Saturday 19 January 2008

Fully Formed at 7

So following on from the ketchup debacle, the boys and I spent a slightly tetchy weekend alone-ish.

Not entirely alone, obviously; we went to Holland Park on Saturday morning and got sand into places you wouldn't expect, until even I was forced to agree that that it had 'stopped raining slowly' and was now bucketing down. Then in the evening I took them over to friends for dinner so that they could trash their children's toys and then refuse to eat part of the dinner which had kindly been prepared for them. Not completely refuse, of course: Boy #1 ate everything except the broccoli, and Boy #2 ate everything except the chicken. You'ld think I would have learned by now to cook only one meal for them so that they could share it out between them like Jack Sprat and his wife.

My beloved then arrived back from his trip to the white stuff yesterday lunchtime. This was 5 hours earlier than scheduled - hurrah!

Determined to have some time off, I refused to cook dinner in the evening citing extreme cabin fever, and the fact that if I didn't get out of the house I was likely to implode - or at the very least, make him unpack his ski stuff before he planned to. Things didn't work out completely as planned, however, when the planned walk to a local Italian restaurant was rained off and I decided that dragging Husband and the Boys away from their train set was tantamount to cruelty. They looked so idyllic, playing together on the floor, that I just couldn't face suiting them up and getting soaked on the way to the car, only to sit in a noisy restaurant for an hour trying to get Boy #2 to stay put and Boy #1 to eat without whining.

So I went out to get pizza. By the time I got back it was only Husband playing with the train set whilst both Boys were glued to the tv. Hmmm....

The pizza delicious and both children shovelled it down as if they had not been fed in weeks, until Boy #1 said "I love pizza, mamma. Thankyou for making it." Deciding I couldn't really take credit for Strada's work, I owned up and said "Well, I didn't actually make it darling. I went and got this from a restaurant." Silence. "That's not very nice!" Shocked, I asked, "Why on earth not?"

"You can't just go into a restaurant and take people's food off their plates!"

Clearly he thinks I am the type of person who would make a hit and run attack on a pizza parlour. And I don't even own a striped shirt, black hat and mask... well, not since I left university, anyway.


On a more prosaic note, I read recently that the latest thinking amongst the child psychology community is that by the age of 7, most children's characters are fully formed (in their basic state). For example, a child of 7 will be passionate about 2 or 3 things, and these same things are the ones that - all being well, and barring any problems in development - they will remain passionate about for the rest of their lives.

This got me thinking of course about my boys, but also trying to think back how I was at 7 years old. What got my motor running at such a tender age? I should of course ask my mum, but she is out gallivanting as usual (when did my parents get a better social life than me? Aah yes - with the arrival of my children, of course), so I forced myself to think back on what was important to me at that age. This is a struggle because I can't remember what I had for dinner the day before yesterday, let alone what I did 30+ (ahem) years ago. It almost made my brain hurt - I could practically see the steam coming out of my own ears.

Still, after a good 5 minutes of intense brain activity, I came up with the following:

  • Reading
  • Learning - and regurgitating - useless facts
  • Telling other people what to do
Is it any wonder I ended up working in marketing?

What were your passions at 7? And are they still manifesting themselves in your life?

14 comments:

  1. I have absolutely no idea, but I will give it some thought, like you I can't remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but I'm sure something will come back to me. I do know my just turned 8 year old daughter loves dancing, half naked and I believe she will be an exotic dancer or a pole dancer. So I will watch out for that and anything other than that will be a bonus. x

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  2. A pizza restauarant within walking distance? Oh, I'm SO jealous.
    We have a number of 'Gastro-Pubs nearby (a few miles away) that are basically restaurants, but they are really rubbish! I have to make my own pizza's! Thank goodness I'm so terribly good at them!
    What did I like when I was seven?
    1.Chocolate of course!
    2.Playing with Mud ( I make Pottery so I guess that's where it all started).
    3.My parents liked to quaff Blue Nun with a well-done Steak, so perhaps my absolute revulsion at this steered me to adore beautiful red wines and rare steak.

