Time

Okay, let's skip the part where I feel guilty about blogging so infrequently and get right down to business.

I heard two stories this week that reminded me about the funny ways in which children view time. A week is an eternity when you're waiting for your birthday to roll around, and nobody could be expected to wait another three months for Christmas to come, but several hours spent playing with your friends seems like five minutes and there are always tears when it's time to go home.

My parents, Nana and Grandpa, live next door to two small boys aged about five and three. Let's call them Thomas and Gus.

Nana was talking to their Dad over the side fence while Thomas played in the trampoline. It's an above ground model with netting around the sides to minimise the risk of falling off. Thomas was quite happy until Gus started to hassle him. He wanted to get into the trampoline too, but Thomas wasn't having it. The conversation went something like this.

"Dad, Gus won't leave me alone!"

"Thomas, let him in to play with you for a while."

"No."

"Oh go on, let him in."

"No!"

"Thomas..."

"I'm not ever going to play with him again for the rest of my life!"

So it looks like Gus has a long lonely childhood ahead of him.

On the other hand, Nana made the X-Man a pirate quilt this year. Quite simply, he loves it. It lives on his bed and is not to be moved. He recently told his mother, Ms Awesome, that he is "going to keep it forever, even until I'm twenty-one".

Needless to say, Nana was a bit chuffed. 

All of this has just reminded me of something that Mars used to say when he was small. When he was waiting for one of us to finish something so he could have our attention, he would complain "this is taking for ages!"

It's a phrase we still use. I guess it's a way of hanging on to those memories of when he was small. Nobody can mangle language like a little kid.

Vegetarian

We chat over dinner every night. Sometimes we listen to music. Sometimes we don't. But we always chat.

Venus can be a bit minimalist about her food at times. Tonight while she was tucking into her naked pasta with cheese she asked us what a vegetarian is.

We explained that a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat. We talked about vegetarians, carnivores and omnivores. We listed all the foods that vegetarians like to avoid. She listened carefully and nodded in all the right places.

And then she said "I don't eat soup. I must be a soupatarian."

So it seems we have a soupatarian in the family. I should have asked her what the word is for someone who will eat anything as long as it's smothered in sauce. Then I'd know how to refer to her big brother.

The cryptic world of the X-Man

Today I picked up Mars, Venus and X-Man from school. X-Man was very excited.

"Alison, Alison, guess where I'm going tonight!"

"Where are you going, X-Man?"

"After Mummy picks me up, I'm going to conganboscos."

"I see. Do you mean taekwando?"

"No." he replies insistently. "Conganboscos. I'm going to do karate."

He is actually going to do taekwando tonight, but somehow in his little world it's really called conganboscos. But then, this is the kid who insisted for the first two weeks of school that the best part of assembly is singing "the magical lantern song", and it turned out he was referring to the National Anthem.

Then as we walked out of the school grounds X-Man explained to me that we need to stop at the edge of the road to check for cars, and that he is so good at stopping to check for cars that he is a stopping mathematician.

I'm pretty sure he meant magician, but then, it's hard to say.

Important

Yesterday I had lunch at a local cafe with a dear friend of ours, Auntie Marvellous. That's not her real name of course, and strictly speaking she's not Mars and Venus' Auntie, but she really is marvellous.

Anyway this cafe, it's nice, but it's not super nice. Main courses range in price from $15ish to $30ish, and it's been recently renovated, so it looks swanky and new.

As we were chatting and waiting for our food I observed over Auntie Marvellous' shoulder a couple eating their lunch. They were well dressed but not overdressed, chatting and eating quietly. Unremarkable.

Unremarkable until they had finished their glasses of wine. One would think that one or the other of them would pick up the half full wine bottle sitting on their table and refill their glasses. But no.

The man picked up the wine bottle and waved it at a waiter who was heading to the kitchen, and then he put it back on the table. The waiter came over and refilled their glasses, and left the bottle on the table.

Auntie Marvellous saw the somewhat horrified expression on my face, but couldn't see what was going on behind her. 

I thought it was just me thinking that the man was being quite rude. Surely your average person would fill their own glass in a cafe. I apologised to Auntie Marvellous for being so distracted and filled her in on what was going on. 

She agreed that it was kind of rude, considering where we were. In a posh restaurant where there are no prices on the menu I'd expect to see that kind of behaviour, but not there. It seemed especially rude given that he'd actually picked up the bottle to get someone's attention. It would have been faster just to pour his own drink while he had the bottle in his hand. 

