TIME FOR HUSBAND NO. 3?

My little nephew, Gordy, apparently had an interesting conversation with his father last night. He pointed out that he knew I was the type of person to ditch one husband for another when the going got tough. He then inquired as to whether I was planning to ditch Thomas any time soon, as he would quite like to step up and become my third husband! I guess that would take toy boy to the nth degree!

Wee kids can be a laugh at times!

NONSENSE FROM DAWN TILL DUSK

This one really is a special little troll. I don't know why so much nonsense goes though her head - it isn't malicious at all, partly it's investigative, but sometimes she's just trying to act like the older people she sees around her.

Today was fairly typical. We got up to find she'd taken all the bowls out of the Welsh dresser. She likes to colour in bowls when you turn your back. Obviously finding out she's chosen oil pastels instead of washable felt tips five minutes before breakfast is a bit of a bummer.

I washed the bowls in the sink and walked past the downstairs toilet as I went to put them on the table. She was standing unaided beside the loo. She carefully removed a square of loo roll with her left hand, transferred it to her right, wiped her bum (she was wearing a nappy and tights) and put the used paper in the loo. Ok, she'd been watching the rest of us at the loo. She repeated this with a second square, and a third, and would have done the same with the entire toilet roll, had a I not dragged her out kicking and screaming.

She crept through to the hall. She didn't immediately see her shoes in the shoe cupboard. She put on one of Léon's and wandered away. I found it in the living room. As I was returning it to the shoe cupboard so we wouldn't be in a panic Monday morning at 9, she passed wearing one of Anna's! I pulled it off too and said no sternly. She rolled dramatically on the floor, heartbroken. Five minutes later, because I'd closed the shoe cupboard she hobbled by wearing one of Thomas's large muddy garden clogs that he'd left in the porch! Arrrrg! Stop it baby!

Other than that she's tried to clip her nails today using nail clippers. And she's pushed a step ladder over to the cooker to try to make a meal.

My father-in-law flew in today - he suffers from sleep apnoea and uses a breathing machine at night. I am definitely going to keep her in bed till after he gets up - I'd hate her to unplug him just to see what it is!

QUICHE

Anna isn't stupid. I made quiche for lunch. I put it on the table. 'Have a piece of this', I said. 'No, thanks', she replied. I reiterated the house rule about having to try all food before deciding what we like and don't like and quick as a flash she replied 'But I have tasted quiche - Silly Mad John (her imaginary Grandpa!) made me it at his house last week so I tried it there!'
10/10 for quick thinking and sheer cheek!

RATATOUILLE

If I had tasted Thomas's ratatouille before I married him, I would probably have married him for it, but I didn't so it was a lovely surprise to find eating it went with the job of being his wife. If anyone is ever looking for a great ratatouille recipe, let me recommend either marrying Thomas... or buying Provence the beautiful cookbook.

BATHTIME CUTENESS

I think this is quite a cute photo of Anna trying to rinse the shampoo from her own hair... though for some strange reason it brings back vague memories of Jack Nicholson in the Shining!

BUM-SHUFFLED SHOES

When you go into Clarks you can get shoes for crawlers, cruisers or walkers. Of course, if the climate was better, I'd probably just leave her barefoot, but so far this summer has not been 'learn to walk outside barefoot' weather. Amaia is a bum shuffler. Why don't they realize bum shufflers need quite different shoes? In fact you need to make two types of bum-shuffler shoes - right-footed bum-shuffler shoes and left-footed bum-shuffler shoes! Ideally Amaia needs the sole to be on the left-hand side of her left shoe, not underneath it and she most definitely needs it to fasten in the inner side of the shoe, not the outer side. As you can see, she has completely destroyed the buckle strap by dragging her left foot under her. Her right foot needs a reinforced heel too as she drags herself around on that. I know bum shuffling isn't half as common as crawling but offering even one model would certainly help those who are 'lucky' enough to have a shuffler baby!

