Tale of two medals as Wee Lad shows off, Posh Cousin is quiet

Any auld mediocrity is awarded these days. I never won a medal for anything in primary school - a golden star sticker in the homework the odd time was the height of my achievements. But in these days of ‘encouraging children’, of ‘nurturing children’ and generally telling the little bastes they are the be all and end all, medals, certificates and awards are handed out for any auld thing at all.

That was particularly the case last week when the Wee Lad arrived home with a gold medal on a special piece of ribbon, worn around his neck from the moment he bolted out of the classroom. Looking at him as he proudly displayed his medal, I couldn’t help but compare him to the prize bullock at the Dundalk Show, proudly wearing his rosette, achieved for being best in show.

I immediately wondered what the medal was for. Not messing for five minutes? Not causing the teacher a headache on one day? No, apparently he was the last man standing in a ‘maths head to head’. I got the impression that it was like 15 to 1, the 1980s TV show that has recently made a comeback, where the more questions you answered correctly, the closer you came to being the ‘one’ standing at the end.

The Husband beamed with pride, of course. The Wee Lad gets his supposed brains from his side of the family, I was told, while the bad behaviour and stubbornness is all down to me. The good thing about the medal, which the Wee Lad never took off the whole evening I should add, was that he had to give it back the following day so the teacher could dole it out again to the another ‘genius’ the next week.

But not before the Wee Lad, who has shunned many cameras in his seven years, stood proudly in his school uniform, insisting I take a picture for posterity. Unless they’re handing out medals for stubbornness, this may be the only one he gets.

And it’s not as if he has a particular interest or prowess in maths. He’s a competitive little monkey, who loves to win and loses his head if he doesn’t. If it was reciting the German alphabet backwards on a unicycle, and there was a medal to be won, he would learn how to do that just to be in contention for the medal.

But he wasn’t the only one of Mrs Campbell’s five grandsons to be bestowed with greatness last week. The Posh Sister was in town, for 24 hours only, at the weekend and she got the Ma to leave the Tiny Lad to me on Sunday morning, because, hey, my house isn’t wrecked enough.

And no sooner had my Wee Lad haughtily informed the cousin that he had won a medal, the Tiny Lad was quick into me in the kitchen to tell me that he too had been awarded a medal, on a ribbon. For what wonderful reason? ‘For being Gaeilgeoir of the week, I go to an gael scoil you know’.

And where was the medal? ‘My father has it’, he informed me. The Wee Lad’s nose was put out of joint, big time, as he has a penchant for the auld Gaeilge, though he doesn’t attend an exclusive posh gael scoil. It certainly took the shine off the Wee Lad’s achievements, particularly as there was no medal to show off, as it had been given back last Friday.

Posh scoil or no, the Tiny Lad got a taste of something wonderful in Dundalk. I asked him if he liked custard for after his Sunday dinner. Shockingly, he said no. I told him I’d never heard of a weein that didn’t like custard, to which the Tiny Lad replied: ‘My parents said I wouldn’t like it’.

Needless to say, I gave it to him and he took his second helping straight from the Pyrex jug.

The Posh Sister and the Husband arrived to collect him, with the Husband wearing the ‘Gaelgeoir of the Week’ medal around his neck. My Wee Lad eyed it suspiciously, and refused to congratulate anyone. In Dundalk, he remains the prize bullock, no matter what they do in Dublin.