I see dead fish

Lulu is apparently throwing off the shackles of being born second, behind a girl with the determination and will power of a bulldozer. For three and a half years she has generally bowed to the will of Madeleine, which has meant following along with her games, taking the submissive role, and slavishly copying her every move. They have always had their little spats, and before Lulu’s powers of language took full flight, they involved a lot of screaming on Lulu’s part, and a lot of “who me I’m innocent” pleas on Madeleine’s part.

Now, if Lulu doesn’t like what Madeleine wants, she tells her in no uncertain terms, perhaps followed up by a good old fashioned screaming match between them, in extreme situations the odd slap or punch thrown by one or other, then eventually the sound of stomping feet and slamming doors as someone comes to tell Mum and/or Dad what a dreadful sibling they have. So far, so normal. I can think of two grown men (yes you know who you are) who as children frequently had to be separated lest they actually kill each other this time. I can still remember traipsing downstairs (these fights always happened upstairs in a bedroom) to tell mum and dad (again), that (sigh), my two brothers were fighting again. Mum and Dad would roll their eyes, sigh (again), and eventually one would reluctantly amble off to separate the waring factions.

This is all starting to feel slightly familiar, although the girls don’t fight for long, or really hurt each other. No, the main outcome of Lulu’s startling independence is her complete lack of any need to follow others anymore. Take, for example, her ballet class on Saturday. Every Saturday I wake up at approximately 8.30am and realise I have 30 minutes to make myself look vaguely human, wrestle Lulu into her ballet uniform, and spirit her off to the local church hall for her weekly ballet class. (She does love it, and is not reluctant at all to attend, but getting her dressed is like dressing a deranged octopus. She can literally be distracted in the time between me telling her to get her ballet shoes, and her making it to her bedroom door. She will dash off full of enthusiasm, but before she has even got out of the room she has spotted something else far more interesting and before I know it she is driving a train up and down the walls or putting a little pony to bed under a tissue.)

Ballet is a lot of fun for children these days, the teachers make every class a real journey of discovery. They have wands and scarves that are waved as they skip about the room, there is a lot of pretend fairy dust sprinkled around, little teeny ballet feet danced with, and they sing to their “naughty toes” (not pointed) and “good toes” (very pointed). (As an aside, something weird has happened with child-raising. I actually wince when I hear my child singing out “naughty toes”. I think we have been brainwashed to believe that there is no such thing as “naughty” children anymore, for some reason that word has been banished from our vocabulary. Its kind of refreshing to have it bandied about so recklessly again).

Anyway, this week the gaggle of pink 3 year olds were gathered in a circle around an imaginary pond, in a magical forest no doubt full of fairies and ballerinas, and the teacher was asking them what they could see in the pond. One child saw a beautiful necklace, so they practiced putting on a necklace, ditto a tiara, a sparkling ring, a beautiful bracelet. I must confess I don’t know what this had to do with ballet, there were a lot of graceful arm movements so I suppose that was the point. “Lucia” said the teacher in an excited voice, “what can you see in the pond?”

“A dead fish”, she replied.

The entire hall broke up, I and the people I was sitting with were literally crying with laughter. For a minute I couldn’t decide if I was mortified or just highly entertained, but concluded that she was not reflecting any morbid fascination with death, just marching to the beat of her own drum. She was entirely unselfconscious, and took no notice of the peals of laughter or startled reaction of the teacher. Nope, she was not having any truck with these random jewels lying about in a pond, she saw a dead fish, and that was that.

I questioned her afterwards.  She didn’t know why she saw a dead fish, and she wasn’t particularly interested in thinking about it. Madeleine had better watch out, Lulu is taking flight.