A Day at the Beach in Ireland

It got hot enough and sunny enough on Tuesday to go to the beach.
THE BEACH.
IN IRELAND.
YES.
YOU READ CORRECTLY.
THE BEACH.
There was a little bit of drama in the morning, as my eldest girl decided she didn't want to go to the beach, even though she ALWAYS wants to go to the beach (she wanted to go in February), which was all very confusing, but her parents convinced her... well, told her, that she was going.
I took note from my last outing with the girls, and I overpacked with regards to nappies, baby wipes, sunscreen, food, towels, swimmers, cardigans, blankets, hats, toys and drinks. Even then I still probably underpacked. You never know what a child may need or request on a day out. Best to just take everything you happen to spy as you are packing the bags. Don't ever ask, 'Oh, but will I really need a comparative history of communist states in the 1960s and a broken toaster for a jaunt down to the beach with a 3-year-old?' Just take them. The children will find a use for them. They will especially find a use for them if you don't bring them with you.
The beach we went to was Inchydoney Beach, just outside of Clonakilty, which is a 'blue flag' beach, meaning it is especially clean and well-looked after. The morning we were there, land movers were hurriedly scooping up a whole pile of green algae off the 'pristine sands', which occurs from farm pollution going into the water system and out onto the beach. There's even a surf school at Inchydoney, which made me feel very at home, though when I got on to the beach and saw the size of the 'waves' I thought it might be more than a little bit of wishful thinking. Still, most of the group were children, so maybe the waves were just the right size.
I had been informed before we left the house by my eldest charge that she would not be swimming. Her younger sister, however, is impossible to keep out of the water. I wasn't worried, though, I assumed that as soon as she saw us in our swimmers, the eldest would want to join in.
When we got to Inchydoney, the eldest girl asked where we were putting our towels down. I said, 'wherever you like,' which, was, of course, a mistake. She straightaway chose a spot right near the stairs, about 200 - 300m away from the water. To begin with, this was not a problem. The eldest said she wanted to sun-bathe, and the youngest likes to do everything the eldest does, at least for a little while, so she said she would sunbathe as well. Me, deprived of the Aussie sun for far too many months, and suddenly realising I have a deep and passionate love for the sun (which I never realised when I was in Australia), was quite happy to forget all anti-cancer ads I had ever heard and do the same thing. I was amazed that both of them, lay down, quietly, for more than 30 minutes without jumping on me, complaining they were bored or getting into a fight. The peace was not to last, of course. The youngest, decided she wanted to go swimming. I helped her get into her bathers. But I then faced the problem that I absolutely could not let the youngest go in the water alone, and the eldest was absolutely not going to let me leave her alone all the way up on the dry sand. She eventually agreed to come with us to the water. But, hanging on the sidelines as people splash about in the water is not much fun, so she returned to the blankets. In the water, with my back to the blankets, it seemed she was hugely vulnerable to being snatched off the beach by some passing paedophile (they are just always passing, you know), so I dragged her sister, wailing and kicking back to the blankets and attempted to negotiate the moving of the blankets closer to the water. The elder girl would have none of it. The sand near the water was hard and not nice to lie on. Eventually, I convinced her there were dry patches of sand further down the beach and she reluctantly followed. She still insisted on pointedly laying 3 or 4 towels down over the top of her blanket before she agreed to lie down. It was like the bloody princess and the pea.
I went back to the water with the youngest, but, of course, even though we were closer to her, the eldest was very unhappy that she wasn't the focus of attention. She came over to me and told me she wanted to go home because she was bored. So, I offered to take her for a walk all the way down the beach, because this way, her sister could walk through the water, and she could walk on the dry sand. It was a very neat compromise. Until they started picking up the smelly, sandy seaweed and hurling it into my face. And, then they started forgoing the seaweed and just scooping up the grey, smelly sand and hurling that at me. The eldest girl in particular was infuriating as she was fully dressed and so every time someone went to throw seaweed at her, she would run away screeching and wailing and getting into a temper, as if it were the most horrendous, torturous thing that anyone had ever done to her. When we put down the seaweed, she would then pick up a great big glob of the stuff and hurl it at us. Not a particularly fun or fair game.
Eventually, the eldest girl agreed to go in the water, but then, for some reason, her younger sister decided she was terrified of the water and refused to go in. By about 3pm, I had had enough of attempting to be in two places at once, and packed everyone up and left. When I got home, I realised I truly had had an Irish day at the beach - I was completely and utterly roasted, just like the Irish tourists you see at Bondi Beach who are so sun-starved they just take all their clothes and lie in the sun for the rest of their holiday, or until they've gotten sun-stroke. I haven't been able to sleep comfortably for the last few nights, the sunburn still hurts that much. Very bad of me.

