Singled Out

It has been a while since we have had any linguistic funnies. Now that the little people are all growed up, those little language slips and mishaps get fewer and further between. 

There was Eddie pronouncing the character of 'Ginny' in Harry Potter as though it was 'Guinea' - which was mildly amusing, but also heartwarming. One of those moments when someone is reading beyond things that have appeared in their spoken vocabulary, and therefore don't deserve to be laughed at.

We did have an entertaining moment the other evening, though, in a music discussion. Gertie was talking, as she mostly does these days, about One Direction. She described one of the album tracks that Eddie knew well, and explained that he was familiar with it because it was a 'single'. Eddie was absolutely adamant that it wasn't. He got crosser and crosser at Gertie's use of the word, claiming that it most definitely wasn't a single. His explanation?

'Because the whole band sang.'

Poor Eddie got most upset as we collapsed in helpless laughter. But it's not terribly surprising that a 9-year-old doesn't know what a single is. I suspect it is a term that might fall out of use entirely before too long. I'd better not get started on spiders - or the vinyl single middles spindle jukebox adapters that I used to have to buy in order to play my records.

Currently reading: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Sausages! Or Why I Can't Write Blog Posts Anymore

Writing these blog posts has got much more difficult of late. 

Less is funny and more is stressful as they each get older. Eddie will reach double figures later this year, Gilby will start secondary school and Gertie is twelve, going on twenty-five. Hormones mean more-moans, and nothing much seems very amusing. Their problems are more complicated these days. Tantrums aren't cute, they are ugly; and I wouldn't want to write about them. 

Successes sound boastful or smug: both boys scored hat tricks for their football teams in successive weekends; Gertie came fifth at the World Irish dancing championships.

And even the stuff that is funny - Eddie has developed a habit of including the word 'sausages' in every sentence - is difficult to convey. (It is both an insult and a compliment, as in, "You left the door wide open, you sausage, " and "He scored a sausage goal!")

So, for posterity, here's an account of yesterday's not untypical Saturday.

Morning:

Eddie played a very ordinary game of football, and didn't really distinguish himself on the pitch. (That's 'ordinary' in the Australian sense of the adjective.')

Gilby's game was off so he stayed home and watched the F1 on YouTube.

Gertie had a lie in.

Afternoon:

Eddie went to a Flip Out Party, didn't end up in casualty, and got dropped home by another mum so I didn't have to endure the two-hour hell of it.

Gilby went cycling with his mates, then for a swim. (If football's off then there cannot be enough sport in the day, no matter what he does.)

Gertie tidied her room and then went to the gym. The unprompted room-tidying thing is a recent and welcome development - she has gone from living in filth to living in immaculate spotlessness - all seemingly prompted by the addition of a couple of fluffy cushions and a fur throw for Christmas. They appear to have turned her from Stig of the Dump into Marie Kondo. I'm not complaining.

And that's it, really.

Ah. I think I have it. I can see why material doesn't present itself. They aren't with me for the good bits - they are each off, doing their thing. 

And I'm only left with feeding them, doing the laundry, being the metaphorical punch-bag for anything that isn't quite right with their world, and hurrying them out of the door for school. Sausages!

Currently reading: When the adults change, everything changes by Paul Dix

Birth Giver

For a long time now I have had Hearth Father in my phone as 'Love of my Life'. This is not some saccharine romantic gesture, more a way of reminding myself when I am answering the phone (through gritted teeth because he is late, or because I want to carry on the morning's row) that I did in fact choose to marry the man and 'love and honour' him for the rest of my life. 

Unfortunately, on my current mobile telephone there aren't enough characters to spell out the full moniker, and so I answer the phone to 'Love of my Lif'.

Which would be fine if it weren't for the connotations it brings of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's Meaning of Liff, where the word 'liff' is in fact defined as 'a book, the contents of which are totally belied by its cover'. Don't think I want to over-analyse that one.

