Anniversaries

Certain dates this year did not escape my attention, but I did not blog on them – apparently dad still remembers the date of his heart attack just over four years ago and there is little now I can add when the fifth anniversary of Grandad’s death passed shortly before that. There have been other difficult anniversaries recently but also good anniversaries such as our seventh wedding anniversary. It will soon be Christmas.

But today is also an anniversary; as dad put it to me today, it is three years since I became a parent. Ironically, already the longest continuous employment I have found myself in and certainly the one I intend to be working on for the rest of my life. My little girl is suddenly three, or 36 months if you are a connoisseur of toys for pre-schoolers. For her it has been an even more eventful time. While some people spent the last three years of their lives reading such ridiculous subjects at University as Croatian, Middle Egyptian, Hebrew or Koine Greek (or even all four), Lily has devoted her time to learning English, which is far harder. She has also been learning about Sociology (don’t push), Politics (say sorry) and Geography (where did you leave it?) and her grasp of Literature (you had the comic last night) is telling. We have been working on Leitmotifs in Fantasy Genre in Children’s Media (the tooth fairy) and regularly explaining certain aspects of Anatomy (they won’t wobble until you are 6). History sometimes appears on the curriculum (what did we do yesterday?) and Geometry, while limited at present to what wheels on buses do, is turning a corner. Metaphorically, that is. On a good day we cover Food Technology (don’t touch that, it’s hot/sharp/tasty) or Art (don’t touch that, you’re wet/sticky/painty) but many days we just do Media Studies and hope that in another 24 months or less our nearest school will not be too upset at her progress to date.

At least she is now deemed sufficiently responsible that she will no longer place objects of questionable size in her earnoseandthroat. And old enough to start having to pay to go to more activities. Maybe we will have to introduce Finance and Economics into the curriculum. No wonder there’s never enough time to blog.