My Best Friend

My eldest girl had her 'best friend' over for a play date on Wednesday. This girl is a sensation in our household. She and my charge became friends on the school bus, as she is a year older than my charge and not in her class. My charge does not stop talking about her. Her best friend's name is turned into songs, into passwords in games that we play, into poems, into stories, into our make-believe games etc. etc. Even though this magical child has only visited our house once, the whole family knows her full name, her family's names, what sorts of things she has in her house, the fact that she doesn't like dogs, and we all speak about her at least 3 or 4 times a day, simply because there is currently no more exciting topic of conversation for my eldest charge.
When the girl came over for the play date on Wednesday, there was much celebration from my eldest girl. The best friend was treated like royalty. Lollies were handed to her first, she was given first choice of chips, popcorn, sandwiches etc. If she said she didn't like something, neither did my eldest charge. If she said she did like something, so did my eldest charge.
I, on the other hand, became persona non gratis. I was looked upon with great scorn and derision by my eldest charge. I was not allowed to participate in conversations with the two of them, I was ignored whilst they were playing together, my charge always going to her mother, I was only good as a fetcher of toys, food and other necessary items, and only as a far second to my host mother (I was referred to as the 'servant' at one point by my charge, which thrilled me no end, let me assure you). This was not attitude that I received from the friend, by the way, who really is a charming and sweet little girl, but from my own charge. She was so determined to have this little girl all to herself that she was jealously protecting her from all other quarters, from anyone else who might potentially steal her away, and whilst she was pretty sure her mother wasn't about to attempt anything, she didn't trust me as far as she could throw me with her puny little 8 year-old arms.
It was, of course, not a little hurtful, but its not behaviour that is surprising or even particularly foreign to me. The best friend is such an important possession in girl world, and certainly was to me as I was growing up. I remember a fantasy I created as a child of around 7 or 8 (about the same age as my eldest charge), which I felt very guilty about, but loved to play and replay in my head (no, not that sort of fantasy, you dirty buggers). There was a little girl in my class that I thought was the bee's knees. She was pretty, nice, gentle, freckles, long, blonde hair and a really lovely family. Whenever I went to her house I had the best time. I desperately wanted to be her best friend, but I had only just moved back to Newcastle after being overseas, and I was too late to be nominated for such an important post - that is to say, it had already been filled. My family was also too late to be part of the coveted 'family friends' group of this little girl's family either, much to my chagrin. Let me be clear, we were family friends, but there were other, more special family friends: family friends who had been there since the beginning, who booked holidays together, who went to each others dinner parties and joked about various cross-family sibling pairings getting married one day so that they would all end up related to each other. So, to make myself feel better, I created this fantasy, which revolved around the stories I had heard of the Newcastle earthquake, where one day at school, the concrete playground opened up wide and all the other little children were swallowed whole, so that it was just me and the object of my affection left. She had no choice but to become my best friend.
I eventually got my very own best friend, someone who I would remain linked to all through primary school. She was also sweet, pretty with lots of lovely freckles (and, actually, now that I think about it, she had the same name as the first girl I really liked, though it was spelt differently... wow, rebound best friend, do you think?) and she had a great house too. We were best friends for 3 and a half years and we did everything together. Walked to school, spent weekends together, dressed my cat in peasant clothing, dressed ourselves in peasant clothing, watched movies (including 'A Chorus Line' and its very scandalous song about sex, which we approached in highly mature and oh-so-serious manner, collapsing into hopeless giggles every time the guy sang, 'but then we did it again'), lay in bed reading 'Garfield' comics together, packed picnics and went on adventures through the backyard and down to the park together. We had our own complete fantasy existence in the school playground, which ran parallel to, and in and out of, all the ball games and tag games that all the other children were playing. We had personal jokes and personal songs. Personal dances and personal stories. We could crack each other up with just a word and a wiggle of the ears.
And then, abruptly, she left me to be Mary in the Australian production of The Secret Garden.
Such betrayal! Such jealousy! I didn't know what I was more upset over: that her family had let her audition for a professional show, that she had been cast (another horrible moment I remember, which made me feel like I was a terrible human being - sitting in the bathroom praying fervently to a God I didn't believe in that she wouldn't get the part that she had been shortlisted for it, because 'even though she was a better dancer than me, we were just as good singers as each other and I was a better actor'), or that she was leaving me behind, making new friends, and having new experiences that I wasn't a part of. To make things worse, after the production, she ended up going to the private high school in Newcastle, and I went to the selective public high school, meaning we didn't see each other regularly anymore and our passionate little friendship fell into non-existence. I ran into her at a shopping centre in Sydney a few years ago, and we were utterly delighted to see each other,  exchanged numbers, promised to call, meet up, catch up, but we haven't spoken since. Part of me wonders if she's on Facebook, and the other half just feels like that friendship was confined to a certain time and place and its past and it will never come back.