Anyway, it was only this weekend that I discovered that I, too, was on the receiving end of similar treatment. I was standing next to Gertie to 'WhatsApp' some photos from my phone to hers when I saw that her notification announced a message from 'Birth Giver'. 

Not quite as affectionate as 'Mum'. More sort of, well, functional and arbitrary than that. 

Currently pondering changing my contacts to update her entry as '12 Hour Labour, Induction & Episiotomy'.

Body Bees

Now that Gertie and Gilby are all grown up and at school and flying along, they don't make those funny language slips that are so entertaining for parents.  For some strange reason all three have said 'look likes' instead of 'looks like' all the way from very little. The best ones are when they try to describe something that they don't yet have the words for.

Gertie has come out with some good ones.  After going swimming and getting some water in her ear, she kept pressing the side of her head. "I can't listen properly, Mummy, because my ears aren't turned on."  And my favourite: when she was trying to explain why she doesn't like the scrape of nails down a blackboard she told me that she got the 'white feeling'.

But this week Eddie came out with the best description ever for pins and needles.

His face turned to a frown and, on the verge of tears, he explained that he had 'bees in his feet'.  Hearth-father and I helped him to stamp them out. At least I hope it was just pins and needles...


Two blog posts in a week?  Must be the Easter holidays!



Currently reading: Memoir by John McGahern

Fluent in Dubby Dubby

Whilst Eddie's linguistic skills come on apace, Gilby's seem to be regressing.

Since starting school, he has acquired the ability to communicate in 'Dubby dubby': a nonsense language that contains a number of incomprehensible (to me, anyway) words; many of which sound remarkably like 'dubby'.

It is also important that he insult any (male) friend with a compound image involving the word, 'poo'. A conversation at the school gates might go something like this:

Gilby: Bye bye poo-poo-head.

Friend: Bye bye nicompoop-poo.

Gilby: See you tomorrow silly-poo-face.

Friend: You too, poo-poo-pop.

And they giggle and wave at each other as they depart, no sign of any animostity between them.

I always smile, uncertainly, at the inevitably middle-class looking mum whose son is the recipient of these terms of endearment, and comment on how well they seem to be getting along. They usually tend to hurry in the opposite direction.

If I suggest quietly to Gilby that it might be a good idea not to shout so loudly or indeed add the word 'poo' to everything he says, the response is very likely to be something along the lines of "Dubby, dubby, Mummy nicompoo-poo."

Eddie, in the corner quietly scribbling on my freshly-painted dresser with his fat felt-tips, might comment, "Gilby's talking nonsense again, Mummy," and my two-year-old and I will shrug together and share a moment of collective eyes raised to heaven before I throttle him for graffiti-ing the kitchen again.

Walking Holiday

It has been a wee while since my last post.


This is not an oversight, but as a result of my employer using a 'smart' system at school (and I do use that term very loosely) which meant that all of a sudden I was not able to access my blogger account.  Very frustrating, but a more normal lack of service should now resume.

In the meantime we have been enjoying our summer vacation to the south of France.  A selection of quick highlights will provide a taste.

It was twelve hours each way in a car. There were seven of us on the way out: the five of us, plus Nano and a niece. To while away the time we mostly enjoyed the stilted and frankly inappropriate pronunciation of French place names by the sat nav.  Destinations like "Boulevard Georges Pompidou in Troyes" made my own attempts in French sound positively fluent. We found the most amazing crumbling chateau on the outskirts of Amiens that will definitely be worth a second visit and beat last year's overnight stop in the equivalent of a Travelodge in Lille by a significant margin.

Eddie took his first steps, a month short of his second birthday.  I watched him get up and walk a good four steps across the balcony before reaching out to a folded deckchair which promptly clattered down on top of him.  We were both crying. Mine were tears of joy, his of pain and shock, for a moment that at one stage we weren't sure would ever come. He became a good 'pool guy' and enjoyed holding on to the net pole each morning, and the steps have come fast now that he is back on British soil.

