Mamalade

Miles had his tooth out. It was rather a traumatic experience for all concerned. He took it to school in a clear plastic bag for “show and tell.” He also lost his wobbly front tooth during the week so he’s had a visit from the tooth fairy. The fairy pays a better price for teeth now than she did when I was a kid!

On Friday I went round after school to see Frances and the kids. Frances was getting Miles ready for footy training. He has recently taken up football. I think this was about his fourth training session. “I’ll come and watch you,” I said.

Miles was delighted.

I sat on the grass with Frances and 3-year-old Hayley and watched as the team lined up for training. They looked so small. The bottom of one little boy’s shorts reached the tops of his socks. Miles appeared to be enjoying himself as they did stretching exercises and practised running, catching the ball and tackling, but most of the time he was talking to the boy next to him, instead of looking at the coach.

When they played an actual game, Miles was on the outskirts, doing pirouettes. Suddenly he realised he should be in a scrum, so he stopped twirling and threw himself on top of the churning pile of bodies, while little sister Hayley jumped up and down on the sidelines, shouting, “Go, Miles, go, go!”

“You’ll have to bring the video camera next time,” I told Frances.

“Perhaps he should take up dancing,” chuckled Frances.

Who knows? He might make a great footballer. At least the exercise will be good for him.

I’ve been having trouble opening my car door. The first time it happened, I couldn’t get out, so I drove home, and hoped the neighbours weren’t looking while I made an undignified exit through the door on the opposite side. Once on the outside, I realised the problem was the window. It wobbles crookedly when being wound up, and it had jammed in the door frame. Putting the window back down solved the problem.

I went round yesterday and got Joel to have a look at it.

“It can’t be fixed,” he told me, after pulling the door apart. He showed me how the rubber fittings had worn away. “We’d never get the parts,” he said. “The wreckers don’t keep cars this old. We’ll have to start looking again for another car.”

“There’s no hurry,” I said. “It’s still running all right. And I can open and close the door if I don’t wind the window all the way to the top.”

But I think the time has come – if we can find a suitable car soon.

I stayed for dinner. Miles and Hayley entertained us with “knock knock” and “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes. Most of them were not really funny, because they made them up as they went along, but all great comedians have to start somewhere.

“Sometimes you might have to make up 20 jokes before you think of a good one,” I told Miles. “You just have to keep trying.”

I read stories to Hayley after she had gone to bed. It was getting late. “I’ll have to go home to the pussies soon,” I said.

Hayley grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. “No, Meemar, you can’t go home! You stay here!”

“I’ll just stay while you go to sleep, then,” I turned out the light. “I’ll rub your back…”

Hayley sprang out of bed. “No, Meemar! It’s not time to turn the light off. I’m not going to sleep. You go home to your pussies!”

I let Frances deal with her while I went to say goodnight to Miles. He’d been watching a movie and had just been told it was too late for a story. He had his head under the sheet, wailing, “I’ll never watch a movie again!”

“I’ll just talk to you for a little while,” I said. I rubbed his back and he settled down and told me about the dilemma he is in at school.

“Verity and Samantha both want to marry me,” he confided. “Samantha tells me to trick Verity and Verity tells me to trick Samantha.”

“You don’t have to worry about it yet,” I told him. When you grow up, you might meet someone else you want to marry. That’s what your Daddy did.”

I told him how his parents had met when they had both finished school.

Miles sighed. “I love you, Meemar. I’m glad you’re still alive!”

Whenever my Great-Aunt Amy was asked how she was, although she was almost blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair, she would always say, “Could be worse – I could have toothache!”

I think my grandson Miles would agree that toothache is one of the worst things to put up with. Two weeks ago, Frances was summoned to the school to bring Miles home. He was feeling sick and in a lot of pain with toothache. She took him to the school dentist and he had his tooth filled.

“He was so frightened,” Frances told me. “He was shaking!”

During that weekend, an abscess developed on the tooth, so he had to go back to the dentist.

“Whatever you do, don’t mention the word needle.” Frances whispered to me when I went round to mind Hayley. “He doesn’t realise he had one last time.” The clever dentist had shone a bright light in his face and told him to close his eyes while they put “sleepy juice” in his gums. Just as well. Miles is terrified of needles.

But he didn’t need sleepy juice the next time. They just put him on antibiotics for a week. By the time he was due to go back to the dentist, he had developed another abscess on the other side of his face, so we was given extra antibiotics for another week.

He seemed pretty lively yesterday when I called in to see them.

“Did he tell you about the drama we had the other night?” asked Frances.

“No.”

He’d had a bad reaction to the antibiotics with severe stomache pains and had to be taken to the hospital.

That was the night I had been at a Toastmasters meeting. If I’d been home they would have been able to call on me to mind Hayley.

Well, I’ll have Hayley tomorrow. Miles is going back to the dentist. I just hope they can do something this time!

My sister Lea brought her boys Robert and Matthew to see Mum yesterday. I tagged along as usual. All the kids are growing up so fast, I don’t want to miss seeing them when I can. Robert was showing us how he can lift a chair with one hand. He held it as high as he could, but it slipped and hit Matthew on the head.

And little Matthew just stood there and laughed! He’s such a jolly little kid.

Our shopping trip last week was interesting. I was just getting out of my car, when two of the men from the supermarket came rushing after a man who was walking past.

“Excuse me sir,” one of them said to the man, “Would you mind stepping back into the store?”

“What for?” he asked.

“What do you have under your shirt?”

That’s when I noticed he had a big bulge under the front of his shirt. They escorted him back into the supermarket. He’ll have a hard time explaining his way out of that, I thought, as I went into the nearby fruit shop.

By the time I came out with my fruit and veges, there was a police car parked near the entrance to the supermarket. As I chatted to one of my friends outside the door, the man I had seen came back out, no longer bulging and with a large policeman on either side. They all went off in the police car.

Hard hearted person I am, I didn’t even feel sorry for him! Well, maybe just a little bit – he couldn’t be too bright to think he could get away with it!

February in Queensland is hot and humid. We struggled through Monday and Tuesday this week in sauna-like conditions. Very high temperatures were predicted for Wednesday, and parents were advised to keep their children home from school. But it turned out much cooler, after all. Since then the days have been quite pleasant.

I was so glad it was cooler on Friday. Our World Vision Club had a street stall in aid of the Tsunami Appeal. A woman who is one of our regular jumble sale customers had offered to donate a lot of plants if we could sell them for the Tsunami victims. She said she had wanted to have a street stall, but couldn’t get a permit unless she belonged to a regular charity. We had been wanting to do something extra for the appeal, so we were more than willing. We made it a “Plants and Books” stall, since we had lots of books as well. It was very successful. We’ll probably have another one soon.