For the first few years of high school, I was casting about for another passionate friendship that could replace the one that had been so cruelly taken from me. I gave my heart away to another pretty, blonde-haired girl, following her about like a little pup, liking everything she liked, hating everything she hated, not expressing an opinion or desire until I had checked what hers was beforehand. Turned out, in the end, her opinion was that I was a pretty awful and annoying human being who she didn't like very much at all, which was all very confusing and just a step too far for me (though I certainly took some of her thoughts on board), so I moved on.
There were various best friends in between, some of them are still friends, some of them are not. One in particular took up a majority of my high school years. I saw this girl most days (except Sundays), we spoke on the phone most nights and wrote each other letters in between times. We spent most of our time talking about the boys we liked, how much we liked them and how desperately we wished they would like us back. Looking back on it, I don't know how these particular boys would have fit into our lives, we were so focused on each other, but that is besides the point. It was a friendship of a similar intensity to my primary school friendship, personal stories and personal jokes, dissolving into helpless giggles with just the mention of a word or a movement. I was always aware of the fact that I was not actually the 'titled' best friend, but I took comfort in the fact that, in my mind, we were so much more in tune, talked to each other much more, saw each other more than my friend and her actual 'best friend' did. It was all very complicated and difficult and political and at one point caused me great angst and self-doubt and jealousy and uncertainty.
And, then, sometime in Year 11, without me even realising it, without anything definite really happening, we just... stopped. The relationship just ended somewhere around June, July, August 2000. I can't even give you an exact date, because there was no falling out, no event that I can point to and say, 'there. Right then, that was the reason we stopped being friends.' Its all...  kind of blank and mixed up. I got very busy with drama projects, she got less busy with them. Her views on the Australian film industry, on the British film industry, on anything that wasn't completely mainstream started to really piss me off. She seemed totally stuck in Newcastle, with no desire to challenge herself and leave and cut a new path somewhere else (please realise that this was what I thought at the time, in Year 11, and is no reflection on her and her actual achievements. As I have heard through the grapevine, they are very impressive, much more so than my own and she certainly did get out of Newcastle), and, at the time, I was completely derisive of this. By Year 12 it wasn't that we weren't even 'best friends' anymore, we were hardly even friends. We barely spoke unless we had to. Various things happened between us, around a certain boy that we both ended up dating and now, I can't even bear to add her as a 'friend' on Facebook, though I've looked at her profile a few times. It doesn't seem like the right title, not at all. If they had a 'hugely significant person who somehow disappeared out of my life and I would like to be able to pry into her current existence but don't really want to deal with all the unsaid resentments and issues or pretend to be a normal, superficial 'friend' of' button, then that is what I would press. But, Facebook is not so forward thinking or understanding of the politics of female friendship as this. 
Anyway, getting back to my eldest charge. She had the best time. There was discussion of the coveted 'best friend' title (My charge: 'You're my best friend. Are you my best friend?' Best friend: 'Yes.' My charge: 'Who's your second best friend?' Best friend: laughs, 'Oh, I don't know, I have lots of best friends.' At which point, my heart sunk a little for my charge...), they had a picnic together, they set up a roadside stall, they made signs about ghosts and stuck them all over the house. At many points during the day, she would link arms with her best friend, or pull her in close and hold her by the waist as they walked down the road. My host mother remarked, 'Little girls are so funny with their friendships, aren't they? They're like lovers.' And I suddenly recognised that this was exactly how I felt about all my old 'best friends', and the eventual breakdown of these relationships. The feelings were almost as intense as later romantic relationships I had with men. The strength of these feelings worried me for a long time (does this mean I'm gay???), but I've just grown to accept that, for whatever reason, this is how I form attachments to people. Incredibly passionately, all-or-nothing.
And, for you who don't know, I still do have a 'best friend', though we talk sporadically and see each other even more infrequently. I think, at the age I am now at, those passionate best friend years are behind me, and those emotions are now directed towards men in a romantic way. I've known my 'best friend' since I was about 12, but we gave each other the 'best friend' title around Year 11, when my other friendship broke down. How do I know she's my best friend? It doesn't matter how long we've been apart, we always pick up exactly where we left off, as if nothing has changed. I could talk to her about anything. And, when her Dad was pulling down her old tree-house earlier this year, it had written in it, 'Erin and Jenny are best friends', and neither of us can remember when we wrote it or why. So, it must be true.

