Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Well, you asked.

Noodle was told yesterday afternoon that if he had a sleep he could go to Billy Lids (indoor playground) in the afternoon. He happily trots off to be and then emerges some ten minutes later theatrically rubbing his eyes and yawning.
N: Can we go to Billy Lids now?
D: I said we could go after you had a sleep
N: I had a sleep
D: A proper sleep, not just ten minutes
N: I did have a proper sleep, I was asleep for hours and hours.
D: You were in there for ten minutes, that is not a proper sleep. What kind of idiot do I look like?
Noodle looks perplexed
N: What kind of idiots are there?

Monday, December 08, 2008

What’s with the Whiney voice?

And God, how do you stop it?
Age had one of ‘those days’ on Friday. Everything was answered with a contradiction, a whine or nagging.
By the time Mummy went to the grog shop for a much needed bottle of mother’s little helper I actually had to seriously ask myself if clubbing a four year old with a 2004 NZ Sauv Blanc would be so very wrong.
I can take pooh and wee and watching the same bloody episode of Ben 10 eleventy billion times. I don’t really mind being dragged to the park when I’d much rather be sitting on my fat ass watching Oprah. It doesn’t bother me that we read the same book 8 times in a row or soothing the ear ringing screams of agony that accompany a stubbed toe.
But the whiney voice, the oh-my-God-how-do-I-stop-from-killing-you whiney voice.
Fingers down a blackboard would be music to my ears compared to the whiney voice.
I don’t know what it is. Possibly the pitch of voice that can penetrate gums and vibrate teeth inside the jaw. Maybe the unreasonable nature of the request (but I must have chocolate for breakfast) or else it’s the sheer repartition. That you know in your heart it does not matter how you construct the answer the whine will just go on and on and on and on until you give in, your brain pops or you club the child. Possibly all three simultaneously.
I figure the whiney voice is somehow hard wired into the neo-cortex, thereby making it impossible to ignore.
Maybe cave children only used the whiney voice to inform mummy that there was indeed a slathering sabre tooth tiger at the cave door. Or the location of a rare yet nutritionally rich tree fungus.
I have no idea why it works, but please God, does anyone know how to make it stop?