they were nasty children [looks like it’s true – a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged].

Nature’s Conservatives


Posted in: Twins, Youngest Child

Michael would not go to bed so he sat on the couch with me watching such parts of the news as I deemed suitable for his consumption.

Him: That’s a robber who’s been found guilty.
Me: That’s right.
Him: And they’re going to kill him.
Me (slightly shocked): No, of course, they’re not. He’s going to go to jail.
Him: Oh yes, and he won’t get any food there.
Me: No, of course, he’ll be fed!
Michael: What is it, a holiday camp? [OK, I made that last line up but you can see that this is what was going through his little mind.]