Kid World & Adult World

I've posted a fair amount today, nothing too spectacular or interesting, really, just random thoughts that have been in my head over the past week. I think I'm still in NYWM mode, and feeling like I need to post something for every day of the week. Not a bad thing, really, I'm just less than convinced of the quality of the stuff I've been posting lately. Oh well. Its not stopping me posting.
There is something that I've been thinking about quite a bit over the last week or so, which has turned my whole view on life upside down. Its to do with courage.
When I was a kid, there were a lot of things that I was scared of. Big dogs. Barking dogs. Horror movies. Snakes. Rats. Shadows in my bedroom when I switched off the lights. Windows out on to the darkness. Strange noises in the house. Unexpected power cuts late at night. Asking for directions from strangers. The crocodile that lived under my bed and would eat my legs if I let them get to close. The giant spider that lived down the hall and would chase me if I went to the toilet late at night. The big window in my room, which I thought people might shoot me through, so I would often crawl to my bed to avoid being seen by would-be assassins.
Some of these fears followed me into adult life. I still freak out over spiders, snakes, darkness, power cuts, strange noises, horror movies... you get the idea. Its not something I ever expected. Watching my Dad and other adults go through life, watching them face my fears bravely and either get rid of the scary thing, or get me away from the scary thing, I assumed I would one day be able to face these scary things just as bravely as the adults around me. But, truth be told, I'm still a pretty freaked out and paranoid adult.
What I've discovered since working with kids, is that as the adult, you often have to appear brave when you're totally freaked out on the inside. You have to lie and reassure and tell them everything's going to be fine, and act like you're fine, because if you don't everything will get out of control.
Late night power cuts were the first thing I had to face as the 'adult'. I was babysitting, and the power went out in the house several times in a row, which terrified my eldest girl. I was also petrified, as power-cuts always remind me of an 'America's Most Wanted' episode I watched as an 8 year old, where the murderer deliberately cut the power to get the victim out of the house and to where she could be murdered. It was worse out here, of course, as we are in the middle of the country, there are no street lights, no lights from surrounding houses. Its pitch black. I had to find a candle and light it by the light of the moon with shaking hands. But, my eldest charge was panicking enough for the both of us, so I had to be light-hearted and nonchalant. It was just a power-cut. There was nothing significant in it. We just had to turn the power back on. With each successive power-cut she got more panicky, asking 'why is this happening?' over and over requiring me to get more light-hearted. By the last time I was practically whistling and skipping to the power-box in an attempt to cheer us both up. 'Oh what fun, another trip to the power-box, how I do love the power-box, I'm not scared, why would I be scared, dum-de-dum-de-dum...'
