Pipistrelle pie? – more from the FYO

He is still the FYO because he is still five. And while he still comes out with these lovely little comments I shall continue to print them. “Mum, what’s bat and bird cake?”

And the next visit to the optician: “When am I going to see the eye dentist?”

Out of the mouths of babes (4)

The five-year-old (FYO) is no longer a babe but the gems keep coming. Recently he was eating, and watching TV at the same time. He asked if he could use the iPad and was told no.

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ he said. ‘I can multi-task…’

Fluffy Logic

Voice from the child-seat.
I look in the mirror.
The FYO* is looking at his feet.
‘I’m wearing red socks.’ he says.
‘Are you? I didn’t notice. Are they warm?’
‘They make you have red toe-fluff.’
‘Really? Does it get between your toes and make them warm?’
‘No. It makes your toes easier to wiggle.’

(*now five, but still the FYO)

Bovine satnav

‘Can you see the cow in the sky, up above the clouds?‘ the FYO said as we drove up the road. ‘The cow in the sky gives you directions. If it moos, then you turn left.‘ ‘And what if it doesn’t moo?’ I asked. ‘Then you don’t turn left.‘ Though there was a smigin of logic in this, I could see that if I obeyed the cow in the sky I would be condemned to drive anti-clockwise for ever. ‘Doesn’t the cow give any other instructions?’ I asked. ‘Yes. If it wags its tail then you go backwards. If it nods its head you go straight on.‘ I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I sat there working out the various permutations of this, like what if it wagged its tail and mooed, or mooed while nodding its head. I also knew that I had come across logic like this before. It was just like the instructions that came with the MFI flat-packs.

Chocolate surprise

I was in Starbucks with the FYO and made the mistake of saying he could have what he liked as a cake, even lifting him up so he could see. What I hadn’t noticed were things-on-sticks that resemble lollies but are actually lumps of marshmallow dipped in chocolate. I kept my word. After eating his sandwiches he set to work on the lolly thing, eating down one side the way beavers gnaw logs. Eventually I could see the whole stick. ‘Why not eat it around the other side?’ I said. ‘That way the rest of it won’t fall off.’ He nods, and off he goes, round to the other side of the table.

Serves me right for not being specific.

Fuel Crisis

I’ve just discovered that at the weekend my old BMW motorbike dribbled rather a lot of petrol over one of my shoes. The shoes appear to be undamaged but the stuff stinks. I pointed this out to the Four Year Old and said it was a nuisance. He didn’t agree with me. ‘Not a nuisance, Papa, a problem’. I wasn’t going to argue with the FYO over semantics and I admitted that it was both a nuisance and a problem. He told me in all seriousness that I needed a petrol getter-outer. I asked him what that was and he explained in some detail that it had two long handles and when you pull them together it gets out all the petrol. I wondered if there was a commercial use for such a device but decided that only stupid people allow their shoes to become soaked in petrol and they probably wouldn’t think to buy one.