belgianwaffle

Curtain Call


Posted in: The tale of Lazy Jack Silver

I am not here anymore. I am now here where the delightful Emily has designed a website for me. Is it not beautiful? As Mr. Waffle points out, the experience of outsourcing my technical needs to a low wage country has worked well for me. Should you be thinking of taking steps outside 20six, I encourage you to consult her, she is talented, she is speedy and she is cheap, in a good way, actually, I think I mean inexpensive. And she is prepared to do maintenance for the technically inept, what more could a girl ask for? Other credits go to Technobubble who did lots of code I didn’t understand and let all 20sixers use it. For nothing. Is he not saintly? No more than our Bobble deserves though. And to kind and good Heather who sent me a long email explaining how to set up my own website which convinced me that a) she’s a lot more technically ept than me and b) I needed professional help.

All the same, I am sad to be leaving 20six where I took my first tottering steps in the world of blogging. More especially as I fear it’s going to mean losing many of my readers (please update your bloglines subscriptions now, no, I’m not begging, just saying) each and every one of whom is vital to the continuing survival, nay, flourishing of my ego. But with so many of the old guard gone, it’s just not the same here any more and it’s probably time for me to move to another place – one where I won’t be threatened with upgrades. Yes, I know the 20six upgrade never happened, but the prospect of it shook me. And then I’m back to work in the morning, so it’s all change and it seems like a good time to move.

I note that all of the dramatis personae of LJS (look up it’s that neglected category up there at the top) have now left 20six except for pog (sorry about abandoning you pog but think of the glory of it “the boy stood on the burning deck, when all but he had fled” and all that). I am therefore, delighted to announce that, somewhat fortuitously, to coincide with my departure and almost exactly a year after the last entry, the ever fabulous Heather has crafted a conclusion that will sweep you along with its drama and grandeur and also, rather miraculously, tie up all the loose ends. It will be here shortly.

Thank you and goodnight.


I asked you a question


Posted in: Princess

I must assume that when the Princess speaks English, she takes her tone from me. I fear it is not a very nice tone.

When I stub my toe and howl in agony, she will kindly ask what’s wrong and when told say sternly “well then be careful and don’t do it again”.

The house usually echoes to the sound of herself shouting “are you coming or not?” when she wants me to inspect her latest achievement “look Mummy, I’m eating a slice of ham” regardless of what I might be doing “I’m just finishing changing Daniel’s nappy” and how easy it might be for me to get away and how important I might consider what she particularly wishes to draw to my attention.

Every time she addresses me and I fail to respond instantly she says in a strict and reproachful voice “I asked you a question, Mummy”. A lot of the time, I’m forced to point out to her that no, actually, she hasn’t asked me a question and has just made a statement to which I am supposed to respond. She is trying to work out what a question is, so now when she says something she follows it up with “Is that a question or a misstatement Mummy?”. It’s like living with President Bush.

Is it possible to make your child that little bit too precocious for her own good?


Posted in: Princess

Me: Sweetheart, please eat or you will fade away to nothing.

Her: Like Echo.

Me: Eh?

Her (patiently): Echo who fell in love with Narcissus and faded away to nothing but her voice.

Me: Oh right.

In the end I was glad that she didn’t eat anything because there was less to throw up. Oh dear, home again with three children, one of whom is pathetically sick, thereby precluding a trip out of the house. In view of this, I have chosen to wear tracksuit bottoms, ancient hoody type thing and scholl sandals with no socks. Oh yes, I am a tremendously appealing sight today. You will be relieved to hear that I did shower; it was easy, really, I put the boys sitting in bouncy chairs in the bathroom while the Princess retched over the bath.

On the plus side, this is an excellent way to spend my last day of maternity leave because it means that on Monday I will leap into the fray with added gusto. Last night I calculated that taking into account our prohibitive childcare costs and my four day week, there will be relatively little left in my monthly salary for fun (yes, I appreciate that I might have done this calculation a little earlier but where’s the spontaneity in that?). Mr. Waffle said encouragingly “well, lots of women in your position have no money over when they pay for childcare so think positive”. Hmm. I feel like some kind of government statistic. And I know that it is a false calculation because, even, if I didn’t go back to work, we would still have to have some kind of childcare to preserve my sanity and I understand that the cost of valium is prohibitive.