Big, barking dogs are another problem. I really don't like big, barking dogs. I think they're going to take chunks out of my legs. I don't even like little barking dogs. I think they'll take littler chunks out of my legs. There are many barking dogs on our bicycle route, which terrify both my girls. The littlest has a habit of dropping everything she is carrying onto the ground, covering her ears and just running, as fast as she can in the opposite direction of the dog, not really looking where she is going, or what she might run into. This would normally be my reaction to a barking dog, but, again, I have to be the sensible one. I've told the girls that the reason the dogs are barking at us is because they're scared of us. I bark along with the dogs, 'I'm so scared. I'm so scared. Go away, you're scaring me.' So, now, whenever we meet barking dogs, my eldest charge says, 'Oh, he's really scared, isn't he? Why's he so scared of us?' She still seems pretty freaked out, but at least she doesn't scream and cry anymore. After many trips past these dogs (and no legs, or parts of legs being taken off), I have now gotten up enough courage to yell back at the dogs and to tell them to go home. It even seems to work. I'm so amazed at myself.
But, yesterday was the biggest achievement. I hate spiders. I really, truly hate spiders. I can't think of anything I find more unnerving than a big, hairy spider. Usually, in my panic and passionate desire to get rid of said spider, I will kill it several times over, first with drowning it in insect spray, then, flattening it with a fat book, and then sucking it up in the vacuum cleaner. Yesterday, the eldest girl freaked out because of a small spider sitting near her whilst she was watching TV. Again, in a desire not to add to her panic, I played it cool. I got a big piece of paper and attempted to scoop up the spider. It ran onto the floor. My eldest girl asked if she should squash it. I surprised myself by saying there was no need. I picked it up again, carried it outside as quick as I could (it was climbing rather quickly towards the hand holding the paper) and let it go free. I was very proud of myself, particularly because I was utterly terrified the thing was going to crawl onto my hand, and I would scream, flick my hand out and send the spider flying across the room and ruin my image as the cool, calm and in-control adult.
There was an interesting interview with the Irish actor Brendan Gleeson on the TV this evening, in which he said that people who had children had a responsibility to be optimistic about the world. You had no right to bring a child into the world and into the future no less, and then lose faith in the world. You need to be able to remain optimistic and passionate about the world, and have the confidence and determination to change the things you don't like about it. I think it was the same feeling as I've been having with the things that scare me. Most of the things that scare me I know are ridiculous, but I let myself get worried about them, because there's no real reason to stop myself from panicking. Having panicky little kids around suddenly gives me a reason to be calm and collected and reassuring to both me and them.
I'm also intrigued by the effect of having kids around on the food you eat and what you drink. Kids so often follow what you do and not what you say. They notice when you don't take the advice you give to them. They want to know why you're not having dinner when they are. They eat more, and better, if you're eating with them. They want to know why you get to drink diet drinks when they're bad for you and you won't let them drink them. I think, in some ways, having kids around would be an incentive to eat healthily and look after yourself better, because if you want them to eat well, you need to do it yourself.
Anyway, that's that. Again, not very amusing, but, I suppose you can't be funny all the time.

