The kids were off school today. I wanted to make gougeres (cheese puffs) this morning while Finian was napping. I had assumed that Ailbhe would bake with me and Fiacra would play by himself, but it turned out that Ailbhe was busy working on Mothers' day presents and so Fiacra decided he would help instead. Ailbhe is a great baker, very careful, wants to follow the recipe exactly, and is quite neat. Baking with Fiacra is a lesson in Constance Vigilance. He always starts a science experiment on the side (today was inventing a type of mud no-one knows about yet - does the world need a new type of mud?). Every single egg in the box (regardless of how many we actually need) is tested to make sure it's not gone off and since he's so good at cracking eggs, he feels he shouldn't be restricted by the number of eggs called for in the recipe. I am generally okay for a while but when the mess starts getting too big and he is insisting on putting his concoction in the oven, I am kinda done.
The mess today was so big I didn't even insist on him helping to clean up, knowing that would inevitably lead to a bigger mess. Instead he leapt off his seat to practise battling and managed to convince Ailbhe to practise with him. I knew it would end badly (for Ailbhe) and sure enough after 5 minutes I could hear her say "I want to play by myself for a while, I WANT TO PLAY BY MYSELF". He moved seamlessly from practising battling to playing Harry Potter. "Who are you?" he said to Ailbhe, "I'm your sister", " no, you're Hermione". Next up, defense of the courtyard against Mum and Dad, the rallying cry "Ailbhe, gather as many weapons as possible" and so it continues all day. ALL DAY.
When we were in the Pyrenees, Richy, the owner of the place we were staying, was having a hard time remembering Fiacra's name, so was calling him Firecracker. It's a perfect nickname for him.
Firecracker making mud
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