A reminder to mind my language

This morning was all kinds of chaos.  Nothing all that out of the ordinary, just a whole lot of little delays and arguments, uncooperative children, tired parents, “lost” items and other tangles.

Finally we got Pearl & Fainjin to school, and headed towards daycare and work.  About halfway there, The Dad asked me whether I had remembered to pick up the cake from the kitchen bench – it was intended for an office morning tea this morning.  I had not, and it was the final straw as far as I was concerned.  “Awww fudge!”

Babess, so sweet and innocent, asked with all concern from the back seat, “Did you forget to bring your fudge, Mummy?”

“Ummm, yes.  Yes, I did.”

The Dad caught my eye and we both started giggling.

Ah, thank you, Babess.  We needed that laugh.  Perhaps I should make some fudge.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Hands off

Babess went with her daycare on a trip today.  “Where did you go?” we asked her.

“We went to the museum,” she informed us gravely.  “And do you know what we had to do there?”

“No,” we answered.  Perhaps they had done craft activities there, participated in one of the interactive displays, “dug up” the dinosaur “bones”?

“Not touch anything!” came the answer.

Rather an old-fashioned museum visit then.  The Dad and I shared a grin.  We think the teachers are very brave to take half-a-dozen or more preschoolers on a museum visit at all!

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Musical alphabet

Fainjin is really enjoying playing the “lukulele” as he insists on calling it.  He’ll quite often pull it out – with his music – and sit in the lounge, strumming and singing away quietly to himself.

This morning he had his first lesson in three weeks after the school holiday break, and he was having a practice before he went.  I was in the kitchen and he was in the lounge, but he felt compelled to tell me everything he was thinking anyway.

“Mum! In music there’s only ABCDEFG!”

“That’s right, Fainjin.”

“There’s no T.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Cos it’s only ABCDEFG.”

pause…

“There’s definitely an A, cos that’s at the start of ABCDEFG.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But there’s no M.”

“No.”

“There’s an F!… [pause] … but there’s no R, cos that’s not in ABCDEFG…”

 

I was quite glad when it was time for him to pack up and head off to his lesson.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

 

A heartfelt wish for Mothers’ Day

At the school holiday programme today – which Pearl and Fainjin most thoroughly enjoyed – they were encouraged to make gifts and cards for Mothers’ Day.  Fainjin made me some lovely floral-and-lots-of-things badges, and this utterly priceless card.

Fainjin”hearts” Mum

I love the kitten saying “Mewu”.  There’s a dog in a kennel (I think) saying “Aooo”, a picture of me saying “Me”, and Fainjin saying “Roar”.  But the inside of the card is the best bit.

Mum can you stop telling me to do jobs from Fainjin

I love you so much, please stop making me do housework!

I am keeping this card in our box of special things to keep for 21st birthdays.  Oh, and guess what we’re doing tomorrow?  Jobs.

 

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

 

A Dog’s Show

One of the TV shows I remember from my childhood with great fondness is A Dog’s Show.  Each Sunday evening before the news we would avidly watch the sheepdog trials, marvelling at the well-trained dogs and the extraordinarily bolshie sheep.

I’ve often mused in recent years that this made much better television than the recent trend for talent shows, singing competitions, and kitchen wars.  I was wishing they would bring it back.

Last night I was up very late past my bed-time, and noticed that one of the more obscure tv channels was running a repeat of a 1980′s episode of A Dog’s Show!  I quickly started recording it, and went to bed.

This afternoon I sat down with Babess & Fainjin to watch some quality television.  I was hoping they would enjoy it, but wondered how well it had aged.  I also wondered what these 21st-century city children would think of sheepdog trials for entertainment, and whether they would tolerate it for more than five minutes before asking for cartoons.

I needn’t have worried.  They were fascinated.  They asked a few questions and started cheering on the dogs and exclaiming at the sheep.  This was a special anniversary programme, a kind of all-stars episode featuring past winners, and the producers had found some particularly evil-minded sheep which kept on running in exactly the wrong direction and staring menacingly at the dogs.

After a while Fainjin summed up the series perfectly: “So… the sheeps are the bad guys, eh?  And the dogs are the good guys.”

I had to agree, but gently pointed out that it’s “sheep”, not “sheeps”.  “We don’t put an s on the end of sheep, Fainjin.”

Babess, not yet at school but already figuring out the basics of spelling and always keen for the last word, jumped in, “No, we put a p on the end of sheep!”

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Golf balls

We’re just home from a few days away.  It is bliss to be back in our own place and our own beds!  But of course it was lovely to get away for a little while too.  We had fun exploring a new (to the children) city and seeing the sights.

By yesterday afternoon Babess was tired beyond reason, so I kept her at the motel with me and sent The Dad out with the older two to have an adventure without us.  Babess snuggled on the couch under a blanket – I hoped she’d drop off, but she didn’t, so we watched a cartoon movie together and I knitted another pattern repeat in my shawl.  It was lovely and restful and we both appreciated the chance to chill out a bit.

