Wednesday 31 March 2010

Happy Easter

It seems I can't remember how to write nor do I have the time, so I leave you with a creation by Betty...

Monday 8 March 2010

An instant dislike

Betty and I went to Sainsburys the other morning. I was pushing her along in a trolley down the dairy aisle and she was merrily humming and talking about aubergines, when a man walked past us. When he was about a foot away from us, she suddenly bellowed ‘NO NO NO NO NO YOU ARE A VERY SILLY MAN’ right in his face.

I turned to look at him to apologise but he, looking visibly shaken and a deep shade of purple, was staring hard at the yoghurts. So rather than embarrass him further by trying to speak to him (and I was pretty bloody embarrassed at this point too), I very loudly reprimanded Betty and told her that it was unacceptable to talk to an innocent shopper, and one that she had never seen before in her life, like that.

However, as if I, or the man, hadn’t been embarrassed enough, she then went on to talk to his back ‘SILLY SILLY MAN, YOU GO AWAY’.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Love's young dream

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and so a friend and I made a picnic and took the children on a local woodland walk.

After we had finished our walk and picnic we went into the playground where there were hundreds of 5/6 year olds on a school trip.

Betty was coming down the slide for about the 68th time when a boy from the school party came down behind her and knocked into her. Betty’s face crumpled, so I ran over and began reassuring her that she would be OK and that it was an accident (although I now think that it was deliberate ploy for the boy to get Betty’s attention). The boy then came over, looking really concerned and in a very gentlemanly way he asked about her injuries. It occurred to me that if they were 15 years older Tom would definitely approve of this young man. They looked at each other, beamed, and that was that, they were inseparable.

It was truly fascinating to watch as he helped Betty across the wobbly bridge, skipped with her through the wood chips, slid down the slide next to her, both giggling as they went, and both sharing a private joke with each other next to the swings. I felt all gooey, watching a three year old and a five year old, who had never met before, smitten. Meanwhile Dolly sat in her chariot, and watched on, giving them an appraising look.

After about half an hour of these frolics, his teacher blew a whistle and told the school children to line up by the gate. They formed an orderly queue. Also in the queue was Betty, holding the boy’s hand. Both my friend and I were calling Betty’s name but she absolutely pretended that she couldn’t hear us. When I marched over and retrieved her I could feel the pain of her separation.

We watched the coach pull out of the car park and the boy’s face was pressed up against the window. Very quietly, Betty said: ‘I wish I was on that bus.’ I think she could still feel the warmth of the boy’s hand in hers.

Thursday 4 March 2010

Friend medley

Betty has a growing army of imaginary friends. Tom said he lay awake in bed last night trying to spell their names, which in a couple of cases he has said is pretty much impossible. This is the best he could come up with:

Bah-bh’-bhar, Eyeguy, Row and Baby.

Bah-bh’-bhar seems to be her favourite and apparently lives in her bedroom curtains. He talks with a deep voice and she often has fascinating conversations with him in the middle of the night, heard by us on the baby monitor.

Row is her least favourite. He lives in the wall next to her bed and makes noises at night time. He seems to have monster-like tendencies, and he frightens her a little bit.

Eyeguy often gets the blame for things that Betty has done. For example, Betty poked me in the arm rather hard the other day and when I said ‘OW that really hurt’ Betty said ‘It wasn’t me it was Eyeguy’.

And as for Baby – there doesn’t seem to be a distinction between Betty and Baby – they are the same person it seems. And it seems to be her way of speaking about herself in the third person. For example, she’ll say ‘Baby doesn’t like tomatoes’ or ‘Baby would like lots of sweets’ or ‘Baby has just fallen over’.

It often gets very confusing and difficult to follow when there is a five way conversation going on, specially when four of the five people are imaginary.