AT LAST

I planted this peony two years ago and it has never flowered until today. Isn't it a pretty one? It will look lovely beside the other unusual peenies I planted in my garden.

ODDBALL

This one has been an oddball since she popped out 17 months ago. First there was no explanation as to why she decided to weigh 25% more than all my other kids. Then at 7 months she started that weird bum-shuffling thing and because the technique allowed her to move things around freely, it looked until yesterday like she would never attempt to move on. Suddenly she decided standing was the first step, but not standing on the nice smooth, hard, even floor, as would be sensible. If you want to learn to stand, how about on the edge of a couch or on the squashy mattress of her parents' bed?

FINALLY USEFUL

When Charlotte was given this dress as a present when she was four, her lip curled in disgust as if someone had suggested she ought to peel off her skin and jump into a vat of vinegar. As it had been a gift from her uncle, I tried to teach her tact. I suggested that if she was to put it on for three minutes, I could take a photo and send him it and he would never realize she hated it. She wouldn't budge. I tried coaxing, cajoling, bribery, anger, guilt and everything that came to mind, but she would not be moved. She loved her uncle but she hated the dress. Maybe her tactic worked - the following year he gave her a Nike T-shirt (albeit in pink once again), which she did wear.

It lay in her drawer for two years and then was evicted to the loft. I recently came across it and had a hunch that Anna's reaction may be different. When I showed her it yesterday, she claimed never to have seen anything as beautiful and happily skipped around all day exclaiming she was now a real princess as this wasn't even a costume!

Of course, when Amaia sneaked up behind her with a purple marker and drew on her, she ended up in the same state Lots had been all those years ago, but not because I was asking her to put it on, but rather because I was telling her to take it off!

I wonder which camp Amaia will join when she grows into it!

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SILLY MAD JOHN

Anna invented Silly Mad John a few months ago. He is an imaginary friend she refers to as her 'pretend Grandpa'. Stories about him have become so common I have started documenting him. They are often quite consistent. For months now we have heard how he lives up a tree in a forest inside a leaf, for example. None of my other children has ever had an imaginary friend so I've been trying to analyse the psychology behind him.
The three older children go to visit André (my ex-husband) twice a week at around 6pm. When they leave Anna becomes quite sad in their absence, asking if she can go too sometimes, asking when they will return. She tells me how much she misses them when they are away and she wonders if they miss her. Two nights ago she asked me if I thought the biggies missed her whenever she went for dinner or sleepovers at Silly Mad John's house. Léon went to great lengths to explain to her she didn't go anywhere and that SMJ didn't exist but she was quite dismissive of him.
Last night André turned up in his brand new marker-pen green Fiat Qubo (that he'd bought the day before). Anna was at the gate when he drove by. Ten minutes later, she told me SMJ had bought himself a new green Fiat Qubo too. Suddenly the penny dropped. I think Anna is trying to invent herself an André equivalent. It will be interesting to see if Anna goes on holiday with SMJ in three weeks time when Marcel, Charlotte and Léon go to France to visit their Oma.

MUM

Little did I know when I took this beautiful photo of my parents on Saturday at my brother's 40th, that my mum would suffer a stroke 6 hours later. She is now in the Southern General unable to speak :-( With dad already terminally ill with cancer, I wonder how much more our family is going to have to suffer this year.

ARE MONOLINGUAL CHILDREN EMBARRASSING?

I've sometimes wondered how people cope with parenting monolingual children.
Years ago, when I would stand in the queue in Byres road Safeway waiting to buy my dinner and Marcel would ask in French at the top of his lungs why the man in front of us in the queue was so ugly, I would smile in relief at the thought that no one had caught what he'd said.
Yesterday I was reminded of the phenomenon.
I took Anna into nursery and told her to sit on the rug with her group. As I turned to hang up her coat, I heard a wee voice pipe up 'Charlie! (one of her 3 year old friends) I've not got my tights on today because it is so hot. Would you like me to show you my stor tissekone?' Arg! I turned, hopped over the kids, picked her up and whispered that just because the weather was nice, Charlie didn't particularly want to see her 'large vagina'! She looked surprised and pointed out that it was a very lovely one! Because of her use of the Danish in the sentence, neither Charlie nor Anna's teacher had caught what was going on! Once again I was saved by the bilingual dimension.
I take my hat off to all the parents of monolinguals - life must be quite a minefield!