Why I Will Never Get Married

So, I think I've worked out why I am almost doomed to stay single. For me to be able to become romantically attached to a guy (this doesn't necessarily mean being in a relationship with them, it just means, me liking them), these 3 steps must be fulfilled:

1) When I first meet a guy, I have to think that they are either equal or lower down the scale to myself in talent, intelligence, attractiveness, social skills, humor etc. This enables me to speak to them without developing a stutter, short-term memory loss, or the ability to fall over my own feet whilst apparently standing perfectly still. Alternatively, if I think they are a 'better person' than myself, in terms of achievements, skills, popularity etc. they have to be super-super-super nice and extra-friendly for me to be able to talk to them comfortably.

2) At some point during this friendship, or companionship or whatever, I have to realise that the guy is actually a much, much better person than myself (in all the ways already mentioned), whether or not this is by discovering previously hidden talents, by seeing other girls decide they like the guy or whatever. When I discover said guy is a much better person than myself, I will then fall for them.

3) To seal the deal, said guy must not be interested in me, or, preferably, treat me like shit. If he makes the fatal mistake of seemingly being interested in me, or, even worse, being very enthusiastic about me, I will suddenly decide there must be something wrong with him.

This pattern doesn't happen very often, as you can imagine, and very often ends in disaster for myself, hence why the single life is not very kind to me. However, at the same time, I'm probably going to be spending a lot more of my life being single.


Luckily, I don't have the same issues with cats...

Living in the country is nice and peaceful...

Things in the house are kind of falling apart at the moment. Here is a list:

1) The dryer. A couple of months ago, the dryer started doing this neat trick of turning on, and blowing hot air through the clothes, but not actually spinning them. So, one side of the clothes would get really hot, to the point of burning, and the rest would stay wet and cold. I got around this problem by turning on the dryer, and then giving it a little push in the right direction, a little encouragement, to remind it what it needed to do. This worked up until a couple of weeks ago, when the dryer decided that it would start to spin when I pushed it, but then would stop anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes after it had started. To make things worse, it would then stop blowing hot air on to the clothes entirely, and would refuse to start again for another hour or so. So, now, to get a load of clothing dry, I have to run out to the dryer every 15 minutes, and push it round again before it stops blowing hot air and I can't use it for another hour. Essentially, the dryer has become another demanding child. Except, this is one that I have no qualms about screaming at the top of my lungs at and launching myself bodily at in frustration. Neither of which have worked to fix the problem, by the way.

2) The sink. The kitchen tap has stopped working, meaning we have to get a big pot of hot water from the bathroom and bring it to the kitchen to do the washing up. We sit the big pot in the kitchen sink, even though we really could put it anywhere we like: on the stove, on the kitchen floor, in front of the TV... but, old habits die hard. I always thought there was something romantic about 'fetching water from the well'. I now know this is not the case.

3) There is a bat colony living above my eldest charge's bedroom. That's right. We have a bat colony in our roof. And they're protected in Ireland, so we can't block up the hole when they've flown away at nighttime, or we'll all be arrested. Originally, we thought that there was a bird nest up there, which was much sweeter, but as the noises became louder, the smell became greater, and the tiny poopies began to fall through the roof cracks, we realised it was bats. We had to call the bat-man (sounds funnier when said out loud) from Macroom to find out what to do. We are still waiting for his reply. I am yet to see them fly away in the evening, which is meant to be quite spectacular, and there are apparently at least 28 of them.