Minutes later when those glasses were drained again the staff were all avoiding eye contact with this guy (or so I'm sure it seemed to him), so with a grumpy expression he picked that bottle up for the last time and drained what was left into their glasses. They finished their lunch, paid and left.

I'm no good at remembering clever quotes and things like that, but one thing I do remember is this: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

That man is probably lucky he didn't order a dessert, his waiter might have been tempted to spit in it.

Venus and the Tooth Fairy

During her second week of school Venus lost her first tooth. It had been wobbly for at least a week, and we knew it was just a matter of time before it was ready to come out.

As you would expect her teacher, obviously very experienced at dealing with a child who has just lost their first tooth without their parents in sight, did everything right. She gave Venus a tissue to bite on, as there was a small amount of blood on her gum. She took possession of the tooth and placed it in the centre of several tissues. She gathered the tissues up and bound them together with string to make the shape of a ghost with the tooth secured safely in the head. Then she drew a face on the ghost and gave it to Venus to give to us. I was most impressed.

Venus was already familiar with the idea of the Tooth Fairy, as she has seen Mars lose many teeth and receive money under his pillow in exchange for the tooth every time. That is to say, every time except once when Mars apparently swallowed the tooth (which, needless to say, was very traumatic), and the Tooth Fairy felt very sorry for him and left him money, even though he failed to produce the tooth.

So we carefully placed her toothy ghost under her pillow that night, and in the morning when she woke up the first thing she said was "Mum, can I look under my pillow?" I told her she could, and when she looked there was a shiny gold coin where her tooth had been.

She picked it up. 

"Look Mum! I've got some money!"

She was so excited. Then she took a closer look at it.

"Oh" she said in a slightly disappointed tone. "It's not made of chocolate."

The first thing that stupidly popped into my head was an image of Homer Simpson's brain explaining to Homer that "money can be exchanged for goods and services", but I didn't go there. I said nothing, because there's something precious about a time in your life when a chocolate coin is more exciting than a real one. Even if it is a whole two dollars.

What you missed

I'm sure I'm not the world's least reliable blogger, but allow me to reassure you of the rising levels of guilt I've been experiencing lately over the fact that my most recent blog post was published in November of last year. Oh, and don't look over to the left of screen and notice that I published half the number of posts last year as the year before. I just did, and I wish I hadn't. 

So, briefly, here's what you missed.

Venus and X-Man on their first day of Orientation for primary school. Where did the last five years go?

Mighty Mouse on his second birthday. We weren't there when he turned one, as he was still living interstate, but we're doing our best to make up for that now that they've moved back home. How much does he love that birthday present? Lots. That's how much.

Then there was Christmas. Mars, aged eight, and Venus, aged five.

During the school holidays we spent a great day down on the coast, catching up with a dear friend who lives very near this beach.

All these things were great, but there is one glaring omission in my short list. There was a wedding. An absolutely beautiful and joyous wedding. Ms Awesome and Captain Spreadsheet (X-Man and Bumblebee's parents, for those of you not following along) were married on a cold windy day in January, and our whole family was honoured to be involved.

There are lots of wonderful pictures to show and stories to tell, so the wedding will get its own post. Soon.

And by soon I don't mean next November. I mean soon.

Her four best jokes

Venus is at that brilliant age (five and a bit) where she finds lame jokes hysterically funny, and she seems to be able to remember a lot of them.

She told me her four best jokes. I know they are her four best jokes, because they were preceded by:

"Mummy, would you like to hear my four best jokes?"

"Yes please."

"Why did the cow cross the road?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because it wanted to go to the mooovies." 

We both laugh. 

"Why did the cow cross the road again?"

"I don't know. Why did the cow cross the road again?"

"Because it wanted to go to the mooon."

We laugh again. Then we start in on the knock knock jokes.

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Mr Potato."

"Mr Potato who?" I ask cautiously, because I can't quite see where this one is going.

"Mr Potato Policeman."

"Oh" I say, smiling. "Very funny."

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Two potatoes."

"Two potatoes who?"

"Mummy potato, Daddy potato and Baby potato." She is already laughing, but my brow is furrowed with confusion. So I say:

"But that's three potatoes!" and then she says:

"That's the whole point of the joke!" and we laugh and laugh.

What's great about this last joke is firstly that she knows it's ridiculous and that's why it's funny, and secondly she made it up all by herself.

I've only ever written one really funny joke.

Why does all country music sound the same?

Because you can only play two notes on a jug.