Other highlights included kayaking beneath the Pont du Gard, masses of rosé, early morning lengths, Gilby turning four and inexplicably being let loose with 200 water bombs (thanks, Nano!)great clothes buying in the shops and markets at Uzes and an anniversary meal at Remoulin. Sigh. Over for another year.

The way home was memorable for the wine drinking on a foot-wide balcony of our hotel room in Troyes. I know that we will not be the first parents to have resorted to that, but we could be on for the record for the most wine consumed on the smallest balcony...


We also met a German couple at breakfast who were fascinated by Freddie's ability to talk. I pointed out that this was directly related, perhaps, to his inability to walk - and the necessity of communicating his every whim to two older siblings willing to run around doing anything he needs.

"Ahh!" said Herr with understanding. "I see. It is he who gives zee orders!"

Indeed.

The F-Word

My very sweet, intelligent, beautiful (innocent) five year old seems to have turned into a stroppy teenager in the space of a few short days.

Monosyllabic responses to the simplest of requests and questions, a form of amnesia directly related to saying please and thank you, and a pout that makes Angelina Jolie look a bit tight-lipped.

But she came home from school the other day with a question:  "Mummy, what's the F-word?"  When I declined to explain, she complained that people had been talking about how naughty it is and how you shouldn't say it, but she felt silly because she didn't know what it was.

I said that I agreed with the people who said it was naughty and that you shouldn't say it (whilst metaphorically mouthing it to myself as I was undoing her plaits).

Then she asked if she could guess what it was.  I had no idea what was coming next, and took a big gulp.

"Is it....fire?" she asked.

Perhaps my sweet, innocent, beautiful little girl is still hiding in there, after all.

Words of Wisdom

Sigh.  The things they say.

I was a little disconcerted earlier yesterday morning, when Naga Munchetty was presenting the news, to hear Gilby turn to his older sister and giggle, 'Look how brown she is!' 

Tempted to view this as a product of Gilby's provinical upbringing, which it undoubtedly is, I also hope that his is a healthy three-year-old curiosity about difference.

Less than an hour later, Gertie was lamenting the loss of limb on a broken doll.  'But it's ok,' she consoled herself, 'she could compete in the Paralympics!' 

So we are ok on disability, if not on race.

But when Gilby rushed to show me the model he had created from old toilet rolls, boxes and a bit of paint with an excited, 'Look Mummy, I've made a space rocket!' I made the mistake of answering with a question: 'That's wonderful; are you going to fly to the moon in it?'

He looked at me with a slightly concerned expression on his face and explained, quite patiently, that flying to the moon wouldn't be possible because, 'it's only made out of cardboard.'

Which taught me not to patronise my children. 

What's Current on Currants?

I am amazed at the retail diversification prompted by the current economic climate.

Gilby comes home from nursery singing, not, "Five currant buns in the baker's shop..." but "Five caravans in the bacon shop..." He is adamant that those are the right words, though he is unable to explain quite why the proprietor of this strange establishment would wish to sprinkle sugar on the top of such wares.

Cunning old butchers branching out into the motor-home market, I say.

The Importance of Being Earnest

I came down the stairs this morning wearing the same dress as in this picture. (Not a good photo, I grant you, but I was nearly six months pregnant then, now I look much more svelt in it. Or so I tell myself.)

I'm slightly struggling with the working wardrobe, but this is a trusty old number. Or it was, until Gilby remarked, with an indescribable earnestness, "Oooh Mummy. I like your spiderman outfit!"

Names You Should Never Be Called By Your Children

Gertie and Gilby have been playing schools.

Gertie dons a pair of spectacles and is transformed into the teacher. She is then able to boss her younger brother about with impunity. She enjoys taking a 'register', and it seems very important for new pupils to have a 'visit'. She sometimes enlists my help. I am usually 'Mrs Hancock', the school receptionist. At intervals I will be asked for various administrative details...starting date, forms, letters, etc. Gilby plays along well, but he has not experienced school, and certainly can't pronounce 'Mrs Hancock' with any degree of success. Both of them get very involved in the role-play. Gilbert, in particular, is preoccupied with who is who and what is what in their imaginative play-world.