Eventually The Dad returned with Pearl and Fainjin, and they were fizzing.  They’d been to play minigolf.  Pearl showed me the scorecard with a measure of chagrin.  Her score was highest, Fainjin a few shots less, and The Dad had beaten them both by over 30.  I pointed out that she had got best value for money, having actually played more golf than anyone else.  She liked that way of looking at it.  I didn’t tell her that I’d come up with it to justify my own golf scores whenever I play.

Fainjin came bouncing in next to tell us all about it.  “We played minigolf!  It was awesome!  There were lots of testicles and…”

“Hang on Fainjin, what did you say?”

“We played minigolf!  It was awesome!  There were lots of testicles and you had to…”

“Wait!  Did you say testicles?  Lots of testicles?” I was smothering gales of laughter and trying to figure out what he had meant to say.

He didn’t notice I was laughing.

“Yeah, lots of testicles!  It was really cool!”

“Ummmmm, do you mean… obstacles?”

“Yeah!  Testicles!”

I made him repeat the word “obstacles” after me a few times.  Life is full of obstacles.  Luckily, it’s also full of comedy.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

E-day

Tomorrow Pearl’s class is having an “Electronics Day”, where they are allowed (but not required) to bring an electronic device to school to use in their afternoon free time.  This is a reward for lots of hard work in a long term – tomorrow is the last day of term.  They’re also having a shared lunch (also known as cooking homework for Mum – Pearl wants to take cinnamon buns so those are rising as I write).

We heard about this E-day during the parent-teacher-child conference, and I was initially baffled as to what Pearl could take for it.  We don’t have much in the way of child-friendly electronics.  No game machines, i-pods etc.  But Pearl’s face lit up.  “Mum!  Can I bring the e-reader?”

“Oh!  Yes, you could take my e-reader to school,” I agreed.  Pearl explained to her teacher that we can load library books onto it.

He grinned.  “So, for electronics day, you want to bring a book and read it?  Great!”

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Planning ahead

Tonight we had parent-teacher-child conferences at school.  Fainjin was encouraged to talk about his strengths.  He had written that he was good at “fiting” (fighting! oh my!) and writing, and we discussed a few more.  He agreed that he’s good at building things with Lego, and his teacher said, “I think you must be good at planning too, aren’t you?”

He looked mystified, and she said, “When you’re building things, you have to decide what to build, and plan it in your head.”

“I just use my imagination,” he said dubiously.

“That’s right, but how do you know what you’re going to build, what it’s going to look like?”

He still looked very uncertain of what she was getting at.  “Well, mostly I like building battleships?  So… I just build those.  I just… do my work?”

I suspect the “plan in his head” is so strong and well-defined for him that he’s not really even aware he does it.  He decides to build a battleship, and just knows exactly what he’s going to do to get it without thinking about it.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Junior Journalist

Last night I was busy in the kitchen while the evening news was on.  Babess took it upon herself to keep me informed.

She came out to the kitchen to deliver her information in solemn tones.

“A lady has died.”

“Are they talking about Margaret Thatcher?”

“Yes.  And now she’s dead.”

“OK, thanks sweetie.”  I carried on and she went back to the lounge.  A few minutes later she was back, with the same solemn delivery.

“A boy is unhappy in sport.”

“Ummmm, which sport?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you hear his name?”

“No.  But he’s not very happy.”

“OK… thanks…” I still have no idea what that was about.  She ran back to the lounge, feeling very important.  Soon enough she was back again.

“It’s going to rain tomorrow.”

“Where we live?”

“I don’t know.  It’s going to rain somewhere.”

I think that’s probably accurate enough for most purposes!

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

 

No flu, (almost) no fuss

This year we all got flu shots.  We trooped along to the doctor’s surgery to see the nurse, and she lined us all up.  Everyone was happy until it was time to start (no surprise there!).

Babess was upset because she had to go first.  I held her in my lap while she tried to wriggle away and sobbed, “No, I don’t want to go first!”

Our Practice Nurse is unflustered by such antics, and talked soothingly to her (to not much avail) while administering the shot.  Babess continued to fuss, then blinked in confusion when I said, “OK, all done!”  She had been fussing so much about going first that she didn’t notice the needle.  A small bag of jellybeans dried the rest of the tears remarkably quickly.

Fainjin was a bit nervous, but the nurse gave him his bag of jellybeans to hold first.  “What colours can you see in there?” she asked him cunningly.

“Red, purple, green, blue…” – and he was done too, none the wiser.

Pearl was a little harder to distract, but certainly wasn’t going to fuss when her younger siblings had survived intact.  Especially if there were jellybeans.

Before long we were on our way again, heading for a restorative cake and fluffy each.  “How’s your arm, Fainjin?” I asked him.  “Fine…” he said vaguely, rubbing his right shoulder.

I grinned.  The injection had been in the left shoulder.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.