THE AUTHORITY OF A CHART

Back when we lived in the flat we asked either Marcel or Charlotte to set the table each night while Thomas and I still did all the cooking. Setting the table is a five minute task but Marcel and Charlotte (who were 9 and 7 at the time) could easily spend half an hour arguing why they shouldn't be the table setter - they'd done it the night before (even if they hadn't), they'd helped cook, they'd been abducted by aliens etc etc. Eventually, because we found it hard to remember whose turn it was Thomas printed out a plan and stuck it on the fridge door. Overnight the arguing stopped. It was written in stone - no one queried anything. The chart was checked and the plan executed because a written plan is never wrong! Result!

Similarly after years of begging kids to read more, explaining the merits on their education of reading more and arguing that reading wasn't boring, ad nauseum, the chart solved that issue too. Give them a book and say read that and they procrastinate till the cows come home. Give them a chart marking a daily number of pages and without an argument, the book is handed back usually early, finished.

I'm considering mocking up a chart containing all household chores. It could work, no?

NOT THOSE KRISPIES, I TOLD YOU!

Is 16 months old too young to be able to read? Yesterday several of the boxes of cereal on the breakfast table had less than a plateful left in them so Thomas took three of the internal bags and put them in one box. The result was that inside a box marked Cheerios we had Weetabix minis, Cheerios and Golden nuggets. This morning Amaia sat down to breakfast. She pointed at the Cheerios. Thomas pulled out the Nuggets bag and filled her plate. She's a baby after all - krispies are krispies... she looked at them, she looked at the back of the box, then she looked at them again in disgust, shook her head and pointed at the box. Thomas took out the Weetabix with the same result. He then fished down to the bottom and pulled out the actual Cheerios, she nodded and held out her bowl!

LINGUISTIC MADNESS

A lifetime ago, when I was just 20, I moved to France to teach English in a couple of high schools. For the most part, it was a wonderful experience - especially my realization that there were in fact four seasons and they didn't all take place the same day! But linguistically one one-hour lesson, given by the head of the English department in the senior high school, still gives me nightmares to this day!

The head of English was a man called 'Guy'. I arrived on my first day and was introduced to him. He was extremely friendly and pleasant and then I opened my mouth! He was horrified by my accent, muttered something about how non RP-speakers should never be employed as language assistants and ranted about the adverse effect my accent would have on his pupils! I tried to argue that there were many accents of English and his class of 14 year olds might benefit from learning that. He reluctantly agreed and led me to his class. What happened next was astounding from a logic and language point of view. He was teaching his class about travel. He wrote on the board something like:

1. He went to Spain
2. The girls are going to Germany
3. I am going in Japan
4. He went in Denmark

I was new on the job. I tried to attract his attention quietly to point out the two errors in English as I thought a 20 year old humiliating the head of dept publicly during the first lesson was perhaps a bit off but he dismissed my whisper that you don't use 'in' with direction and went on to explain the biggest and most illogical piece of nonsense I have ever heard in all my years of language learning and teaching! He explained the correlation between the gender of a country in French and the choice of preposition in English! Apparently with feminine countries you use 'to'. So Il est allé en Espagne becomes He went to Spain, however with masculine countries the English used 'in', so Je vais au Japon was of course I am going in Japan! I was dumbfounded! How could anyone with an ounce of linguistic knowledge imagine a correlation between genders in one language and prepositions in a different language without gender? The man was barking mad!

At the end of the lesson the children dispersed muttering their newly learned grammar under their breath and I took Guy aside and explained as politely and tactfully as possible the we go to Japan and to Denmark in English and that his gender theory was off the wall. He exploded that his initial hunch that my(!) wacky English would be highly damaging for his classes and told me that I would not be allowed to participate in his classes for the rest of the year, as undoing the damage I would cause would be too much hassle!

