Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

“Oh My God!!” or better known as OMG was one of the first things I heard this morning; and one uttered by my 2 year 2 month old Daughter Maeve. The cause of the utterance was plain to see when I looked down the stairs and saw Maeve trolley on its side spilling small coloured wooden bricks all over the hall. Maeve’s arms were in the air and the appropriate verbal intonation of surprise and shock was emphasized in her speech. My assumption is that Maeve had tried to push her trolley up the stairs!!

I think that Maeve probably learn’t this phrase in the creche since its is not one my wife or I use that often, but is a good illustration of Maeve’s situational and verbal skills to date – one that continues to amaze and fascinate me. Earlier in the week Maeve and I were waiting in the chinese takeaway with another woman and her young son. I asked how old the lad was and his mom said two-and-a-half years, to which I replied with my daughters age. The mom was surprised because my daughter at the time was dancing around the takeaway dancing and singing to Petula Clarkes “Downtown” tune on my iPhone – Maeve loves learning words and phrases from tunes she finds “catchy” such as: “Downtown” by Petula Clarke, Theme tune to “Ben 10″ (and the associated TV adverts – Maeve is a BIG Ben-10 fan), The “Skye boat song” and “The Wild Mountain Thyme” by “The Corries” to name a few. The lads mom says “I am surprised. My boy can hardly speak”.

The creche told us Maeve insistently tries to speak; most of which she says I admit I don’t understand, but new words are being found all the time. Its something the creche is very good at and I try to help as much as possible – for example we took her down the harbour to look at ships and boats and she can say “ship”,”boat”, “airplane”, “helicopter”,”car”,”bus” etc; and good language skills are something that I feel is the basis of high intelligence. Maeve has come along a long way not only in speech but also in comprehension. Phrases like “take this to mommy/daddy/grandma/grandpa” are understood and Maeve can tell us what she wants to do “go down stairs for bobo (bottle of milk)”,”want food”, “go down stairs to dada”, “ben 10 on TV”, “want a wee wee”,”Wash hands” or sometimes with the appropriate hand gestures as well – “no dada, no!” when I do something she does not like – like singing when she is trying to listen to some music she likes.

This is all fascinating and I want to record it all before I forget. I am beginning to feel this blog is not only for Maeve, but for me and my wife. My wife mentioned a few days ago about reading in my blog about my feelings at Maeve being rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis, or one or two events she had forgotten about. Human memory is a fragile thing at the best of times and prone to faulty recall of events. So I will continue to record things here so when I get older I have things I can look back on with fondness and something to pass on to Maeve to remember her growing up.

St. Patrick’s day this year fell on a Wednesday and my wife and I decided to take the Thursday and Friday off to make a mini-break; Especially since we still took our daughter Maeve to the creche on the Thursday and Friday. Like most couple with young children its hard to get time to yourself either individually or as a couple and thus fix any issues with your relationship or just spending time together when your are not tired or children are vying for your attention.

I am glad we did it. We went to the movies on Thursday to see “The Green Zone” an enjoyable adventure romp followed on Friday with a half-day in the Dunboyne Castle Health Spa. The spa is the best I have been too in a long while. The pool had lots of different power jet features such as a bench you lie on in pool and then water jets from below massage gentle you aching body; Also there are dry and wet hot rooms, a cold room, a “beach room” and some heated benches near the pool to lie on – I am sighing and relaxing now just on the memories. After a couple of the hours of this we had a “mud bath” where we covered ourselves in mud and listened to relaxing music for half-an-hour followed by a head-and-shoulders massage. We had a great time and recommend the spa to anyone.

I have never really been a fan of the “greeting card invented” days such as “Mothers Day”, “Fathers Day” or “Birthdays” if it comes to that – where is “Grandfathers day” or “Poor Day” I ask; anyway I digress. I had planned to take my wife and daughter to Dublin zoo for some while now and mothers day (provided the weather was good) was an ideal opportunity. It proved to be a treasure. We all enjoyed it – Tigers, Wolves,Elephants and Meerkats being my favourites. The look of sheer joy on Maeves face when she first saw a real monkey was one I will remember for a long time. Maeve ran pretty much all the three hours we spent in the zoo – so for the first time Maeve fell asleep at 19:00 and slept though till 08:00 the next morning.

Here are the latest pictures of my Daughter – she is growing up fast now, and her English is expanding daily: