Published on 22 February 2007
in Growing up. Closed
We had a surprising update yesterday to the Slow to Zoom system. It turns out there is a speed even faster than Zoom, known as A1. This in turn is outstripped by B2, then C3 and so on, right up to the frankly interstellar… Z26.
All of this is pure theoretical physics, of course. I’m not convinced we’ve ever seen Zoom in our house, let alone A1. Hearing Hannah and Lauren talk about Z26 is like listening to Stephen Hawking on black holes: it all sounds very clever but you can’t quite imagine what it would actually look like.
I can only suppose it would be a bit like “VOOM” in The Cat In The Hat Comes Back: a tremendous release of energy, a blinding flash of light, and a fraction of a second later two girls would be standing there in their school uniforms, hair combed, shoes done up, coats on.
I can’t deny it sounds attractive, but their current method (lying on back, singing, reading, waving legs in air) probably causes less structural damage.
Hannah and Lauren revealed an amazing secret to me today: their five-level heirarchy of Getting Dressed Speeds. Ranked in order, these are:
Slow
Wide
Fast
Smart
Zoom
Rather than defining each one precisely the girls offered rather scattered titbits of information, a bit like one of those logic puzzles where you get mismatching information about a range of items and have to work out the rest. What I now know is the following:
Wide is really slow, y’know, a bit dawdle-donkey, like with messing about and stuff.
Slow is just lying on the floor daydreaming.
Zoom is the fastest, where you just get dressed and no talking.
Smart is faster than Fast but you’re allowed a bit of talking.
Fast is what they normally do. (Note: I would never have chosen the word “fast” to describe it.)
If you want to go to disco dancing after school on a Friday you have to do Zoom or Smart.
This morning Lauren did Zoom but there is some disagreement over whether Hannah did Zoom or Smart.
I definitely heard both of them talking.
The whole system therefore appears dangerously corrupt.
Don’t tell them, but they’re going disco dancing anyway. It buys us a whole hour of peace and quiet.
All quiet on the blog front lately, but I’m sure it won’t be long before the girls catch me in a creative mood again.
In the meantime, here’s a montage of photos of their latest obsession, Jenga. They discovered it while we were visiting friends on a rainy Sunday afternoon last week and have been hooked ever since. (They also fell in love with Scrabble, but being less of a physical sport I didn’t take any photos of that.)
Happy New Year everyone! I hope your Christmas was as joyous but not quite as mindlessly hyperactive as ours.
The girls and I went to our local park yesterday, where they’ve installed a whole load of new play equipment. One of Hannah and Lauren’s favourites is one of those tyres hanging on chains. They had a go with their friend Thomas and I rather recklessly decided to stand in the middle and film them going round me with my cameraphone. I ended up getting dizzy and falling over. Here’s the footage!
Health warning: you should probably not watch this while eating or handgliding.
(There’s a YouTube video here that you won’t see on the RSS feed. You’ll need to view it on the website instead.)
A conversation in bed this morning. Nicola was wisely staying out of it and trying to get more sleep.
Hannah: Daddy, you know when you’re a grandad… Lauren(interrupting): Will you be a grandad or a grandpa? Me: Oh… a grandpa I think. Hannah: Why? Me: Well, in my family we’ve always had grandpas and in Mummy’s family they’ve had grandads. So I’d like to be a grandpa. [pause] Lauren: What about our husbands? Hannah: Yeah, will they be grandpas or grandads? Me(after a short think): They can be whatever they want to be, girls.
We never did get to hear what Hannah started to ask me. As ever, I’m left thinking that a bit of forward planning is commendable, but all things in moderation.
I’ve submitted one of my family photos to a competition in JPG Magazine. Entries are put to the vote, with winners appearing in print and their creators showered with lovely prizes!
So, if you have the time and energy (and you like the photo!) please click on the picture below. I believe you may need to register in order to vote, but doing so is free of charge and very simple. All votes will be very gratefully received!
We appear to have a serious mouse infestation this morning. Worse still, there’s no sign of the costumes we just finished making for Lauren and Hannah’s school play, The Night Before Christmas.
