"Put down that wrench!"

Next month, just after Easter, I have a business trip to Vienna for a project meeting (hopefully - the project coordinator has *still* not sent the details for a planned meeting that's now less than a month away), and so ias, the garklet and garklet2 (WINYOLJ) are coming over to make a short break of it. We've been trying to enthuse the garklet with the idea of the trip, but he's currently being quite grumpy and negative.

On the way to school this morning, I broached the subject with him again. After an initial "it's boring", he advanced the notion that it might be fun "because they have lungans in bins there".

nmg:

What's a lungan?

garklet:

They go in bins. We saw it in a film.

nmg:

We? You and I? I'm not sure what a lungan is.

garklet:

Yes, we saw them in the film we watched about Vienna.

nmg:

Are lungans animals or people?

garklet:

(with an odd look) They're people, dad!

nmg:

Sorry, I'm just being a bit dim this morning! Was this film in black and white? (thinking that it might be a dim and toddler-memory-accented recollection of The Third Man)

garklet:

No, it was a colour film.

nmg:

Gosh. You've got me stumped here. Can you remember anything else about the film?

garklet:

Yes, there were people in bed and they were talking about things.

nmg:

What sort of things were they talking about?

garklet:

Interesting things!

nmg:

Of course.

garklet:

And he had a blackboard in his bedroom.

nmg:

(realisation dawns) You're talking about A Very Peculiar Practice! They're not lungans, they're nuns!

garklet:

(embarrassed) Yes! Nuns, not lungans!

nmg:

That programme is set in, well, a made-up university, not Vienna. There will almost certainly be nuns somewhere in Vienna, but I very much doubt that we'll see them going through bins.

garklet:

(disappointed) Oh.

nmg:

Vienna has other things. It has very chocolately chocolate cake!

garklet:

(brightening) Oh!

No wonder the lad has been lukewarm about Vienna - he's been under the misapprehension that we're going on holiday to a crumbling 1960s university campus!

...cats, bears, wolves and monkeys playing Uno.

(Wolfie has just played a blue 1, and play is passing clockwise; Brown Bear is therefore just about to win. Cat has managed to stitch Monk up something rotten with a few well-placed +4s, and has left him with a hand worth upwards of 120)

The garklet keeps asking what Cat and Monk get up to while he's at nursery, and we've started to stage vignettes to indulge him and amuse ourselves.

Scene: I was taking the garklet for a haircut, and we happened to pass a church that was ringing for matins. He asked why the bell was ringing, and misheard 'matins' as the name of one of his friends who moved to Cambridge last year (who I shall refer to as M). The important thing to note is that M is the child of a lesbian couple.

garklet:

Where M?

nmg:

M's in Cambridge.

garklet:

Why M in Cambridge?

nmg:

Because his mummies got jobs in Cambridge.

garklet:

What about him daddy?

nmg:

I don't know - M lives with his two mummies.

garklet:

No, M not got two mummies. M got a mummy and a daddy.

nmg:

No, M has two mummies. Remember, you saw them both at G's house earlier in the year. And you saw them when you went to M's birthday party. And you saw them almost every day when they picked M up from nursery.

garklet:

*upset* No, M got a mummy and a daddy. M not got two mummies. You pooey!

nmg:

I'm not pooey! Not all little boys and girls have a mummy and a daddy; some have two mummies, like M, and some have two daddies.

garklet:

*very upset* NO! YOU WRONG! YOU POOEY! M GOT A MUMMY AND A DADDY! pthpthpthpt!

nmg:

On that we'll have to disagree.

I mean, what else can you do in this situation?

Bumped into hobbitdave while waiting for the bus with ias and the garklet after work today. Cue the following conversation after Dave left:

garklet

Why that hobbitdave?

nmg

Well, that's his name.

garklet

Where is hobbitdave going?

nmg

He's on his way home to see gnommi.

garklet

Why?

nmg

Because he's gnommi's boyfriend!

garklet

Why he gnommi's boyfriend?

nmg

Because they like each other a lot. That's why they live together.

garklet

*nods sagely*

garklet

I think they need a boy.

nmg

Pardon?

garklet

I think they need a boy.

nmg

What kind of boy? A little boy, like you?

garklet

Yes. They need a little boy like me.

