Children are unspeakably dull unless you are their parent, grandparent or godparent. "Children say the funniest things!", squeaks the television programme. "No they don't", you mutter in response, sucking on your gin; "they really don't. They are dull, and high-maintenance, and need attention".
I am the godmother of a child who is not yet three. She recognises me, and accepts the fact that I hold her upside down by the ankles and give her fingers of toast with jam on. She is, therefore, amusing. Particularly when she talks about me.
Small child: Is she going back to London? (Points at me with her small-child arm and finger of jammy toast.)
Father of small child: Yes, and then she is going to Montreal. So every time you see an aeroplane, it might be her, going to Montreal.
Small child: Her, in the sky? (Pause) In the sky? But she will come back.
So sure is she that I am coming back that she wanders off singing her own version of Spiderman. (It is really good: "Spiderman, Spiderman, has big shoes and a boat".) Her mother and I look at the floor and then say goodbye using only the power of the wave (we cannot look at each other for fear we may weep), and I drive 300 miles back to London.
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5 comments:
Other People's Children are an alien species. I say this despite being a mother-of-four. All four are my own, & this makes a considerable difference. None of them has yet seen fit to make me a grandmother, for which I am truly grateful. Amen.
PS I have made you my favourite blog on Facebook, but you'll never find me!
Children (godchild type, homemade or imported)are only dull if you're lucky. Maybe Small child will come to Montreal to visit you instead and you can introduce her (upside down of course) to the wonders of giant fruit - and giant mosquitoes (if we had 'em in Alaska you must have 'em in Canadia). After all, you will have all of that lovely jam made...
Good to see you're amusing as ever, Monkey. I've missed reading you during my blog sabbatical.
I have nothing nice to say about children because I am far more precocious, selfish and spoilt than they are.
She sounds quite an acceptable version of an alien. I think you have done a good godparenting job so far. I fret, slightly, to think that she has been encouraged to think that Montreal is in the sky over Wales. My map says differently, and now I'm not sure which is right.
it is in the sky over wales.
it's just that those propagandists that insist on such foolish things as the earth's roundness, the existence of continents to the west of europe and heavens knows what else want you to believe otherwise.
it's all a fabulous ruse to get you to buy more maps. and a vast conspiracy to make you late all the time with their infernal insistence of time zones. it's all sandford fleming's fault. it's a damned shame he's already dead so we can't execute him.
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