Time for elevenses

And speaking of interesting culinary choices (see previous post), Phoebe's breakfast this morning was a maramalade sandwich*, obviously inspired by that pioneer of fine food, Paddington Bear.

Except that "marmalade" in Greek means jam and a "sandwich" is actually a filled roll rather than two slices of bread, so it ended up being a sort of hybrid jam butty affair...

A little smackeral of something

Two of Emily's very favourite foods are olives and rice pudding, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before she tried combining the two by dipping the olive into the rice pudding. Yum!

(Emily contends that it was not only a matter of time and that she wouldn't have done it unless I'd dared her to, but I think we all realise that this is just the lamest excuse ever...)

Girls & boys

"Ready for your cornflakes, goils?"

"Yes, Dad!" They take their places at the breakfast table.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Emily?"

"Why do you sometimes call us goils?"

I briefly consider explaining all about my rich interior life, in which I am a character from a Damon Runyon short story, but decide that this will probably give rise to one of her odd stares. Instead, I mumble something about just doing it for fun, which seems to satisfy her.

One minute later

"Dad?"

"Yes, Emily?"

"If I have boys when I grow up, I think I'll call them boils."

"That will probably be a very good name for them, darling..."

Starting 2009 with a whimper...

...not to mention a splutter and a cough, as the girls are ill again. Emily has a cold (which is at the moment - touch wood - not too bad), while Phoebe has a sort-of sinus infection that manifests itself in various symptoms (including swelling around the eyes, aversion to light, lethargy and - bizarrely - pain in the cheeks) that refuse to disappear despite her being on antibiotics for three days.

As a result, she has missed the first two days of school, which she is a bit annoyed about as she was looking forward to seeing her friends. (Her first question when Emily came home from school yesterday was whether all her classmates had asked where she was.)

According to the unofficial Book of Rules for Greek Parents, what I'm now supposed to do is phone up the school to find out what lessons she's missed, go down there to pick up worksheets and sit next to her while she does all her homework. This is because the great horror of Greek parents is kena, which means "gaps", i.e. things that they've missed. When kids are off school, the thinking goes, they fall behind (i.e. are overtaken by their peers) and then struggle. Now to be fair, it's not surprising that parents worry about this, since the workload even in first grade is pretty heavy. But let's get some perspective, here. Phoebe is six years old, she's ill, and I don't really think missing a couple of days of school will have any lasting effect on her education.

And besides, according to her she's already learnt how to read, write and do numbers, so she's evidently got everything pretty much covered for this year...