At one point this week, in the midst of a 'lesson', Gertie and Gilby had a bit of a fight. Gertie came running in to the kitchen, shouting, "Mummy, mummy, Gilby's not playing nicely, he just..."

But I didn't hear what he 'just' did, because Gilby himself interrupted. "No Gertie. Mummy is not Mummy. Her is a cock."

Back in Two Ticks!

Gilby's language acquisition is such that, although he is only two, at times he sounds like he is forty-two. Here are some of his latest expressions:

"Back in two ticks!" - As he leaves the room to fetch another toy.
"Would you do me a favour?" - Usually when he wants some more milk.
"While you're tidying would you keep an eye out for..." - Any small lost thing that he is concerned about.

He seems to only need to hear an adult say something once before adopting it himself. It all sounds very funny, coming earnestly from the mouth of a still-wobbly toddler.

The 'F' Word

Sometimes these blog posts just write themselves. No thinking or processing of ideas required when you have such a rich and ready resource available in the form of a four-year-old, a two-year-old and a four-month-old. You just need to tell it how it is. Today is one of those times. Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems. Well, perhaps not quite a gem.

Gertie and Gilbert love playing around with language. They have their own code words and those that trigger helpless laughter. 'Pom pom', for example, is the biggest insult in the world, and what on earth is so amusing about the word, 'pie'? It can't be just its phonic proximity to 'poo', (one of the most intrinsically funny substances known to mankind) surely? Perhaps, knowing my children, it is. It certainly has the capacity to reduce my pair to uncontrollable fits of giggles.

The new focus, thanks in part I'm sure to current favourite reads, Hairy Mclary, Slinky Malinki and Zachary Quack, is to ensure that everything they say rhymes or is alliterative. To make the latter happen simply involves substituting the initial letter of words in a sentence for a single sound. Popular consonant choices are 'b' and 'd', so in the morning for breakfast we might all have Deerios in a dowl and deat them with a doon, and they're drobably derry dasty. Make sense of what you will.

I like to think that this demonstrates their creativity and willingness to explore and experiment with language.

Today's consonant choice was 'f', so the middle man kept referring to himself as 'Filbert'. That was no froblem at all. But it was in the swimming pool as his teacher handed him a duck that the fun really began.

Perhaps, on reflection, the first thoughts in response from Gilby's swimming instructor may not have been to do with creativity and experimentation.

Stop Hitting Me!

Gertie and Gilbert have invented a great new game.

They simulate punching themselves in the face Fight Club style whilst shouting, 'Stop hitting me, Mummy!' very loudly and giggling.

Now, although I came down firmly on the side of Harry in The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas' novel and recent television drama, I can state categorically that I have never hit any of my children.

So bring back Hooker-Mummy, it's a far less damaging cry.

New Year, New Title

First day back at school today, and a chance for me to attempt to return the house to some sort of order after the glorious chaos of the Christmas holidays. By the time I came to collect Gertie, things were ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Ish.

She had a friend round to play after school, and in their excitement they ran in, dumping coats and shoes on the floor in the kitchen. I had to trip over them whilst carrying baby in car-seat and was not best pleased, so I called them back to tidy up.

Gertie picked up both coats and handed them to me.

"That's not quite what I meant. Why don't you hang them up?"

"Because I can't reach. And anyway, you're the hooker-up of coats. Hooker-Mummy, Hooker-Mummy," she called as she ran back up the stairs.

Just hoping she doesn't remember to call me that whilst in the supermarket. I suspect it could be misinterpreted.

Mummy Isn't Magic (But There Are Enough Cuddles)

Given that Gilby is very much a mummy's boy, we weren't entirely sure how he would take to his new little baby brother, Eddie. In fact, nursery had warned us that he had been saying that he wasn't sure if Mummy would have enough cuddles for him too (how to make your heart hurt!)

