Family Matters

 

This wee man, grandchild number five aka Daniel, turns two years old today. Of the five horrors delightful children he is the only one now who gets slightly upset when I leave for home. The others used to but now merely grunt when I offer my farewells. 

Daniel is presently going through the 'terrible two' phase of his life and is driving his mother even more demented than she usually is. The day after Daniel was born I recall visiting him and his mother tossing her son, barely 24 hours old, to me with the words 'here - take grumpy pus'. He still gets grumpy now, as you may surmise from the photo above, but he does bring a shaft of light in a life full of darkness right now.

Daniel may only be two but has, on several occasions, grabbed hold of his sister's phone, pressed the WhatsApp icon, scrolled down the contacts, spotted my picture and pressed it meaning an instant phone call. While it's usually a delight to hear him babble away it can prove problematic, particularly when I'm working...

When I visited daughter Laura on Sunday the eldest of my grandchildren, Jack aka number one, arrived home from his football match. He scored in a 6-2 win for his youth club. He is a little over six months away from his 16th birthday so if any senior club wishes to offer him the chance to prove what he can do let me know.

He did engage in conversation about how he was doing at high school. He told me he passed his recent English exam with a 90% pass mark and offered the reason he 'only got 90%' was because he wasn't particularly impressed with his teacher. Jack then told me he got a 96% pass mark in mathematics - clearly a skill he hasn't inherited from his old Papa as I was booted out of my maths class at secondary school in Aberdeen in 1976 after recording 96%. Sorry, I stand corrected - it was 9.6%...

I have never understood mathematics - all that letters plus other letters and letters squared equals nonsense - but I'm pleased to say Jack takes to it like a duck to water.  He showed me his notes from school but they might as well have been in Chinese for all I could understand.

I did offer my services if he ever needed any help with his schoolwork but Jack merely smiled politely and offered 'thanks' in a tone that implied 'I hope I'm never that desperate'.

Children - toddlers and adolescents - are far too smart these days...