Lots of naughty

Here's a tiny drama from this morning.

The scene: It's Sunday morning.  Abigail has got up early, refused anything resembling breakfast and eventually agreed to eat her untouched school packed lunch from the fridge.  Mummy has left her with this and CBeebies, made herself a cup of tea and gone upstairs to sort things out.  Jeremy has pottered down to watch CBeebies, and TheRev is in the study, printing stuff.

Mummy comes back down the stairs to find Abi waiting at the bottom.

Abi: (With relish) Mummy! I beened lots of naughty.

Mummy: Uh oh.

Abi: But, I want to be friends.

Mummy: Okay.  Well, what did you do?

Abi: I eated my spoon.

Mummy: Sorry.  You ate your what?

Abi: My spoon.

Mummy: Your - I - I'm not sure I've understood.  You ate a spoon?

Abi: Can we be friends?

Mummy: A spoon?  Are you sure?

Abi: Yes.

Mummy: Can you show me?

Abi leads Mummy to the sitting room and points to the remains of her packed lunch.  The plastic baby spoon which was with the (unopened) yoghurt now only has half a spoon on the handle.

Mummy: You ATE a SPOON?  But how...why...I mean, the other bit must be somewhere!  Did you swallow it?

Abi: Are we friends?

Mummy: Yes but where's the SPOON?  Is it in your tummy?

Abi: I don't know.  I spitted it out.

Mummy: Then why can't I see it anywhere?

Jem: Abi putted cheese on mine train.

Mummy: Oh.  Yes, I can see that, but - Jem, did you see her eat a spoon?

Jem: *proffering train* Clean it!

Mummy: I can't really...here, have a wipe...Daddy, come in here, I think Abi has actually eaten a spoon!

Daddy: I'm coming!  That's just printing, I can help get the kids dressed.

Mummy: They are already dressed.  The issue here is that one of them has eaten a spoon.

There follows a time of panic as we both hunt for the other bit of the spoon and consider the idea that our food phobic daughter has managed to consume a sharp bit of plastic for breakfast

Daddy: It's really gone!

Mummy: What's that in...Jeremy's hair!  It's in his hair!


Yes, that funny green thing in Jem's hair was really the top of the spoon, affixed with cream cheese.

It is a miracle every Sunday that we get to church on time.

Abigail's Nativity

For this post, I would like to hand you over to my daughter, who is going to dictate the story of the nativity in her own words.

"The angel said: 'You're going to have a baby!' and then Mary was surprised and then the angel just went away and then Mary shouted 'Joseph Joseph, the angel said I'm going to have a baby in my tummy!'

And then Joseph said, 'Let's go to Bethlehem' but she said, 'No, it's a very long way away', but then they just goed and then the keeper...the inner...said, 'There's no more room!'  Then they found a baby, Jesus.  They found baby Jesus.  And then the wise men comed...

(Here, there was a brief pause in which I reminded her about the shepherds)

And then the angel said 'Don't be afraid, I got news for you' and then the shepherds went to find the baby and they got there and Mary said 'Look, the angel said I was going to have a baby in my tummy' and then the shepherds saw baby Jesus.

THEN the wise men comed.  And they brought applenut squash."

(Editor's note: I have no idea what applenut squash is, but it sounds delicious and suitably exotic.)

Pictured: the set of nativity puppets that we made to help tell the story, and a crib scene that Abigail made out of Sticklebricks.

All that glitters

An Abigail moment I want to record before I forget it.

Abi often asks what inanimate objects are saying.  I'm not always sure what she's getting at.  Sometimes she wants to know their purpose, other times I think she is double checking that they really are inanimate objects and are not about to bite her or want a conversation.

At this time of year, she also likes looking through Christmas catalogues with me, which is why she found this glittery reindeer and asked me what it was saying.

As ever, I had to improvise, and guessed that it might be saying "Glitter, glitter, I'm so pretty!"

She fixed me with that Abigail-knows-the-answers-to-the-universe look.

"No, Mummy.  It saying "Glitter glitter, buy me if you got money!"

Good to know that she's got the hang of consumerism.