Hey mum, can kids die?
Every day I write in my diary about some of the sweet, insightful, gross and manipulative things my daughters say and do. It makes me laugh. Maybe it will make you laugh too.
C turned six towards the end of 2019 . N is newly 4.
August 27, 2019
C gets kiwi fruit juice in a little cut and cries and cries. “Mum, when is the end of the world?”
August 28, 2019
I have a really awful day at work. C, roaring: “I’M GONNA KILL THAT GUY!”
She gets me a cup of water.
October 8, 2019
C asks if she can have some “quiet time” in the home office, where there is a big collection of cushions. She closes the door, does a somersault onto them and tells N: “I said I wanted quiet time, but I really wanted to do this. I tricked her!”
October 12, 2019
Joel listens to a finance podcast in the car, which mentions “a shitty business”. C, yelling from the back seat: “A SHITTY BUSINESS?!” (Mothers’ note: we do not swear in front of them!)
N calls Sultana Bran “Sultana Brain”.
October 13, 2019
C has a home-reader from school about a kids’ basketball team. One passage reads: “Malik can make a free shot count”.
C reads: “Malik can make a free shot cunt.” (See above note)
October 22, 2019
3am conversation with C, who has a fever: “Syria is a long way from Orange. (Long, seemingly meaningful pause). We had the best desserts on holidays!”
November 10, 2019
N finds a little prickle in our dog Mack’s tail. “Oh no! Mack has an echidna in his tail!”
Later, N comes out of her room after playing with a Peppa Pig campervan. “Well, Peppa Pig’s family is DEAD.”
November 11, 2019
Remembrance Day. They stop trade at the post office at 11am and play the Last Post, just as N hits a button on a book that plays Old MacDonald Had a Farm over and over again.
November 17, 2019
C, reading a sign about rules at the park: “Why can’t you take guns and horses to the park?”
November 30, 2019
We escape the heat and see Frozen II. There’s a scene that deals with how lucky a mother feels to have two daughters.
I look over at the girls and smile. C looks into her popcorn bucket: “Hey! I might put this on my head!”
December 1, 2019
C puts a bunch of stuff in a brown paper bag, writes “My Secret Life” on it, and hides it.
December 25, 2019
C, opening an incredibly thoughtful present from her aunt: “Well, you get what you get and you don’t get upset.”
December 27, 2019
N and C are squabbling. C comes to me crying, saying N tried to bite her.
N: “I wasn’t! I was just yawning!”
December 31, 2019
As I put a sickly N to bed on the last day of 2019, I tell her I want her to be a baby forever.
N: “Soon I will get big and be a grown-up and I will put you to bed.”
January 17, 2020
I tell Joel a long and boring story about a drive home from a nearby country town.
N, bored, sarcastically: “Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah?”
January 19, 2020
We play a game of “imagine if” about our dog.
C: “Imagine if Mack had a dog wife!”
Me: “No, imagine if Mack had a human wife!”
N: “WE are his human wives!”
January 24, 2020
At this point, I’ve been out of formal employment for three months. I’m at the supermarket and tell C I don’t have a coin for the trolley.
C: “Well, maybe you should do some work today. That’s how you get money.”
January 29, 2020
The first day of school. C proclaims it is “the worst day of my life”.
February 13, 2020
C spontaneously makes me Elvis toast. Peanut butter with little slices of banana.
February 15, 2020
N, at the beer garden, tells us she wants to show us how fast she can run in her “sneaker boots” (they’re just regular boots she’s had for ages). She races off into a crowd, and disappears.
She screams “Muuuuum” and I see her standing up on a seat, giving me a fervent thumbs up.
February 18, 2020
C is lying with me watching a big storm. She suddenly starts remembering things from when she was about 3.
“Remember when we were visiting [her grandparents] and N bit you on the nipple?!”
February 26, 2020
Question from the back seat.
C: “Hey mum, what are flies doing when they land on your skin?”
March 9, 2020
C puts on a sleep mask to go to bed and starts talking like a robot: “You have to press the button on my nose to make me sleep.”
I press her nose, and she doesn’t reappear.
March 12, 2020
C has to make a speech at school.
At the end of the day, I ask her how it went.
C: “TOO MANY QUESTIONS MUUUUM.”
March 15, 2020
N: “Can we PLEASE eat outside. It’s a WONDERFUL night.”
March 21, 2020
C, from the back of the car: “Mum, can kids die?”
Me: “Yes, but hopefully it’s very rare. As in, it doesn’t happen very often. You usually die when you’re very old.”
C: “Oh, good!”
