Angel, devil, devil angel: the Wee Lad shows sides of personality

If the Wee Lad was straight-forward, I wouldn’t have anything to write about. Or, if he was predictable, I wouldn’t be hammering this stuff out on a busy Monday afternoon. He’s neither straight-forward or predictable as he showed me these last couple of days and even when I thought he was going to be good, he was a bad and when I believed badness was coming, he brought out his good side.

Angel first. The parent-teacher meeting was on last week. The teacher had a good crowd of ones on the go, and remembering which child is which, never mind which parent belonged to which student is a very difficult job. So I wasn’t cross with her when she told me that ‘ he is a great boy, very helpful and kind, good at his work’. It’s easy to get mixed up.

But when I reminded her that I was the Wee Lad’s Ma, she looked at me as if I was bananas and said of course she knew that, she was talking about him. I was tempted to show her a picture of him on my phone, but I didn’t risk it. And she came up with a good idea about the problem he has with his large, scrawly, divil-may-care handwriting - she was going to tell him the school principal was going to look at it. Perhaps that would buck him up?

Indeed it did. The handwriting miraculously became immaculate during Thursday’s homework, which was done for the first time by the Wee Lad without a peep. He was keen to impress and impress he did, with the principal dispensing a gold star, no less.

Devil next. No sooner was the star stuck on the homework did the Wee Lad start buck-lepping in the seat in excitement, falling backwards off the chair and earning himself a ticking off from the self-same principal who had praised him so graciously seconds before.

And here’s the devil again. On Saturday afternoon, I decided to take the Lads into Dundalk to see the civic reception for the Lilywhites at Courthouse Square. I thought it was something we could all enjoy. I was wrong.

On the way down, I told them, in plain English, that they were not getting on fairground rides and I was not buying anything. Both of them agreed, but no sooner had we hit Earl Street that the Wee Lad made a beeline for the merry-goround, the queue for which was half a mile long.

Instead of sticking to his pre-arranged agreement, he burst into tears, in front of half the town and was so obvious that two ladies came up to him to see if he was lost, even though I was standing beside him. The evil eye of a Garda sergeant and threats of the school principal in the crowd did nothing to dissuade him from standing with his hands on his ears during the band and roaring his head off crying when the team were being announced.

It was bad enough for me to not be able to ignore it and shortly after the presentation, I took a holt of him and brought him back to the car, muttering about the terrible fate that awaited him when he got home. We were halfway up the road when he realised that I was serious and he started back-peddling like hell, telling me he was ‘sorry, sorry sorry’. But he was put into his room on his return and after ‘ thinking about it’, he told me he had ‘ lost the run’ of himself.

One more angel. I was, therefore, dreading his first outing to church with his GamGam, who had taken the Big Lad two years ago and has turned him into a mini monsignor. The Ma was dreading it too, if truth be told, but she was determined that the Wee Lad would get the opportunity his older brother had got. I’d say she was hoarse saying prayers ahead of Sunday morning as I polished and scrubbed the Wee Lad to angelic-looking perfection. I told him to behave himself, but neither the Big Lad or I held out much hope. But when the Ma returned, she told me somewhat bemusedly, that he had been ‘perfect, beautifully behaved’. Angelic even.