We went to see this last week. I think that much more of this culture stuff could kill me. Mr. Waffle maintains that I remained stony faced because of the Cork accents (not bad at all) but I would suggest it was because of the deeply disturbing themes explored in the play. OK, it may have had its comic moments also. Not for me but clever. Remained resolutely seated as the rest of the audience rose to their feet; regretted that we had seats in the front row, though.
Cupboard love
Michael:Â Are we going to grandma and grandad’s house?
Me: Not today, sweetheart.
Him: Hysterical sobs.
Me: Why do you want to see grandma and grandad so badly?
Him: Because their house is warm. I’m always freezing here.
As you can tell, the insulation crisis continues unchecked.
I was relating this hilarious tale to a colleague and she became very concerned on my behalf. I was bemused; when I was a child it was completely normal to be frozen all the time, I used to have to get dressed under the blankets in the mornings. This Celtic Tiger has a lot to answer for.
Meanwhile, herself is busy practising for the nativity play: “Nà raibh aon leaba le fáil do Mhuire agus Iosaef” [Go on, non-Irish speakers, guess what it means using only your knowledge of infant nativitiy plays as a guide]. You may care to consider this in plain clothes (not quite the right text) or dress rehearsal version.
Seasonal Setpiece
On Saturday we got the Christmas tree.
When I was a child we had an artificial Christmas tree which my parents had bought for their first Christmas together. Forty one years later they still have that tree though it has had to be repaired with tin foil a number of times.  Nobody can say that they haven’t had value for it. I hated that tree and I vowed that, once I had a house of my own, I would always have a real tree.
The trip up to the shop to choose the tree was marred by herself insisting that she wanted to cycle up. The boys piled into the car and I walked up beside her muttering moodily that if she got tired of cycling uphill, I wasn’t going to carry the bike.
There was one Christmas tree left when we got to the shop. We took it. When we got it home and unwrapped it from its net, it turned out to boast particularly dense and luxuriant foliage around its midriff and none at all at its legs. We manhandled it into the appropriate space and it stuck out its fingers into all of the surrounding area, dislodging papers and poking books and small children, even as I write, it is hanging menacingly over my left shoulder.
The children were very excited and instantly began decorating without allowing time to stand the tree up straight, remove the overhanging branches or take off their coats. Mr. Waffle and I became a little tense and started barking at them to stand back. They got cross back.
I put on a CD of Christmas music but Daniel insisted that we took it off and put on “Peter and the Wolf” instead. Fine, fine, fine.
We chopped at the tree. The Princess screamed. Her father ordered her out to sit on the stairs and think about her sins. Her brothers, ever her loyal defenders, hurled themselves at the door yelling “my sister, my sister, let my sister in”. Mr. Waffle and the Princess departed to do the grocery shopping, the boys entertained themselves with a book and I finished off decorating the misshapen tree. I asked the boys to turn off the lights which they did with great glee and the three of us spent 2.5 seconds looking at the lights before the boys whizzed back round the room and turned all the lights on again.
Sigh.
Slightly disturbing
Princess: You may kiss the bride.
Me: Eh?
Her: Who says that?
Me: The priest when people get married.
Her: I want to kiss a boy.
Me: You can kiss your brothers whenever you want.
Her: Another boy.
Me: Is this what you talk about at school.
Her: Yes.
Ladies and gentlemen, the child is five.
In other news, I have captured Daniel (with some interference) doing bits from Peter and the Wolf. Only the really enthusiastic will want to follow all of these links.
Petty
I like my job and I like my colleagues but due to a series of administrative glitches, I do not yet have an office.  I try to be above caring but I do not like it oh no I do not. I am huddled in a large room with other people. I want to be alone so that I can talk to my childminder in private or even concentrate on some work. Nor do I particularly want to hear other people’s phone conversations. Due to a series of canny career choices, I have not had to share office space very often in my professional life and I am not enjoying it on this occasion.
I am being driven demented by the two lovely, lovely men who work in the corner and have some rather annoying verbal tics.
Lovely man 1:Â Well, they won’t be attending the meeting as such.
Lovely man 2: I can only say they ought to be there.
Lovely man 1: They would know that as such.
LM2: I can only say the chair will be disappointed.
LM1: They will be sending their apologies as such.
LM2: Will they? I can only say that it is a mistake not to come.
I was cruelly telling a friend this and asked whether I had any verbal tics and was quite disconcerted to find that he said, with some relief, “yes, you say fabulous all the time”.
I imagine that when I am not there, scene in the corner goes something like this.
LM1: It’s not that I object to the word ‘fabulous’ as such.
LM2: I can only say that it’s a good word in its place.
LM1: It’s just that she says it all the time as such.
Random update on my children
Michael is not a great believer in metaphor and he does not like inaccuracy.
When he hurts himself, I will often say “my poor baby” and through his sobs, Michael will say furiously “I’m not a baby, I’m a big boy”. Somebody at Montessori school has sold him the line that, “juice makes me small and water makes me big” and he will now only drink water in the hopes of growing up big and strong. In fact, he doesn’t really like sweet things and when his brother and sister get a biscuit, he always has a cracker instead as he doesn’t like biscuits. Isn’t this odd?
Michael is morbidly anxious that the family may be split up and always insists that when we go out we stick together like glue.
This morning, Daniel, as always, woke up first. As I lifted him out of the cot (maybe for their 18th birthdays, they’ll get beds) I said “Up, up, up with a fish”. And Michael said from some distance under the duvet, “My brother is not a fish.”Michael also likes to say “actually” all the time. I fear he may have picked that up from me, actually.
Michael’s hair is finally starting to grow back after having been shaved off in September. I remember shortly after his scalping I got the train to Cork with the children and the lady opposite asked, “Are they twins?” To which I said yes. “And the little boy is a cousin?” I explained that the boys were the twins and the little girl their big sister. “Oh,” she said “it’s just that his hair was so different, I didn’t think that they could be in the same family”.
Daniel howled this evening from the moment his sister taunted him by singing the wrong song until almost an hour later when we finally wrestled him into bed, having wrestled him out of his clothes, into the bath, into a towel and into his pyjamas. We are exhausted. He is very strong and has an enormous capacity for misery, poor mite.
He is also an outstanding mimic with a great memory. To hear him doing Peter and the Wolf from start to finish is enough to bring a warm glow to any middle class parent’s heart.
The Princess was awarded “Gaeilgeoir na seachtaine” (Irish speaker of the week) at school today. We are unclear whether this is in recognition of her Irish prowess or because her name was drawn out of a hat. We are, nevertheless, proud and she has some crayons and paints for her pains.She has just departed for bed in a state of high excitement as Saint Nicolas (who comes to Belgian children on the night of the 5th) may come to us as honorary Belgians. We have carefully left out shoes for him to fill with sweets, beer and biscuits (there was some concern that we have no speculoos, but he will just have to manage) and a carrot for his donkey, just in case. I have told her that he only comes when children are asleep. She pointed out to me that the boys were already asleep and it would be most unfair of him not to come under these circumstances. I beat a hasty retreat uttering dire but unsustainable warnings of what would happen, if she failed to drop off.
The Princess has started ballet on Saturday mornings. I did ballet for 7 years. For 6 of those 7 years I wore white tights, a white polo neck, black ballet shoes and my hair in a net. In my seventh year, I graduated to peach shoes and a leotard. For her first lesson last week the Princess wore the required gear, namely: white tights (some things never change), a blue leotard, peach shoes, a blue cross-over cardigan thingy and a blue filmy skirt (not a tutu, that would just be too much). Did I mention that I walked to school barefoot as well?