Our childminder was away for a couple of days to do her Christmas shopping recently [I’m tempted to say that we are overpaying her if she can do her Christmas shopping in New York but you don’t want to undervalue someone who is taking care of your nearest and dearest]. We both had some leave left so we took a day to spend with the boys and tried to think of something Christmassy to do with them.
After much deliberation, we decided on the Christmas market in the IFSC area of Dublin. It was a beautiful clear day but the wind chill ensured that our noses were numb within minutes of arriving. The boys were reasonably amused by the different stalls there but there was one clear focal point for them. Right in the centre of the market there was a vintage merry-go-round that was at least a hundred years old and was probably operated by steam at some point in its history.
At first the boys showed some reluctance to getting on the merry-go-round. The bemused attendant was left looking on for at least ten minutes while we tried to sell them on idea of boarding one of the planes, trains or automobiles. Thankfully, it was a Friday morning and there was no-one else waiting for a turn or he couldn’t have shown that kind of patience. Finally we cajoled Fat Chops into getting on as long as I crammed myself into the seat behind and held his hand. He hadn’t completed a full lap before Monkey Boy decided that he wanted to join him. After stubbornly refusing to get in while it was stationary, he had no problem with his mother throwing him for me to catch as we spun around. He has a skewed view of risk evaluation! Of course, after struggling to get them on, it became a struggle to take them away. Luckily their Nana Aggo was on hand to pay for another spin but when they were told that they couldn’t go again, they decided to run beside the machine waving at the other children on it. I’m thinking of taking up pushy parenting and getting them involved in distance running. They showed a hell of a lot of stamina keeping up with that thing.
The following day we went to the Christmas party organised by my company. The kind [read masochistic] souls from the sports and social club put on food, entertainment and Santa visits for 900 children. It was as loud as you think it was. Fat Chops wasn’t overly comfortable in the chaotic environs but Monkey Boy revelled in it. There were some children singing over the PA system and Hannah suggested that he go up and perform his rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle” fully expecting that he would shrink from it as if she had suggested broccoli for desert. He didn’t. Not only did he get up and mispronounce his way through the song, he wanted to go back up again later on. He followed that up by charging right into the middle of the carnage on the bouncy castles, which again is unheard of].
I’m posting this today because I am really looking forward to writing a blog after Christmas day and all the excitement. Before Monkey Boy had opened his eyes the other day he was asking “am I a good boy?” followed closely by “will I get a present?”. To be honest, I don’t think I have looked forward to Christmas morning this much since I was nine years old.
P.S. For the first time I am including pictures of Fat Chops and Monkey Boy in all their glory. When I first started writing this I made a decision not to include them to protect their privacy. Looking back it just shows that I had delusions of grandeur because just about everyone who reads this blog is a blood relative or a close friend.
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