Does anyone have any tips for dealing with this kind of pest issue, especially when they start striking poses in front of cameras?
Hannah was wandering around at bedtime tonight singing a little song about car insurance, as you do. Actually, the song was Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend, with the phrase “car insurance!” thrown in at random. Apparently it’s off an advert.
“Do you know what car insurance is, Hannah?” asked Nicola.
“Yeah!” chirped Lauren’s voice from the toilet. The family reconvened at the open door to the smallest room to hear more. “And it’s not the only kind of insurance,” Lauren continued, beginning to count off on her fingers. “There’s pet insurance… life insurance…”
“Home insurance!” chimed Hannah.
“Yeah, home insurance…”
“How do you know all this, girls?” I asked, feeling somewhat impressed.
“Well, you know at Tesco’s, near the till, yeah?” said Lauren. “They’ve got all those leaflets, and there’s pet insurance, life insurance…”
“Home insurance!”
“Yeah, home insurance… and… there’s one you’ve forgotten, Hannah!”
Short comedy pause.
“Peg insurance!”
Whereupon Lauren laughed so much she fell off the toilet.
Hannah and Lauren are having an unexpected day off today due to a burst water main at school. We’ve also brought one of their class mates home with us, so I’m working upstairs while the three girls play in the living room.
I just went to check on them and, of course, they are watching Grease. Their friend bounded across the room and grabbed my hand.
“Mark! Mark!” she shouted, “Isn’t it right that you need to have sex to have a baby?”
Hannah and Lauren looked on with wide-eyed curiosity.
“Erm… what… well…” I explained.
“My mummy told me,” she continued. “I know what having sex is, but don’t worry, I won’t tell them.”
I have now escaped to the spare room upstairs where I’m sitting with the door closed, typing this and planning my next move. Frankly, I’m terrified. They’re only six! This is all Travolta’s fault. Would sex have reared its ugly head if they’d been watching Wallace and Gromit? Of course not.
Oh hell, someone’s coming up the stairs. Perhaps I can climb out of the window and make my escape? Help!!
This is just one of the terrifying questions I’m anticipating now that the girls have discovered the institution of girlhood that is Grease. Actually, “discovered” is a coy understatement: they’ve recorded it and have taken to watching it several times a day. I’d never seen it before and I had no idea just how adult the dialogue is, not to mention the pelvic gestures.
Nicola, on the other hand, is taking it all in her stride, assuring me that she went to see it at the age of 6 with her grandmother and it all goes over your head at that age.
I suspect I’m just “being a dad” on this one. Do any readers have any Grease-related personal stories they can share which might calm my troubled mind?
The girls doodle on their easels after most meals but as you can see the central theme doesn’t vary much.
I wonder if anyone can answer the following questions:
(a) Which is Hannah’s easel and which is Lauren’s?
(b) Where are the three pictures of me? (Warning: this one’s tricky.)
(c) How many weddings are depicted?
(d) How many women can you count with long hair?
(e) How many high-heeled shoes?
I only know the answers to a, b and c. I’ll take your word on d and e.
(Flickr users can also leave notes and comments here.)
We found ourselves at the back of a very long queue at the ice cream kiosk today, so the girls started running a relay to the front to report back on the flavours available. The full list they assembled was as follows:
Vanilla
Dutch Chocolate
Real Strawberry
Mint Choc Chip
Raspberry Ripple
Double-Lick Vanilla
This caused no small amount of excitement in our section of the queue. What scrumptious Wonka-like invention was this “double-lick vanilla”? Was double-lick technology also available on other flavours? We began to scrutinise passing ice creams for a clue as to what double-licking might entail.
Sadly, when we reached the front we realised that what was actually on offer was diabetic vanilla. After that our ice creams tasted strangely disappointing.
This is just one of the terrifying questions I’m anticipating now that the girls have discovered the institution of girlhood that is Grease. Actually, “discovered” is a coy understatement: they’ve recorded it and have taken to watching it several times a day. I’d never seen it before and I had no idea just how adult the dialogue is, not to mention the pelvic gestures.