So it was with some care that we made the introductions. One-day-old Eddie was very generous in his gifts to his siblings, and showed a remarkable awareness for what they might like. That started things off well, but when I went to feed Eddie, Gilby came over and yanked my breast away, declaring firmly, "No Mummy, Eddie doesn't like that."

When Eddie subsequently started crying at having his supper interrupted, Gilby did make a little concession and suggested that I sing him 'Rainbow' (Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Gilby's favourite when he is feeling sad) so I guess there was some degree of empathy there.

Meanwhile Gertie (4 going on 40) was quite happy to mother her new baby brother, fussing over him with the muslin and demanding cuddles. My sister brought over a hamper of loveliness filled with nice things for Mummy including chocolates, wine and various pampering products, but it also had a little book in called 'My Mummy is Magic'. This is a lovely little tale guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of a hormonal new mum, all about the little things that mummy does that seem like magic. Unfortunately there is no pulling the wool over Gertie's eyes with the new-found independence that school has given her. I read to them both in my best Listen With Mother voice:

"If I whisper a secret in my mummy's ear, she guesses it before I've finished telling her! That's magic."

"Well, no, that's not really magic, is it?!

I carried on, not wishing to break the 'spell'.

"When I hurt myself, my mummy kisses the sore bit, and ta-da! It's all better. That's magic."

"Um, well, that's not actually magic, either, is it?"

I suppose not...

Later on, Gertie was encouraging her little cousin to interact with her new baby brother. "Go on, he won't bite." There was a short pause before she added, "He hasn't got any teeth."

Gilby got into the spirit of it all eventually, and even came up with a gift-wrapped present for his mother. The fact that it was a packaged sanitary towel from the bathroom was irrelevant, as I believe it is the thought that counts.

And there were plenty of cuddles to go round!

Crash, Bang, B*ll*cks!

As usual I am entertained by the relative linguistic expertise of both my children, surely one of the 'joys of motherhood'.

Gertie, newly elected to the School Council (just how exactly does that happen on Day 5 of one's school career?) came home for the weekend, marched up to the fridge and formed the word 'Friday' with the plastic magnetic letters, much to the astonishment of her mother. Two weeks' worth of education and she appears to be able to read, write and spell.

Meanwhile, Gilby has increased the use of one of his favourite phrases: 'Crash, Bang, Wallop!'; his immediate response to any loud noise, bang or dropped item. Except that he mispronounces it so that it sounds much more like, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

Personally, I think that this is a much more articulate response to smashing something, or even life's general frustrations, and have therefore adopted it myself.

My due date has come and gone without so much as a teasing cramp...so frankly, all I have to say is, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

40 Weeks Pregnant: Mouth is sore from excessive fresh pineapple consumption, to no avail.
Currently reading: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

The Unbearable Excitement of Being

Gilby has 'hand, foot and mouth disease'. A 'febrile illness(caused by Coxsackie Virus) with associated vesicle formation on the hands, feet, and mouth of affected children'. It began with a few chicken-pox-type spots around his groin area, and it sounds much worse than it is, but it did mean that the very first day of my holiday yesterday was spent in the company of a screaming, irritable child. It is mild and short-lived though, so I am hoping that by tomorrow (his second birthday) he will be a little more sociable. He wants a 'Mr Bump' birthday cake, which seems quite appropriate.

Thankfully, Gertie is a little cheerier, and her perceptions of the world continue to delight. She is very, very excited about the arrival in a few weeks of her new sibling. It will coincide with starting school, so her little world will turn upside-down, but she is ready for it all. Except that she did ask me a strange question this week: "Mummy, you know that baby in your tummy? What clothes is it wearing?" I can't escape the image of a fully-dressed foetus in there now.

