Conversations with the eight-year old

Oh my, it’s a Twingo.

It’s an awful thing to break someone’s heart. A mean, cruel, horrible thing.

And the only thing that’s worse is sticking around to watch the crucifying agony of it all. But it seems that that’s the case for 7% of British adults (3.6 million people) according to the Daily Mail today.

It’s sort of comforting (and a little shocking) to me that I’m not the only one in this position.

I watched as I managed to break the 40-year-old’s heart just a little bit more today.

He’s taken to interrogating me about any people in my life he doesn’t really know. “Oh, Laurent. Is he single?”

“Ummm… yes, I think so. Ummm… why?”

“Well I think you know why,” comes the accusing retort. For the record, I’m not remotely interested in Laurent. And I’m not particularly sure that it matters if he is single or otherwise. There isn’t much excitement in my life, but I do have a client who seems to have developed a quite charming crush on me (it’s all gallantry and earnestness). The fact that he is married doesn’t seem to be here nor there.

“Anyway,” it’s my turn to retort, “You have female friends.”

“Yes, but they’re all married.”

“What about that girl in your office that you wanted to ask round because she seemed single and a bit lonely?”

“Well, er, yes, she’s single.”

Strrrrrrrike!

Actually, that was something that used to slightly bother me about our relationship. The 40-year-old never held himself back from making friends with the other mummies at school… arranging to meet them for play-dates, taking them for rides on the back of his motorbike. I’m a modern gal and all, and he is supremely in touch with his feminine side, but it didn’t seem quite right somehow. I noticed motorbike mummy giving me sort of nervous, uncomfortable glances (she also knew it wasn’t quite right somehow too), and hell, if I offered to take the other daddies for a ride in my car, I think some eyebrows would be raised, don’t you?

Anyway, I digress completely. So 40.Y.O. keeps having little digs. Every time I pick up my computer, it’s, “Hmmmm… talking to your Facebook friends again?” or “Oh… send my regards to Yannick.” So tonight, when he rolls out the old Facebook comment I just can’t help myself and I say, “Actually, I’m going to send an email to my new boyfriend.”

And the 8-year-old pipes up, “But mummy, you don’t have a boyfriend, you have daddy.” And, it takes really quite an effort not to say, “Well, no, darling, I’m not really with daddy any more.”

You see, we haven’t ‘officially’ announced to the kids that we are splitting up. Well, 40.Y.O. did take it upon himself to unilaterally tell 8.Y.O. a few weeks ago that mummy and daddy would probably get a divorce, because he needed to vent (Really? To an eight-year-old boy? Could you be any more inappropriate)?

I was FURIOUS, and 8.Y.O. was super stressed. The stress seemed to have subsided for the most part, but the D-word still cropped up from time to time.

“Ooh, yuck, mummy, look, it’s a Twingo.” (Both my kids have been able to tell the difference between a bimmer and a minger since the age of about three).

“Hmmm… You know what, mummy might have one of those soon.” It just popped out.

“Is that when you get a divorce?”

I don’t say anything.

So, basically, since things seem to be becoming more concrete on the divorce front, and since I (generally) believe it is much better to be straight forward and honest about things, I have a quiet word with the 8.Y.O. later.

“Um, darling, you know that mummy and daddy probably will get divorced one day.” He is distressed, but I honestly think it’s the best course of action, to let him take his time and get used to the idea while, to all intents and purposes, things remain the same for him vis-a-vis his living situation.

I had spoken to 40.Y.O. the evening before and we had agreed that it was time to be more honest with the kids and introduce them to the idea that we would separate. But perhaps I should have warned him that I was going to start being honest right then (ok, a little part of me was getting payback for his unsanctioned divorce announcement previously), because when I spoke to him immediately afterwards he was… I don’t know, crushed, cross, hurt. Because, he still can’t quite believe that this is happening, and he knows that, if I am finally willing to tell my precious babies, then it’s true. So I watch as take a hammer to someone’s heart.

It’s a terrible thing to break someone’s heart.

Conversation with an estate agent

Today was a sad day.

My husband called an estate agent round to value the house. So, in all honesty, I didn’t have a conversation with an estate agent, he did. In his appalling French (why he insisted on bumbling along in French, when she spoke very good English, I really don’t know).