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  3. Greetings. I think you are a saint to let your hubby away for a weekend. I would be sulking all week personally.
    7 - hmm. Reading, dancing, talking. Don't have time for much of those these days but the offpsring have definitely inherited my genes, especially on the talking front!

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  4. You ARE kidding aren't you? Good Lord - it's too early in the morning to drag my mind back to my youth..

    But - Pizza Thief - I will try..just not now.

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  5. Ah well SLTW - at least she will be able to pay her own way through university...

    Frog, a pizza place within walking distance is our reward for not have a 55 acre garden, I guess. Of course, I could make you really jealous and tell you that there are also an Indian restaurant, Chinese, Greek, Thai, French, Belgian and Danish (not forgetting the steak house, Nando's and burger joints) as well - but that would make it sound like we live in fast food central. Which of course, we don't...

    Hello Expat Mum, thanks for the visit. And don't worry, I'm no saint - I will get my reward (way before heaven I hope!).

    Aims, looking forward to hearing the results of your ponderings - whenever you get round to it.

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  6. Can I come and stay for a few days? I'm starving just thinking about it.

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  7. Can I come and stay for a few days? I'm starving just thinking about it.

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  8. Seven is hard to remember, isn't it?

    I loved to read and I still do. I have a large collection of books. Just holding a good book makes me happy. I always had a love of ballet, music and art, even at that age. Going to museums and performances still give me much joy. I learned to dance and play music, but I never did take to creating my own art. I prefer to gaze at that of others.

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  9. God, Frog in the Field must be really hungry, she said it twice. Horses and ballet, reading. I'm hungry too, could murder some pizza! Will you go and nick me some?
    Pigx

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  10. I'm thinking about my 7 year old. Bionicles and the playstation.

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  11. What is it with children and pizza? My 6 yr old can eat half a pizza by himself.

    I shall have to document what he likes when he is seven so we can all remember.

    As for me, I'm not sure I ever was 7 and if I was I didn't get to do the things I liked anyway. Mom was a bit of a control freak. We did the activities she was interested in.

    I would have to say:
    Reading
    Creating/Designing
    Dog lover

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  12. Shame on you for stealing that pizza! (That's so funny!)

    (Mmmmm, pizza!! I didn't have much for lunch, it's 5.30pm and I'm starving, and not feeling much like cooking dinner!)

    Really struggling to remember anything from when I was 7. I gather I was already a bit of a reader, so that part of me hasn't changed, but I don't think there is anything else from my childhood that I brought with me to my adult life. (Computers and blogging hadn't been invented back then!) At a stretch I could say that the seeds were planted for my love of the outdoors through the occasional bushwalk and camping trip with my family (but later than 7 I'd say)... but they were nothing on what I've tried and achieved since my twenties.

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  13. My passions at seven.....hm, can't really remember them all (there must have been some surely) but must admit that trampolining features pretty heavily. in fact I couldn't pass a trampoline without executing a few back flips etc....day trips and holidays to Hastings were real manna from heaven as the trampoline park (!) was right on the beach. Heaven in August, not so good in March.

    Suspect that if I tried trampolining now I'd do myself some serious damage.

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  14. Hi Frog, hope you managed to unearth something from the freezer... Let me know when you plan to arrive and I'll warn our local restaurants to get in extra supplies...

    Kaycie, as I said on my post I'm not even sure I managed to remember 7 properly myself (must go and make that call to Mum!). Sounds like you've stayed quite on track though. One for the psychologists...

    Pig, just before the police drag me off to the station to account for the vast number of unpaid for pizza boxes - I take it that in Paris you ride every day?

    Iota, I have all that to come. Can't wait...

    Ped, I know. I can spend hours slaving over a home-cooked meal and never get the same praise as I did for a 5 minute walk (yes, that's 5 minutes, Frog!) to the pizza parlour... And I suppose out of that list, that reading and dog lover still feature pretty heavily? Just a guess, you understand...

    Hi Tracey, yes, I guess if at 7 we had asked our mums if we could go throw ourselves down a fast-flowing river in a deep gorge with only a lilo for company, it wouldn't have gone down too well...

    Hi NH Mum - what, you mean you aren't one of those families with a trampoline in the back garden? Shame on you... (You think I'm joking but I'm always amazed at how many people have these things!)

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