Fortunately, the other teachers took advantage of my newly acquired free time and used me more, not less than usual, believing my English would add a new depth to the kids' understanding. Guy blanked me for the rest of the year but I had the last laugh on my last day a year later when I threw a dinner party for all the members of the English department who had made me so welcome and made it one of the best years of my life. Of course, I didn't invite Guy!

But 20 years on, as he must be reaching retirement, I do wonder occasionally how many children are wandering around the east of France asking each other if they fancy a wee trip in Mexico! ;-)

MANGLES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

On Sunday we took the kids to Glasgow's Tenement House museum. Marcel and Charlotte had been before when they were little but didn't remember it. Of course the flat we'd sold in Rose street in 2007 was identical so it was interesting from that point of view.

In the kitchen an elderly female NTS rep explained all the ins and outs of the range, the built-in beds, the coal, the gas lighting and the mangle above the sink, which she demonstrated for Léon and explained to him in great detail. On our way back to the car I asked Pudge what had impressed him most and the wee sweetie replied, as only he can 'I liked the old lady's funny tumble dryer'!

LIKE UNCLE, LIKE NIECE?

Léon keeps talking about Moshi monsters. I am not actually sure he knows what a moshi monster is but he hears everyone else raving about them at school so wants to be in on the trend. I decided to adopt him one but was a bit snowed under with work and life so asked Charlotte to read up on what you were meant to do with it on the web page.

She came down the other night and announced it was some kind of tamagotchi-like thing that you had to feed, play with and stimulate to keep happy. When you log on it asks for nutritious snacks and new decor for its house that you pay for by earning money doing general knowledge and mathematical quizzes. No issues there - or so I thought...

But I hadn't banked on my daughter turning out to be some kind of sadistic lunatic! With a gleam in her eye, she started force-feeding Pudge's monster bowl after bowl of soup to see if she could make it explode! She then tried giving it 20+ cans of juice in a similar (failed) attempt to kill it! Around midnight I caught her googling 'how do you kill a moshi monster'! I began to worry I was raising some sort of psychopathic offspring.

On Sunday my brother dropped by... my respectable, 40 year old (this week), lawyer brother. I started to recount what moshi monsters were and how they functioned with a view to asking him if he thought Lots's behaviour was worrying. Before I got as far as that though, his eyes lit up like the little boy I remember from my childhood and he mused - I wonder if you could starve one to death or overfeed it!

Bloody hell - it all came back to me - the jars he'd caught wasps and bees in at 10, the bugs he'd used a magnifying glass and sun rays to heat till the popped. When I told him about Charlotte's behaviour he simply looked proud rather than appalled. So if my daughter is a psycho, I guess the gene comes from her uncle!

WILD HAIR DAY

Two weeks ago Léon came home from school with a letter telling the kids that the last day before the long weekend holiday was going to be their annual crazy hair day. Léon's been unable to contain himself ever since. Every morning he's asked if he can dye his hair (while Charlotte, of course, is refusing as usual to even comb her hair into a different parting as that would be far too daring!) Last night we told him today was the day. We fully expected to be woken at 6, but at 7-30 he bounced down announcing he'd lost the battery from his wall clock. Thomas had told him he couldn't come down till 8 so apparently he'd taken it off the wall and sat on the top bunk watching the hands go round until the battery fell out the back and he lost all idea what time it was! So he's off at school now as pleased as punch, and I'm just hoping face-paint does come out of hair after a whole day!

WHY DO WE AIM SO LOW?

As I've mentioned before, I decided when my kids were born that they needed to be fluent French speakers. Firstly, it was paramount because their family in France don't speak any English but also French is a big part of who I am so it seemed only natural to speak to them in French from birth. Either they'd grow up to love it like me, or they'd at least have a working knowledge that wouldn't do them any harm in life. With their father working long hours, I felt leaving him to speak to them in French would not suffice, so picking up the odd error or strange pronunciation from me was better than giving up!