An account of a conversation while waiting at bus stop with ias and the garklet:

garklet

My¹ like coiley-wotey.

ias

What's coiley-wotey?

garklet

Coiley-wotey!

nmg

Colley Wotty?

garklet

Coiley-wotey!

nmg

What sort of a thing is coiley-wotey!

garklet

*pause* Coiley-wotey!

ias

He's making this word up.

nmg

Are you making this word up? Is this another silly word?

garklet

No, coiley-wotey!

ias

How big is coiley-wotey?

garklet

*looks confused*

ias

Is coiley-wotey big or small?

garklet

Coiley-wotey!

ias

He's just saying that! Stop saying that!

nmg

*has flash of inspiration* What colour is coiley-wotey?

garklet

Grey.

nmg

*thinks* What sort of animal is coiley-wotey?

garklet

He a woof, chase roadroader. Roadroader goes beep-beep!

ias

Aha! He's a wolf! You're talking about Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner, aren't you?

garklet

Yes, my like coiley-wotey.

nmg

That's Wile. E. Coyote. Can you say it after me? Wile E.

garklet

Coiley-wotey.

nmg

*sighs*

1. This is a persistent verbal tic that he's had for the last six months. My, how we've tried to cure him of it.

Since we had our loft boarded and smartened up a few years back, we've been merrily using it to store away the things that we don't need from day to day, or which don't belong in the library. Unfortunately, it's starting to get a bit full in there (what with ias's sewing stuff, my tools, Xmas decorations, the garklet's baby clothes, our suitcases, and so on), so we've been planning on putting some of Mr Kamprad's fine modular shelving solutions up there (specifically the GORM range).

Now, I could just have gone up there with a tape measure and an old envelope to note down how many of each item we needed, but the space is confined enough (and our need for storage great enough) that I am going to have to cut shelves down to fit. Version 1 of the plan was on the back of an envelope, but didn't have accurate measurements. Version 2 was in Illustrator - great for the plan view, not so good for working out whether it will all fit under the roof.

Version 3 is in Google SketchUp, complete with models of the shelves (rather than just bounding boxes). Fortunately, I stopped short of modelling everything in the loft so that I could plan how to fit things on the shelves.

In other news, we took the garklet to the cinema this morning - Harbour Lights (and some other cinemas in the Picture House chain) are screening episodes of In the Night Garden to get the little ones used to sitting quietly in a darkened room. He liked it greatly, and was so well-behaved that I'm toying with the idea of taking him to see Up.

Finally, I've also managed to get around to reading Brundibar to the lad - a Sendak-illustrated version of the Czech children's opera that was first performed in Theresienstadt in 1943. The story itself is charming, but Sendak's illustrations add another layer on top of this (Brundibar is pictured with a toothbrush moustache and side parting, for example) which make this more than just a children's book. I'm still quite surprised that Portswood library had a copy. Highly recommended.

The garklet is generally a good lad, but he often gets a little excited or frustrated, and when he does he has a regrettable tendency to hit people. We've just been moving some of his toys back into the living room, into the wheeled boxes that I'd built with a little bit of IKEA bricolage, and he ended up running around with one of his old toy boxes on his head while shouting "robot!"

And then he hit me. Not a hard blow, and not one borne of malice, but the sort of roughhousing that we're trying to get him to tone down a bit.

And that at moment, inspiration hit.

"garklet, are you being a robot?"

"Yes, my am robot. Urrrr!"

"Well, there are some important rules that good little robots have to follow. The first rule is 'don't hit anyone', the second rule is 'always do what grown-ups tell you to do', and the third rule is 'be careful'. Okay?"

"Okay daddy."