This is, once again, one of those conversations I can’t believe I am having. I should probably back up a bit. For Christmas, once again, my fae child only wanted one thing. Her letter to Santa was as short as it was illegible and only asked for a toy baby giraffe.
Sounds easy, right? Well, it is until you understand that every request from this child comes with small print. In this case the giraffe in question had to
- stand up on its own
- be cuddly
- have a bottle to feed it milk
- come with a nappy (does anyone make giraffe nappies?!)
So, with that in mind, the search started back in October for this sodding thing, and we found 3 of the four criteria with a bit of finessing. She got a mummy and baby giraffe, mummy was big enough to stand up on her own, and baby was cuddly. We also found some baby bottles that were roughly the right scale. I gave up on the nappies, and decided we would just go with “giraffes don’t wear nappies” – they don’t generally use bottles, either, but that’s neither here nor there.
We had high hopes, and, sure enough, on Christmas Day, Santa was praised for doing an excellent job. The baby giraffe is called Applejuice and the mother is Mummy Giraffe (I just live here).
Today was Applejuice’s birthday – yes I know it’s been less than a month since Christmas, I am also aware that it is a cuddly toy, and even real giraffes as a rule don’t typically celebrate their birthdays. Nevertheless. I was informed it was her birthday, and she was having a party. Seeing where this was going, I informed my daughter that, whilst it was lovely it was Apple Juice’s birthday, she was NOT going to school, or the gym. Neither of these places were conducive to having a 2ft giraffe in them, and no, her teacher would not be pleased.
Cue grumpy child, who spent the entire ride to school trying to argue she would sneak them into the building in her bag (how big does she think her bag is?!). I had negotiated far enough that they were in the car, or she would have never made it to school. Once at school, I insisted they stayed in the car. She stomped into the building without saying goodbye, past several members of staff who all looked at her and then me. When I shrugged and told them she was grumpy because of the lack of 3ft giraffe, they didn’t seem to know whether I was serious or not.
I would love to live in a world where these things didn’t happen.
Raising the Modern Fae 