I hate to upset Canadians


Posted in: Belgium

Our upstairs neighbour who is a respectable German lady of a certain age (of course I’m going on a certain age myself but she’s definitely been there for a while) appears to have a new man. He is in his 50s with distinguished greying hair and a solid, portly but not entirely unattractive person. We see his large Luxembourg registered BMW in the garage regularly. We run into him on the stairs. Mr. Waffle got chatting to him and he said that he was Canadian. I pointed out that he doesn’t sound as though English is his first language. Mr. Waffle pointed out that this doesn’t preclude him being Canadian. This is mere quibbling as he doesn’t sound as though French is his first language either. I think he is pretending to be Canadian to besmirch the honour of a hardworking and virtuous nation.*

Saturday two weeks ago, Mr. Waffle had gone out with herself and I was home alone with the boys. The doorbell rang. It was the alledgedly Canadian man. He said “I left my wallet in the office early this morning and I have no money, could you lend me 20 euros?” “Of course” I said and handed it over. Then he said “Actually could you make that 40?” “Of course” I said, slightly less readily, wondering why the hell he couldn’t drive in to his office and pick up his wallet. Then he said “How much have you got?” And even though I had in fact 200 euros in my purse, I paused, even though I suddenly realised his office was probably in Luxembourg and that was why he wasn’t so keen to drive back, I paused. Didn’t he have any other friends in Brussels, why was our upstairs neighbour not giving him money? Had he scammed his way to the BMW in the garage? “Um, no that’s it, I’m afraid” I said untruthfully. And boy am I glad, because two and a bit weeks on, despite regular polite meetings on the stairs and in the garage, have I got my 40 euros back? Gentle reader, I have not and I am bitter; clearly I have supplied the start of a deposit on a rolls.

*Mr. Waffle, who, you will recall, holds a Canadian passport himself so is an expert on these things, tells me that they are clubbing cute baby seals at the moment, so maybe the tag virtuous is not appropriate, though I am sure it is very hard work.

Irregular plurals


Posted in: Princess

Irregular plurals
The Princess is fond of a piece of poetry from this book that goes as follows:

Daddy is a doofus, a doofus, a doofus
Daddy is a doofus, a doofus because…

It goes on to ennumerate reasons why Daddy is a doofus including “belly like a burger” and “combs his hair with fingers”. I think that it would be fair to say that it’s probably not Mr. Waffle’s favourite poem.

Her: Daddy doesn’t like “Daddy is a doofus”.
Me: No, I don’t think so.
Her: It makes him go like this (sticks out lower lip).
Me: I see.
Her: But I say to him “Daddy, you’re not a doofus, all the other daddies are doofi.”

Childcare


Posted in: Twins

The boys are 6 months old today. I go back to work next Monday. I have put in place what are quite possibly the most elaborate childcare arrangements ever. I’m exhausted from planning and I haven’t even started work yet. Mind you, the “adaptation” at the creche has been just fine. They seem to love it. Whereas herself was miserable and clingy (as was I, I suppose) the boys and I are very relaxed about the whole thing. While they spend a couple of hours in the creche adapting, I go off and have a cup of tea and read the paper. I seem to remember that when the Princess was adapting I used to sit teary eyed and hunched over a cooling cup of tea counting the minutes until I could rescue her. It’s funny I go to the same café and I remember it as glum and cheerless and this time it seems fine really and the croissants are excellent. When I go to rescue the boys, they are invariably sunny, unlike herself who was almost always weeping. Do you think that children take their cue from their parents, then? Mind you, Breda O’Brien in the Irish Times, always anxious to make working parents feel happy, has an article this weekend wherein she states that her friend who worked “with children dying of Aids that they had contracted through Caeuscescu’s mad policy of blood tranfusions to ‘strengthen orphans [..] was reduced to tears by one Irish creche.” Thank you, Breda, that makes me feel a lot better.

The boys, however, are not faultless. They are very good little boys almost all the time and smile merrily and are generally most endearing etc. etc. but they will not sleep at night and I don’t know what to do. When I was feeding Michael the other morning, I noticed salt trails in his ears from where his tears had dried without being wiped away while he howled himself to sleep in the kitchen (oh don’t ask, but we do appear to have created a situation where, if he wakes in the middle of the night, he feels that he can only go back to sleep in a cot in the kitchen). I feel terrible, how miserable is that? I suppose, I wouldn’t feel quite so terrible, if it were working, but it’s not. We are at our wits’ end. Hours and hours of crying have given us the result that maybe, maybe, both of them will sleep from 7.30 to midnight but after that, it’s up more or less every hour until the Princess rises at about 6.30/7.00. We’re both exhausted. We have received conflicting advice from books and people: never wake a sleeping baby/don’t let them sleep during the day, if you want them to sleep at night/they must have naps during the day, if you want them to sleep at night/feed them when they wake/don’t feed them when they wake (my mother adding her mite to the general misery tells me that she asked my father and he says they might be hungry, humph), oh I could go on but I’ll spare you. What I am intimating here, is that having read two books on the topic and been the target of much advice, I’d be pretty surprised if there were anything we haven’t tried and nothing is working. Oh well, this too will pass, I suppose.

And they are rather fabulous. And also starting on solids. Before. After.

I would like you to know that the end of this post would give some credence to The Onion headline “Internet collapses from weight of baby pictures”, if I could follow Emily’s instructions. Doubtless, it will come.