Sticks and Stones...

....but words will never hurt me. Well maybe they will one day, unless I manage to teach Euey and his loyal sidekick Aoife (who repeats an edited version of Euey's every utterance)the fine art of subtlety. The following mere snippet may well give you an idea of what I'm rambling on about. It may also give you the lovely feeling fingernails down a blackboard might provide.

Euey "Daddy, why is that man so fat?" Aoife "fat man" Daddy - flinch

Euey "Why is that silly woman walking on the road?" Aoife "silly woman" Daddy - cringe

Euey "Why is that man not friendly?" (guy just minding his own business just not smiling) Aoife "not friendly" Daddy - colourless

My favourite skin thickening episode this week has to be when we were standing next to a guy showering in the swimming pool. This dear chap had a big birth mark on his bottom. A really painful red looking one. Euey "Daddy why is that mans bottom bloody" Aoife "bloody bottom" Daddy - undergoing counseling.

Yum

That was great. Just had a Vindaloo. Feeling all warm and cozy just about now. Just finished my great late night paperwork catch up. It was a classic but alas all great things must come to an end. George is all cosy in bed, been there about an hour now. She wanted an early night, said "will go to bed when kids fall asleep". They did, sweetest of dreams by 7.15pm. Looked at George, immediate volte-face. "will go to bed by 9.30". Nah! Went to bed at 10.15 with a hopeful look of early night salvation. Sorry George. Just found out. Clocks go forward an hour tonight. Sweet dreams my lass.

I need a coffee!

I can feel the empathy but all is not as it seems. We were lying in bed this morning with the obligatory wiggling wanderers between us when Aoife decided to slip off on a mission of great importance. I say this because she departed with the purposeful stride that tends to accompany such moments. We heard her rummaging around in the background, in the mean time, we got side tracked by Euey calling me Mommy and Georgia Daddy, to make some point he eventually seemed to believe he had made. Just then Aoife returned into room declaring "I need a coffee' "What did you say Aoife" George said "Oh my god" Euey chipped in. I sat there with my arm propping me up thinking "yep, this truly is a Simpson moment" and wondering if we need to go back to the drawing board.

A night with the Monsters

"Monster trucks Daddy" "yes, we're nearly there" "Monster trucks Daddy" "yes, we're nearly there" and so it went for the one hour drive to watch the humongous trucks beat the 'Jeannie Mack' out of the 'ickle cars. On the way into the Rod Laver arena, after the customary half hour walk from the car park, Euey was feeling the excitement build upon his perch above me. I could feel his excitement reverberate through my shoulders, in more ways than one but I will settle on describing two of the more palatable examples. As we passed under a suspended rail track he screamed "train" when the masses of people heading to the 'ickle car massacre didn't respond to his announcement he tried again with "traiiiins guyyys" this got a few looks and smiles so he kept this up till my second tale in the making caught his sadistic eye. The portly guy in front of us had attracted a crowd of his own, a rather large cloud of flies. The guy wasn't too impressed with the attention he was receiving from these pesky's and was swiping violently and unsuccessfully at the swarm. Euey erupted with uncontrollable laughter, as if the whole scene had been set up for his amusement alone. He couldn't control himself, he could hardly breathe. The fly bait wasn't amused at Euey's attention but bit his tongue, I'm assuming because Euey was seven feet tall. Anyway we arrived after our onerous journey and wow was it worth the wait it was the best 15minutes of action in my whole life. After 15 minutes of giant trucks roaring and beating the bejesus out of stationary cars Euey had not moved a muscle, he had sat on my lap with eyes wide open, mouth slightly ajar, with a look of abject fear etched fear on his face. I asked him is it fun? No reply. Are you happy? Not even a twitch. Are you scared? Nothing. Do you want to go home? A whispered "Mummy" Do you want Mummy? A whispered "Go home". I took him outside, shared some chocolate and fizzy drink and asked him would he like to go back in and try again and he whimpered "home, Mummy" and off we went. Twenty five minutes into the trek to the car he cheerily asked "go back Daddy" I considered it for two seconds as I wiped the sweat from my eyes and massaged my aching shoulder and legs and promptly decided it would be in his best interests if I took him home to the loving arms of his Mummy and not back to the Monster trek. " Lets go home Euey I'll get you more chocolate" "chocolate Daddy".

An Unbiased Assesment

Our children are the most beautiful children in the world. The smartest, the kindest, the most generous, they have the best smiles, they are the tallest for their age, the best dressed, their poo's are odorless, their nose's self cleaning, they are the greatest little bundles of joy in the world.
Trust me I'm an objective Daddy.

Aoife The Subtle

I wish!
Despite the lack of development in the speech arena Aoife has no problem telling her Daddy to put a sock in it. When I block her arse shuffling path on the floor, for a little face to face chat, she will either engage, by getting all goo goo, by touching my face or just staring with a polite smile at my well intentioned ramblings. Alternatively she will put anything she can find into my mouth and proceed on her merry way.
This I fear is a characteristic I will have to accept as the years shuffle along.

Noisy Neighbour

I went to the movies the other day and settled down to watch my film with the customery $20 worth of cinematic cuisine. The movie began and almost immediately this bloke to my right started to repeat everything the Turtles were saying. He squealed at the not so scary bits and kept trying to tell me what was going on. He ate most of my popcorn and jumped onto my lap three minutes into the movie. He shat himself at one stage and had the audicity to seek my assistance in cleaning up the unholy mess. But my noisy neighbours most heinous crime was to turn to me 10 minutes before the end of the movie and say "finished". I walked out of the cinema with my sleepy, boneless, boy in my arms wondering if he would return the favour in 50 years time. Pleasant dreams Euey Boy.