The most I could manage was a sort of grimace at the poor lady. ‘She knew you were my wife, by your grumpy expression’, my husband said later. As I said, I sort of grimaced.

Some background might be appropriate here. I have requested a divorce from my husband. The poor man is utterly confused and it is me who is the bitch, la méchante sorcière. I can’t even tell you why I want to split up. The appalling French has something to do with it, but I think that’s a whole other post.

The house was bought at a different time. We were optimistic. Happy? Maybe. I won’t say in love. I don’t really think I’ve ever been in love. We had dreams then, though. We thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. The house was (and still is) a giant fixer-upper. So now, all the ideas I had: the patchwork quilt for my daughter’s room, the curtain between her room and ours with a hole in it to do puppet shows, the wall painted with blackboard paint in the kitchen; that’s what they’ll stay as, ideas to be shelved somewhere in a painful little bookcase in my head. It’s funny how we invest so much of ourselves in property.

Hmmm.. well that’s nothing compared to how much of ourselves we invest in other people.

Alien conversation

This was a conversation with the 38-year-old (the 6-year-old’s and 2-and-a-half-year-old’s dad).

“The third airport in China was shut down today because of a UFO.”

“Mmmmm.” (To be fair, I am trying to sleep at this point).

“You’re not interested are you.”

I’m not, but I feign enthusiam, “Yes, go on.”

“People think there will be a lizard attack by 2012.”

“You’re right, I’m not interested.”

The 38-year-old has been seeing his friend, who we’ll call Thomas, again. (He really is called Thomas and I don’t know how old he is).

Thomas fervently believes the aliens are coming and apparently has stockpiled enough food for six months in case of attack.

“I think we should get a gun”, says the 38-year-old.

I’m really too tired to be alarmed and am in desperate need of sleep.

“Ok”, I mutter, “I’m delegating you to be in charge in case of Alien Attack. You can make all the preparations.”

The 38-year-old seems to be actually quite pleased by this and turns over and goes to sleep.

Charity conversation

On Monday, the 6-year-old and the 2-and-a-half-year-old each had to take an apple to their rather nice Catholic school to give to Father Dominique.

(Father Dominic is not a fat monk who likes to scoff apples all day. His convent in Brussels takes care of the homeless and ‘sans-papiers’ which doesn’t translate nicely into English, but ‘irregular migrant’ might cover it. Hence the school regularly collects donations of  food for his convent).

I wondered if Noah understood what his apple was for.

“Is Père Dominique really going to eat all those apples?”

“No mummy”, he replied earnestly.

“So what’s he going to do with them?”

“Père Dominique helps people with no money. They can knock on his door and go for their ‘goûter’.” (See this sweet explanation of a goûter).

As Shakespeare said, So shines a good deed in a weary world.

Or was that Willy Wonka?

Religious conversation

Noah came back from his lovely new (Catholic) school today with a question.

“Madame says that Jésus lives in our heart, but I don’t think she’s right. I think he lives with the planets. Where do you think he lives, mummy?”

I earnestly agree that, yes, I think he lives with the planets too, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that Jews (of which Noah is one) don’t believe in Jésus or even his English-pronounced counterpart.

At least not in the messianic way.

School conversation

“Doan like musique.”

“Doan. Like. Mu. Sique.”

“DOAN LIKE MU SIQUE!”

“DOAN. LIKE. MU. SIQQQQQUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

This is obviously not the 6-year-old, but his 2-and-a-half-year-old sister, and roughly translates as: “Mummy, I don’t want to do gymnastics at school today and am thus refusing to put my plimsolls on.”

Yes, ‘musique’ = ‘gymnastique’ (I think ‘gymnastique’ is quite a mouthful for a 2-and-a-half-year-old, especially when it’s not your native language).

And actually, ‘gymnastique’ = ‘psychomotricité’, which is such a mouthful for even adult native speakers that they don’t in fact bother, and just call it gymnastique instead.

Bathroom conversation

“NOAAAAHHH!”

My son and heir is sitting on the toilet, nonchalantly peeing into the air and forming a puddle on the bathroom floor.

He looks up, seemingly surprised by my angry tone of voice, then he regains his composure and asks,

“Mummy, do you want to kill me?”

I think what gives it away is my failure to reply immediately.

“How would you like to kill me mummy?”

I decide it’s probably best to say nothing and clean the bathroom floor instead.