In the toy shop.
Princess identifies Disney toy doll “Sow Ite, Sow Ite”.
Me to Mr. Waffle “Look, that’s the first brand she’s recognised”.
Mr. Waffle “Snow White isn’t a brand she’s the heroine of a popular fairy tale”.
Who’s he trying to kid here?
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Mr. W : Have you read “American Pastoral” yet?
Me: No, it’s on the bedside table.
Mr. W: But, it’s been there for years. Philip Roth has written two more books in the time that book’s been sitting on your bedside table.
In the morning we went to an exhibition on tattoos. It also threw in some alarming body piercings for good measure. In the afternoon we took in an exhibition on 25 typical Bruxellois. It included a profile of a Madam Pipi. I feel this is not a profession which is well known in the anglophone world. We were led to this by the admirable Thierry who is my source of information on all that is going on in the Belgian capital. Finally, we went to an exhibition of pre-colombian art which was sponsored by my bank and we got in free. I think that this was the first time I got something for nothing from my bank, so let’s celebrate that. The exhibition featured quite a number of large stone phalluses and I couldn’t help feeling the mother and teenage son team making their way round weren’t having a great time with these.
on 13 November 2004 at 22:03
Stop being all American. We know what you Bush lovers are like. 
on 14 November 2004 at 19:40
Touch?!
Romance
Mr. Waffle and I went out to dinner last night in our favourite restaurant in Brussels. It is small and full of velvet and mirrors and the food is fabulous. It was cold and wet outside. It was warm and candlelit inside. We held hands. We stopped talking about the Princess for minutes at a time.
Glamour
For the night that was in it, I wore a rather daring (but subtle) outfit that I haven’t donned in a while. The babysitter (a middle aged Polish lady) raised her eyebrows, Mr. Waffle admired and the rather older gentlemen sitting on either side of us in the restaurant peered.
Excitement
When we came home, herself was up and playing with the babysitter. I took her into my arms and Mr. Waffle drove the babysitter home. I hadn’t even had time to take off my coat when the Princess vomited all over me – getting coat, outfit and, for good measure, boots. Pausing only briefly to consider how many florets of broccoli she had swallowed whole, I began to mop up. When Mr. Waffle returned, it was to find his wife clad in a distinctly unglamourous dressing gown and playing with a wide-awake baby in the marital bed. Although she had been a bit upset at vomiting, within minutes she was her usual chirpy self. As a vomit veteran, she bounces back quickly.
Attempts to persuade madam that she might be better off in her own bed were unavailing, so the next hour was spent picking up doggy from the floor and passing the Princess from parent to parent before, finally, we all collapsed from exhaustion.
on 13 November 2004 at 17:00
A simple case of seeing off any possible opposition, by the sound of it…. 😉 1
Sweetie(s) given
on 13 November 2004 at 19:14
bw, see what you’ll be missing when you go back to work!
jd, as plausible as your theory sounds, it never worked with any of my dates.
It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these. How about this:
“Don’t reply to this ad if you are now or have ever been a T.A. reservist. Orienteering is neither big nor clever, and no-one in your department at work ever calls you captain. You know who you are. F., 36. Box no. 20/13″I see that the mean old editorial staff are not giving out the bottle of champagne for best ad this week as “this issue is the first of the LRB’s 25th Anniversary editions. As a result advertisers are asked to get over themselves for uno momento whilst we keep this issue’s champagne for an office jolly.”
(Homepage)
on 11 November 2004 at 16:49
How topical – want the list of things in this post that I didn’t understand? 🙂
on 12 November 2004 at 12:57
Actually to be fair to the personals in the LRB, they are all wonderful. Hilarious. They should sell them separately. Beth, I suspect you are baffled by the TA which is the territorial army, I think. Further guesswork here but could it correspond to US reservists?
Princess picks up a leaf and puts it in her trailer. I take it out saying it’s a bit shabby and she picks up another one. Finally we have a trailer full of leaves that meet my stict criteria.
We go home and get out a sheet of paper and a glue stick. The Princess chews meditatively on the glue stick. I arrange the leaves in pretty patterns on the page. The Princess refuses to surrender the glue stick. I remove it from her by main force and use it to stick my pretty leaves on the sheet of paper. She wails throughout the procedure. I return the glue stick to her. She chews on it while removing my prettily patterned leaves from the page and wiping them one by one on her tights. There is a brief tussle wherein I use my superior force to remove from her little fists leaves, paper and glue stick.
When she goes for her nap, I stick back all the leaves on the paper, write her name and the date on the end of the sheet and hang it on the wall.
Is there something wrong with this picture?
on 11 November 2004 at 13:51
Nope – not that I can see.
(That leaf she chose first was pretty manky.)
on 11 November 2004 at 15:55
nah, she’s learning the valuable lesson that if you want something doing properly you’ve got to do it yourself…
on 11 November 2004 at 16:41
Art critics can be difficult that way.
on 12 November 2004 at 12:56
I fear that Pog has the right of it, but I like the way the rest of you are thinking.