Matilda

So, my eldest charge's favourite movie in the whole world is Matilda. She hasn't actually read the book, she's just obsessed with the movie (its closely followed in popularity by the Witches, which she also hasn't read). I have watched this movie around 10 - 12 times since arriving here, as well as watching it part the way through a few more times. I can understand an obsession with a movie or story (HP, anyone?), but I find the obsession with this particular movie hard to understand. I don't like the movie. I love, love, love the book (of course), but I find the movie really ugly, broad and coarse, and not in a good way. Just in a 'yuck' way.
But, I've come to a mild appreciation of the film because, my eldest charge loves it. In fact, if anything is going badly, or if she is particularly tired, or the weather is particularly bad, a suggestion to sit down and watch Matilda is usually the go. I've become a fan of Matilda simply because she's saved my behind so many times.
The copy my host family have is actually a very old VHS, which, for whatever reason, adds to the charm of watching it for my eldest girl. She has to watch it in my living room, as this is the only place with a video player, where she can draw all the curtains and 'make it like a cinema' and there's something she likes about the act of rewinding the tape.
The only problem with watching the film, is that my eldest charge insists on me watching it with her, and she insists on talking all the way through the film. Even though I've seen the film many times, and know the book inside out, this drives me up the wall. I have a friend, who I love dearly and will not name, but I can't go to the movies with her, or can only see films I don't care about with her because she will sit next to me in the cinema, and 60 seconds into the film she will lean over and whisper, 'Jenny... Jenny... who's that?' To which I will reply, 'I don't know.' Her reply: 'Oh.' 60 seconds later, 'Jenny... Jenny... why is he doing that?' Me: 'I don't know. They haven't explained it yet.' Her: 'Oh.' 60 seconds later: 'Jenny... Jenny... what's happening now?' Me: 'I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE IF WE SIT HERE QUIETLY AND WATCH THE SCREEN, OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT TWO HOURS OR SO EVERYTHING WILL SOMEHOW BECOME CLEARER, BUT, HEY, I'M JUST GUESSING, NOW SHUT UP.' Let this be a warning to all of you. Do not talk to me during a movie.
Anyway, my eldest charge doesn't ask these sorts of questions. Well, actually, the bizarre thing is, she does, even though she has seen the film a billion times over. She even asks it about things that she has explained to me the day before. So, one day, she's watching the film and saying, 'Matilda is punishing her father by dying his hair blonde because he was mean to her.' The next she'll ask me, 'Why is Matilda dying her father's hair?' I get the strange feeling she's testing me. Like a teaching testing comprehension. 'Now, Jenny did you listen to me yesterday? Why is Matilda doing this?' Trying to see if I was actually listening to her the day before or if I was thinking about what colour to paint my toenails.
But, she goes on other bizarre tangents. She's told me that she would probably be best friends with Matilda if Matilda was real (I resisted the urge to point out that she hates reading). She then went further and said that she and Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) and Matilda would probably all be best friends and have heaps of fun together. I was unsure of the combination, but agreed anyway.
The last time we sat down to watch the movie, she started to ask questions like, 'Do you think Matilda's house is nice?' 'Which is nicer, Miss Honey's cottage or Matilda's house?' 'Are those knit curtains in Matilda's house?' (she's obsessed with knit curtains) 'Why do they have knit curtains in her house?' 'What sort of pillow do you think Matilda has?' (Me: 'What?' Her: 'What sort of pillow? Like, is it a feather pillow?' Me: 'I've no idea.' Her: 'I think its a feather pillow (pause). I really like her pillow (pause). Do you think I could get the same pillow?') But the best bit was when she explained to me, very seriously, that Matilda's powers of psychokinesis were not 'real', that she wasn't actually using her eyes to move things, but that there were 'tiny, tiny' strings being used to move everything about. She then spent the end of the movie attempting to point out the strings to me. I couldn't quite figure out if she meant the movie people were using strings to move objects about, or if Matilda the character was using strings to move the objects about. It was further confused when I made a comment about the actress playing Ms. Trunchbull being made to look extra ugly. Her reply? 'What do you mean, someone's playing Ms. Trunchbull?' Me: 'Well, she's an actress.' Her: 'What do you mean?' Me: 'Well, she's not real.' Her: blank look. 

An Open Letter to Finnigan

 

Interruption by child

Another interruption by child

The Little One