The Milkman of Human Kindness

I don't know if you've noticed, but it is totally, utterly, ALL about dragons. They have actually ... are you ready for this? ... replaced trains in the hierarchy of Oisín's interests.

One of the things he clearly enjoys is Being An Expert. He was an expert on trains, and now he's an expert on dragons - which is easier, in many ways, given their imaginary status. For instance, he tells me that there are two types of dragon: Crickadid and Medellid. The difference is something to do with the anatomy of their wings (I'm not entirely clear on this, but he is).

Then there are rat-dragons.

Oyster: You think you see a rat, Mama!
Mama: Oh, my goodness. A rat! In my house!
Oyster: *solemnly raises arms*
Mama: Oh! You're not a rat at all! You have wings! What sort of creature are you?
Oyster: A rat-dragon! [pronounced, still, wat-dwagon, which IME pushes the cuteness to dangerous levels]
Mama: A dragon! Help!
Oyster: No, a rat-dragon. Don't worry, we're friendly.

The rat-dragon who visits us most frequently is Kol, who besides being friendly is vegetarian (at first he'd illustrate this for me: a sign depicting some vegetables, and a sign depicting a human with a diagonal line through it). When Unny is Kol, I am Looka, and Fiachra is my baby Tricka.

Kol lives in rat-dragon world [pronounced werreld], which is ruled over by the evil Lord Dragon, King of the Rat-Dragons, a normal (i.e. non-rat) dragon who subsists on a diet of sisters-and-milk. He arrives sometimes and threatens to eat my sister, but I refuse to tell him where she is. (He doesn't seem to have realised yet that my having a sister means I am a sister...) A couple of weeks ago Lord Dragon underwent a dramatic rehabilitation, wherein it turned out that he'd been under a spell, which Kol managed to break. It doesn't seem to have stuck, though. Recently, it has emerged that Kol is actually (or perhaps occasionally) Lord Dragon's wife.

Dragons eat curry, obviously. The dragon who arrives in the Winnie-the-Pooh world is called Inchy and gives the animals rides on her back while Kanga cooks her up a cauldron of curry. (Uncoincidentally, Oisín has become much more curry-friendly of late.) In a later story, Inchy helps to save Pooh from Lord Dragon, who has come to the Forest to hunt bears. They hide in a volcano and trap Lord Dragon temporarily until the Wood Dragon and the Leaf Dragon can come and make a tree around him.

When I can grab another few seconds, I'll post pictures of the Hallowe'en dragon costume (which turned out rather well, though I say it as shouldn't) and some choice examples of draconic art.

I'm just going to type this and post it, and not WORRY about including everything that's occurred to me in the last, oh, six months or whatever since I last did one of these. Bah perfectionism.

( About my boys )

An unprompted observation by Oisín: The level crossing (in the garden) started out muddy, but it will get dry because the wind will blow across the mud, evaporating the water and turning it into water vapour...

(we assent, impressed)

...so we can have more air...

(because, as we were discussing earlier today, there's usually water vapour in air)

...so we won't die.

(He has our best interests at heart.)

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Earlier, he had us pretending to be Americans, which meant (among other things) that we had to say "freight cars" instead of "trucks", and "caboose" instead of "brake van". The term "coal wagon", I am informed, is used in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

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There are too many snippets like this languishing in my notes. I mean to start posting them sooner after they happen.

High time for another Oyster Report, I think.

( Hold onto your hats )

Of course, I forgot a squillion things when I wrote my last post, but you'll be delighted to learn that I've scribbled them down on a piece of paper, and you shall have them with all due speed.

DELIGHTED. Capisce?

( More pearls from the Oyster-shell )

Here are some things that my marvellous son is doing as he enters his third calendar year. (This is very long and rambling, and mostly for my benefit, but some of his fans might like an update too.)

[ETA: I've thought of a few more things I wanted to note and added them without comment.]

( The Oyster Report )