Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

Happy Chinese new year!!! – and there is the rub. Our daughter Maeve – the elemental force of day to day life these days – comes home and announces that she is a ‘Rat’ and is very proud of it. Rat – what do you mean ‘Rat’? Maeve attends the excellent ‘educate together school’ in Donabate and as part of their multi-cultural view of education they have been learning about the Lunar New Year which is also known as the ‘Chinese New Year’ despite being common across many cultures and areas of Asia.

As part of this it was explained to Maeve by ‘teacher’ (a nice young lass) that based on her birthday (Jan 16 2008) Maeve was a ‘rat’; No problem there you might think – according to Chinese mythology Rats have many positive characteristics. The problem was though Maeve was told by Teacher she was a ‘Rat’ where as in reality she is a ‘Pig’. Maeve was born in the year of the Pig (2007-2008) rather than the year of the Rat (2008-2009) and because Teacher told her she is a ‘Rat’ rather than a ‘Pig’ Maeve won’t accept what I am saying – even though I have doubled checked it.

Meeting Teacher tomorrow (as I do most mornings recently) is going to ‘interesting’. How do I tell her that she was ‘wrong’ and how will she tell Maeve? As the chinese say ‘we live in Interesting times’.

Before you ask … I am a ‘Dragon’ and good lady wife is a ‘Pig’.

Last night when I went bed I found my daughter asleep in my bed and she looked so cute with the open book and all I had to take the photo:

I hope she grows up loving reading as much as I do.

I think my 4 year old daughter has a secret life because we were out driving this evening and my daughter notices that a police car behind us and says ‘Daddy the Police are following us!!! We have to loose them’ – I almost crashed the car with laughing so much.

Today was Maeve’s last day in the Giraffe creche in the IFSC Dublin. The creche let me state is excellent and I would recommend to anyone. Maeve has gone from a small 7 month old toddler to a confident, brash, smart and totally lovable 4.5 year old little lady under their tutorship who can count and can write her name. Tomorrow she starts the next phase of her life – primary school in Donabate and is something she has been excited about for months. It will mean of course a change in her moms and dads lives to cater for the school location and times (less time in school than was spent in the creche), but it should work out well for everyone concerned.

One big personal thing for me (and re-enforced by her new Passport arriving yesterday) is – where has the last four and a half years gone, and my how she has grown and matured!!!

Still love her and her mom to bits though.

I took this photo yesterday of my daughter in my home-office “relaxing” watching Spider-Man. Talk about cute….

Finding it hard to believe she is only Four years old and is starting school in September.