Out of the Mouths of Babes . . . Weird Shit

Despite my recent incapacitation, I was eager to pay another visit to my intellectually dangerous godson and his twin brother up in County Cavan. My last trip engendered the story here, so the possibility of material for further postings helped overcome any remaining tenderness in my abdominal area.

Although not yet five, Joshua and Jordan have seen both maternal grandparents die, as well as the family pet, Mickey the labrador, at the age of 14 (that's 98 to you and me), in addition to more remote family members and, last week, the caretaker who buried their nana and granddad. All this in addition to at least two visits to Australia (their dad is from Adelaide), so you can understand that they've seen plenty of the world already thanks very much, albeit from push-chairs and strollers.

This familiarity with death and its frequency must surely account for Jordan's recent question to his mother, a common enough one in young children but peculiar in this case for its phrasing: "Mommy," he asked, "When are you and Daddy going to die?"

This isn't Oedipal, it's psychotic. Unless one allows for the possibility that it was just a very dull and boring day for Jordan and he hadn't seen a death for a while. That's the only explanation I would want to countenance for the element of impatience suggested by his query.

Item two: The Saturday before Christmas seems to also be the traditional day for arranging what the lads call "Stable Jesus," i.e. the nativity scene. The family has a set of china figurines which, if not antique, have been in the family for a while, and the lads derive great pleasure from positioning the various characters and animals in the mock wooden stable diorama atop an occasional table in the living room. Unfortunately, this year, Joshua managed to break an arm off Baby Jesus, an event that elicited a brief reprimand from Mommy but subsequently great amusement, at least for Joshua, at the thought of "One-Armed Baby Jesus," the perfect name for a Christian kung-fu movie, I thought. Joshua wandered off for a minute with the figurine, then came back into the room to inform me, "Jesus has got three arms." There was no apparent justification for this statement, and he hadn't modified the figurine in any way. My immediate assumption was that he was pretending that the little baby's legs were arms as well, so I played along, but then he followed up his statement with, "Jesus has got lots of arms." "Mmm," I said. "That's so he can deliver all the presents." (Oh yes, I neglected to mention that the nativity scene also featured Santa; this is a sort of nod to secularism in a good Catholic household, possibly for my benefit, I don't know).

Joshua returned Baby Jesus to his crib in the stable, sat a while, and pondered. Then he came back over to me, lazing on the settee checking Final Score, to inform me, "Baby Jesus is an octopus."

What drugs is this kid on?

"That's right," I told him, conscious of my role as his godfather. "Baby Jesus is an octopus."

The fact that Joshua knew that it wasn't true only made him laugh all the harder.

Ah, the laughter of children. Surely this is what Christmas is all about.

One final anecdote from the weekend, and an image that will remain with me for some time. Jordan was sat on his mother's knee as she read through a book with him, identifying letters of the alphabet. "A is for . . ." she would say, and Jordan would complete the sentence, using his own imagination, with "Apple," "Bear," "Cat," "Dog," and so on. At "H," or thereabouts, Jordan was receiving such plaudits from his audience that Joshua decided he wanted to join in, leading to mini temper tantrums and a short spat. Perhaps it was the threat of competition that spurred on Jordan's imagination, but when Mommy got to "M is for . . .," Jordan's response was "Machine." His mother couldn't have been more stunned had he said "Masturbation." Where on earth did he get "Machine" from? Fruit machines from the pub next door? Sinn Fein's local political machine? This was mind-blowing. Granted they live in the country and see their fair share of tractors and combines, but "machine" is an abstraction, a generic term. What kind of child comes out with "M is for machine?" A paranoid schizophrenic one, is my guess.

I'm not well up on theories of child development, so I'm in no position to judge whether this sort of behaviour is normal for a four-year-old, but I do understand now why people say you should make the most of your kids' childhood. Never again will they be so free-thinking and unconstrained in their mental associations. Never again will you save so much money that you would have spent on acid when you have kids around like this just to fuck with your mind.

Bless.