What Children Say

I have always wanted to note this down, so today I am finally getting down to it. Here it is. for posterity, or at least, for Jethro...

From Heidi's diary:

The day I turned 17 months old, my brother chose to introduce me to society thus (read on and tell me if that is even fair):

There I was, sitting contentedly in the buggy. (I always quite like being pushed. Nowadays, when I can climb up to the buggy seat myself, I would do so instead of waiting for my mother, who's always busy with something else, to carry me onto it. At least, that never failed to get her attention, and she would come rushing to strap me in.) My mother, my second brother and I were waiting outside my brother's classroom for the door to open so that my mother could shove him in and take off with me. (Mother's note: I don't shove him in. I wait patiently outside for his temperature to be taken, his mouth and hands to be checked, and always say bye bye. Then I walk slowly away with Heidi. Naturally. Since I am still stuck with one child, there's no freedom to take off to.)

I was quite bored. Hasn't anyone noticed I turn 17 months old today? Then, out of somewhere, or nowhere, or wherever, came my brother, Jethro, running, with his friend, Ishan (or something). He stood beside my buggy (which used to be his, which used to be big brother Ethan's, which used to belong to someone who should be pretty old now in Edinburgh) and gleefully proclaimed: "Ishan, this is my sister..."

"Oh great!" I thought eagerly, "do tell him my name is Heidi, not Heydi, please. And that today I am 17 months old."

 "...She has no penis." Thus ended his introduction. And Ishan chose to comment he had a sister too, but that's beside the point already.

Well, what does my mother do? In a pretend-scandalous voice, she feebly admonished, "Jethro!" and quickly looked around to see if anyone of a more delicate heart should hear my brother's words. And that's all she did.

Someone should seriously tell him that one should never need to put something so obvious and intimate as the human anatomy into one's introduction. If plain telling is ever going to work on him.

I can see my brother, the one whose name starts with 'J', the one who's always fighting with me over things and yet surprisingly caring sometimes, is going to be a challenge to manage.