One of the many “joys” of having kids is the family-communal-getting-sick-together weekends.
Kids get sick. It’s part of growing up, builds up their immunity. It is even more common if your kids are in creche or school as they’ll get sick “6 or 7 times in the year” (as our Doctor once told us) as they’ll pick up what ever is going from all their little friends.
What’s worse is, if they get it, you the parent will probably get it too and their siblings will as well. Which is what of course happened to us last weekend. Tristan (our six month old baby) got sick on the Thursday. Friday night and Saturday I was sick. Saturday night Alice (our 3 and bit year old daughter) got sick and on Sunday Sophie (my wife) felt off and today she’s out of work sick. Great weekend!
You’re going to hate me. Sorry.
- Figure out what to get everyone… check!
- Get Alice to write Santa letter… check!
- Buy presents… check!
- Wrap presents… check!
- Put up Christmass lights… check!
- Put up Christmass tree… check!
- Put up Christmass decorations… still to be done but will be done by the end of the week.
So I missed Gaelcon this year. I know it won’t change but it’s the worst weekend to run a convention. There is so much stuff going on for Halloween. In previous years I tried to switch each year between the Horrorfest in the IFC and Gaelcon, but it is very hard to justify spending the entire Halloween weekend away from my family.
It’s surprising how Halloween has changed for me over the years. This year was wonderful. Alice, my three year old daughter, had a whale of a time going from house to house and saying “trick or tricks” (what I don’t get is, she was well able to say “trick or treat” while walking between the houses…) and filling up her bag. And there was such a great atmosphere on the street with neighbours actually talking to each other and interacting with the local kids. A few years ago (okay, many years ago), it was all about horror movies and parties for me. I didn’t catch one horror movie all week!
I can’t wait till next year! 
“Don’t say sugar, Daddy. Say shit.”
“Daddy, you sit there and I’ll read you a story”.
“Okay”.
Alice (our nearly-three year-old toddler) picks up her Maman’s romance novel and randomly opens it. “Once-apon-a-time-one-day, a group of yellow ducks go down to the swimming pool.” Alice goes to the next page. “They scream ‘AAAAAAAAAAA’.”
“Why do they scream?”
Alice shows me her most serious angry face look, squinting her eyes and squeezing her mouth tight and says… “Be quiet!”
My mother-in-law works for a publisher in France, kid’s books mostly. She gets piles of free books for kids. During Christmas, Alice my daughter, was playing with the pile of books and came across a book entitled “De la petite taupe qui voulait savoir qui lui avait fait sur la tete”. She loved it.
The book is about a mole who happens to have someone poo on his head! He then goes asks each animal did they poo on his head and compares their poo with the poo on his head. When he finds out who did it, he has his little revenge.
Here’s a scan of when he questions a goat:
Brilliant. I think it’s originally German. I have found an English translation on Amazon.co.uk called “The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business”. I love these subversive children’s books. Alice gets a great kick out of it saying “Hey Goat!! Did you poo on my head?!?” “No, it wasn’t me!“. And then she pretends to take the poo of the page and plonk it on my head!
Little Update #1: I just noticed on the Amazon page for the book that it links to “The Gas We Pass: the Story of Farts”. Excellent!
Little Update #2: megglesmcgoo points out that:
Alice mentions that book in The vicar of Dibley
Previously on thedeadone.net, I shared some of the amazing “facts” that Alice, our nearly three years old daughter, had discovered. I’ve got two four new ones for you.
- The kangaroos in her and Daddy’s bellies have gone.
- Dinosaurs are actually Dragons. Most monsters are, actually.
- All the air-planes in Dublin Airport are actually Robots. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
- Oh and I nearly forgot, Swiper (from Dora the Explorer) is related to Firefox (the Internet Browser).
I’ll keep you updated on these astounding facts as Alice reveals them to us.
I’m a bit of Alice-in-Wonderland-o-phile, so imagine my joy when my daughter (called Alice) was given a DVD called “Alice through the looking glass”. Now it looks absolutely terrible from the cover. But then I looked at the voice actors… Mr. T as the Jabberwocky! Wow. (You know I don’t recall the Jabberwocky actually talking in the original books).
Anyway, last Saturday morning, Alice decides she’ll watch it and that it no longer has a scary cover. We sit down and start watching. It’s bad. Very bad. The songs are atrocity and the rewriting of the original story is so hacky and obviously designed to fit into some “good for kids” formula. The animation is on the lame side of the 80s. It’s so bad, I fall asleep within ten minutes after the introduction of the “fool” (a character certainly not in the books). I only woke up at the end credits. Darn, I never even got to hear Mr. T as the Jabberwocky.
But I’m not willing to sit through it again… (but I may have to…)
(You can see the original DVD on Amazon(.co.uk) here)
Alice, our daughter, is now 2 (nearly 3) years old. I’m astounded every day by her simple logic, stringing conditions along with “and” and “or”. And she’s becoming more and more aware of the world around her, amazing us by her ever increasing comprehension. Sometimes she feels she needs to explain it to us. But then her imagination kicks in… so theses are some facts about the world, according to our toddler, that may amaze you.
Read More…
… do not flush the toliet first without checking what’s in it.
A whole weekend without a toliet is not fun.
And it’s not as if we can be angry, I mean, she was trying to go the toliet by her self and just put the empty toliet roll, with the toliet paper she used, in.