Obviously things changed a little when we divorced but it was the man I fell out of love with, not the language or the culture, so my quest continued, and even the two half Danish children weren't going to be left out of my French programme!

Last week, at the ripe old age of 13 Marcel sat his Intermediate 2 exam. School doesn't have the money to give him his own member of staff, so the French assistant and I have spent the last six weeks teaching him. Since the first week of first year Marcel has not participated in French classes because they were deemed irrelevant to him after a French member of staff interviewed him on my request.

So I downloaded a few past papers to familiarize myself with the exam format. It was called an 'O' grade in my day so I wanted to see what it was like. The first thing that struck me was the speed at which the listening comprehension is read. I have never heard a French (or Belgian, Swiss or Canadian person) speak at that speed. Suddenly it came back to me - I had never been to France when I started to learn French. I went to le Lavandou when I was 13 and nearly fell over when I heard the speed real people spoke. It terrified me! I then listened to the Credit level Standard Grade past papers to see if they were more ambitious, but they were even worse as they broke the information up into bite-sized chunks just to make sure no one could miss anything! I assumed they would maybe pick up the pace for Higher at least but when I listened in to that it was maybe 5% faster.

What is the point in making it artificially easy? Is the point of learning a language in Scotland to pass the exam or to be able to converse with the natives? Why have we lost the focus? Listen to Scandinavians, Dutch and the likes - they don't expect their kids to be mediocre at English, so why do we expect ours to be mediocre at French? I also noticed that only standard French was on offer - in one past paper a man claimed to be from Martinique, in another someone claimed to be Belgian and Canadian but again all the accents were exactly the same. This might help the kids pass but it doesn't help anyone grasp the realities of real French. If I was in charge, they'd not be sitting anything until they were at least capable of understanding le journal de 20h.

Needless to say when I start teaching Marcel Higher next month, we'll be focussing on real French.

Ok, rant over...

BIKES

Often in the park over the last couple of years I have witnessed small children zooming about at crazy speeds on little bikes with no pedals. I thought very little about them, though occasionally wondered why anyone would waste money on a pedal-less bike?
At the end of last summer, I took the stabilisers off Léon's little bike and then Thomas and I started the chore of running along behind him breaking our backs as we tried to teach balance to a child who already knew how to pedal. Snow came prematurely and coincided with Léon getting his first glasses so we only got 60% of the way there when we put his bike away for the very long winter.
Last month we started the running again. And as we ran, once again 3 year olds were shooting past us on pedal-less bikes. Suddenly the penny dropped. These pedalfree bikes were 'balance bikes' and were teaching tiny kids to cycle all by themselves so adults didn't need to intervene. I stopped watching Pudge and started watching the tots on the balance bikes. I was right.
I went straight onto ebay when I got home - no luck - all the cheap ones were pick-up only but even on amazon they were only £30 and with three kids who still needed to learn cycling, I figured it was worth a tenner each to save my back and Thomas's.
It arrived last week and within an hour Léon was tentatively balancing all by himself. Three trips out onto the road at the back of my house by himself without us even looking on and he was also shooting by with his feet in the air. I was so confident by today that I dragged out a real bike the same size to test my theory. He hopped on and cycled across the road without the slightest look back over his shoulder. It had taken less than 3 hours to teach my boy cycling, cost £10 and it didn't even make my back twinge!
Today I have lowered the balance bike's saddle to Anna's height and though I guess at three she might take longer than Léon, I will be more than surprised if she hasn't learned to cycle before the end of the summer.
Balance bikes were possibly invented as parents became older. You may be able to run crouched over a bike behind your five year old at 28 but by 43 another solution was necessary! They certainly have my vote. Any idea I had that they were a waste of money is definitely wrong. It made the whole process stress free and Léon looked more than pleased to have taught himself! Three cheers for balance bikes.