Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

My Daughter is just four years old (16th Jan) and she has just made me roar with laughter. I have just put her to bed and after reading a story and giving her a hug and kiss I was getting up when she said – “Dad …. Dad ….. May the force be with you” – a saying from the star wars cannon

The bright, cheerful bundle of love and joy that is my daughter Maeve surprised me this evening. Some evenings I let my daughter watch videos on my HTC Desire smart-phone and this evening was one of those days. You can imagine my surprise that when I started the usual “time for you to go to bed Maeve” routine to notice on the phone when I retrieved it that I had a text-message. Getting a text message is not that unusual but to get one that said:

Info FreeMsg: You are subscribed to Cuddly TV. Cost EUR 4.50 every 5 days. Over 18 only. Helpline W2M 012467606. To unsubscribe text STOP to 57756

Well I was surprised – and yes internally I did a fairly bit of cursing – at this. Well yes I did text stop and yes I will phone the number given – but the only explanation is Maeve accidently subscribed me to this “service”. I do remember about half an hour earlier Maeve gave me the phone when she had exited the video player. Now I think she must have pressed one of the “free” adds within the video player and kicked all this off.

Anyway I got another text message from the service stating:

+44541881914: you subscription has been terminated. You will not be billed for this service anymore. Thank you for using this service. Help? 012467606

I hope thats the end of this – after checking my phone account so far this incident has cost me 3.72.

This evening my little curly red-headed daughter aged 3 and a half was given a haircut by her mom. Maeve’s does not really have a big or thick head of red curls yet; But after 3 years some parts have grown longer and faster than others – mostly down the middle so she looks like she has a Mohican sometimes. Anyway now its all the same length.

Maeve my three year old daughter must be beginning to understand that all people are not the same (colour, language etc). I have a habit – good or bad – of trying to say hello and goodbye in the language of the person I am talking to. Maeve must have pickup up on this and the reason I know this is we were shopping in the Marks-and-Spencers in the IFSC in Dublin and after we filled the basket we approached the tills to pay for the goods. The young woman behind the till (who looked of indian origin) beckoned us over with a smile and a simple English “hello”; As we approached the till Maeve said “Namaste” (which means greetings and goodbye depending on the context) and both I and the lady did a double-take of surprise – the lady quickly recovered with a slight bow and “Namaste” in reply.

I was surprised to say the least. I use “Namaste” often when I interact with Indians since I picked up the phrase when my wife and I were on Holiday in Nepal and India a number of years ago. Maeve has heard me use it a number of times when talking to Indians – say in an Indian takeaway; What Maeve did all on her own is work out the link between the word and the apparent ethnic look of the person she is talking too. Clever girl.

My three year old wonderful daughter just made me laugh – She wanted something of mine which is not suitable for children so I said “Maeve – not until you are older”. “OK dad” she said. Five minutes later she came back “Dad, I’m older now”. You cannot fault the logic.