She also made me smile when she came across me reading in the bath a few nights ago. "Um, Mummy? What exactly are you doing?"
"I'm reading a book. I find it very relaxing in the bath."
She looked dubious, and glanced over at the vast array of brightly-coloured plastic toys that adorn our bathroom these days, and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to hide for my sojourn into the water.
"But Mummy, how can you possibly relax in the bath when it's so exciting? I don't know how you can just sit there when there's so much to do!"

Well, who knew?

33 weeks pregnant: Struggling to heave my whale-like proportions around.
Currently reading: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Hippopotamuses and Showers

I find it hilarious the way Gilby acquires words, even faster and more furiously than his big sister did. The trouble with this incredible speed of language acquisition is that he occasionally gets it very, very wrong. I have tried to research this a little bit, but it is too scholarly and statistical for me, so I'm going with my own theories.

Apparently, when I was very small, I came rushing in to my parents' room very earnestly declaring that there was a 'hippot-mus in Teesy's bedoom'. Teesy was my name for myself, and I clearly struggled with 'r's. My parents were not convinced. Why would they be? In a second floor flat somewhere in north London, the appearance of this massive sub-Saharan African mammal would indeed have been most unlikely. But I was insistent. Very. Kept on repeating my claim. When they still wouldn't believe me I went to prove my case. I came back in with my tiny fist clenched. "Hippot-mus...HERE!" Upon opening up my hand I cried with pain as the wasp stung me. Quite how I had made the synaptic connection between the word 'hippopotamus' and the reality of a yellow, stripy, stinging thing is beyond me.

Gilby has repeated this feat, though with so far less painful consequences. He has inherited a toy-garage, one with a multi-storey car-lift. It is very exciting when you are not quite two. Except that, inexplicably, he insists on calling it a 'shower'.

Meanwhile, Gertie's current favourite programme is 'Little Bear'. At the start of each episode the episode's title appears, and being right on the cusp of reading it flashes up too quickly for her to decipher it, but she recognises some of the words and is always interested in what it is. "What does that say, Mummy?" she will inevitably ask.

Gilby has cottoned on to this, and must assume that it means 'what is that?', for now, when he doesn't know the name of something he will point at it and ask, "What does that say, Mummy?" just like his sister. Perhaps in some confused, mush-brained moment he asked me what his garage 'said' and I suggested a shower. Who knows?

Number Post

Gilby's vocabulary is increasing exponentially, but some of his pronunciation is causing a few problems in communication.

Gertie and Gilby are both fond of Numberjacks, a Cbeebies special that I tolerate because it purports to be vaguely educational. The numberjacks are sort of animated superhero numbers who solve mathematical problems.

So when Gilby started putting 'number' as a kind of prefix to virtually everything he said, I thought it must be a side effect of bad parenting in the form of too much television. But I tried to answer him each time.

So, for example, outside the swimming pool on Thursday, 'Number bin?' a little voice said. The uplift at the end suggested a question. There were two recycling bins outside the leisure centre. 'Um, well, there are two bins.'

As we approached the car, he pointed at one on the other side of the car park. 'Number car.' The tone of this one sounded more like a statement, but one which needed some kind of response. 'Well, let me see. My eyesight's not really good enough, but it looks like a the registration is 'HY47 XXP'. It seemed to satisfy him.

A few minutes later, as we were driving along, he pointed towards the sky. 'Number plane?' He was really quite excited now.
'Gosh, I don't really know much about planes. Probably a 737...' I trailed off, slightly defeated, thinking that CBeebies had a lot to answer for.

It was only as I re-analysed those exchanges (which continued all day long, I might add) that I realised that he was in fact attempting to say 'another' each time, and pleased with himself for making connections between the objects - another bin, another car, another plane. Gertie used 'ummer' to represent this adjective when she was learning to talk, so I was temporarily flummoxed.

Still, we are going to have to ask Grumps for a 'Number pound', as it seems he took one from his eldest grandchild when he was looking after her on Thursday afternoon. She had one in her pocket that was no longer there by the end of the afternoon. He has admitted his guilt. Stealing from a three year old? He should be ashamed of himself!