Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

Got a shock last night. I handed my daughter my Asus Transformer tablet with a drawing app opened and she then proceeded to draw/write this with her finger:

My 4 year 3 month old daughter can write her name (and I found out later my name too) and the numbers. I was an am in awe at her. I am also really pleased with the teaching at the creche Maeve goes to in the IFSC in Dublin.

Maeve is still charming everyone she meets – “so cute” is the most comment I have heard; and her English is excellent and advanced. Her emotional development is progressing nicely in that she understands others emotions (even that they are sad) and empathizes with those who have lost someone or someone is insulted.

Our 4 year old daughter has qualified as a “Seal 2″ (or “Navy Seal” as I call her) and we are really proud of her.

Really impressed in how she is taken to swimming – although its more “familiarity” than swimming at the moment. Ireland has an appalling track record when we come to swimming, its not usually taught in school – I was lucky in that I was taught when I was 7 or so – and it is important to learn from both a safety and fun perspective. Both my wife and I qualified as PADI divers.

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.