I didn't do it!!

On another matter, can I just mention that a father's group has asked if it could publish my piece: On a Mission from Melbourne. As soon as they have done so I will publish a link to the site.

I didn't do it is a universal cry coming from from the lips of little children wherever in the world they live. Certainly any child that I have either raised or had some experience with said it to me some time or another. Here is my second draft.



‘I didn’t do it’ said my granddaughter. It wasn’t a lie as much as an attempt to avoid punishment. Rachel was four years old at the time so she already understood what the consequences of being naughty might mean to her. But she wasn’t always sure what constituted naughty; it depended on the mood of the adults in her life. Safer to deny everything.

Rachel had done it of course, she had hurried from the dinner table to get to the front door and knocked over her water glass. There was water, water everywhere, including a liberal dose of it on a now sopping Rachel. Her favourite uncle had arrived and Rachel wanted to be among the first to greet him. Now she was stopped in her tracks watching anxiously for my reaction; getting into trouble was an occupational hazard. I could be a benign nanna or an angry giant. Which was I going to be?

I could have shouted and said ‘now look what you’ve done’. It’s the obvious and most automatic response that comes to the fore when disaster strikes. Possibly it’s because in any house where toddlers live calamity strikes and strikes often; it can be tiring for an already exhausted adult. Rachel is not an exception to the toddler rule; she slips, trips and sometimes breaks things. Rachel touches things she shouldn’t (once it was a hot plate). As my granddaughter sees it, there aren’t enough hours in the day to have fun and she is not about to miss a minute of it. Why walk when you can run, is Rachel’s philosophy? Why check first if you can rush in where Angels fear to tread? At four there’s a lot of exuberance and energy involved but not much life experience to draw on. Behaviour is a learned thing.

‘Why don’t you change your clothes; then you can help me clean up,’ I said. The response she had dreaded wasn’t going to eventuate. A reprieve! The colour came back to her cheeks and she tripped off happily to the bedroom. I watched her go, and remembered her father. He hadn’t done it either. David hadn’t knocked down my best china coffee pot playing ball in the house; it wasn’t his fault that his brother’s favourite toy was broken. The toy was a fragile bit of plastic, so he’d had a point there, but I seem to remember that David hadn’t had asked his brother could he play with it. Most of my waking hours had been spent juggling responsibilities and two boisterous boys so I wasn’t always capable of calm but I did sometimes succeed. I explained that playing ball in the house when he’d been told not to, required a consequence; and asked what did he think would fit the bill?

‘It wasn’t me, mum’ echoed down the corridors of time to arrive at this de ja vu moment. I am more rested, alert and a lot more composed these days and able to draw on experience. As a grandparent I get to revise some of the things I may have got wrong the first time round. Rachel sponged down the table and I mopped the floor. We talked as we worked.

‘Did you do it on purpose, Rachel? Or was it an accident?’ We had distanced ourselves from the disastrous moment. I wanted Rachel to take ownership of the situation and I felt I would get a more considered answer now. Rachel needed to take ownership of the situation and to understand the consequences.

‘It was an accident, nanna.’ I had witnessed the incident but even if I hadn’t I think it’s more a positive way to deal with things if you give children the benefit of the doubt until they prove you wrong. ‘Well, that’s okay then,’ I said and explained that it might be better next time to put her water glass in front of her instead of to the side. It was another experience in Rachel’s repertoire that I knew that she would not repeat.

The word consequence has two meanings. There was the consequence of the hotplate incident for instance. Rachel is a lot more cautious around heat now. The second meaning depends on adults dealing with each situation on its merits. Do we shout? I sometimes did when I was tired or if I had allowed outside pressures to influence me. If a toddler senses that consequences are fair, they learn from their mistakes. And although there are plenty more mistakes to be made, chances are they won't repeat them. Rachel learned that she needed to focus on her present actions and let the future take care of itself; I bought a plastic table cloth the very next day. Now that Rachel is a mature aged 6 year old she has left childish things behind. She's experiencing a brand new set of mistakes and consequences at school.

The Tooth Fairy

Fourth Draft.
Thanks to my regulars who keep on visiting. I haven't given up this site, or given up writing. It's just that a number of outside influences have conspired to get in my way and have slowed things down for me. (Slower than usual, that is.) I will revive!


'Will the Tooth Fairy find me in Melbourne, Nanna?

Rachel is a Sydney girl who pays regular visits to her Melbourne grandparents. Her questions come thick and fast the moment she steps off the tarmac at Melbourne Airport and are usually more demanding; they can range from how do aeroplanes stay up in the air to how many lollies can you fit in your mouth? Rachel’s front tooth was hanging by a thread and was causing her a fair bit of mental agony. I could see the mental cogs whirring and the questions forming. Thankfully the tooth fairy and I had done business before so were well acquainted. This time round I had all the answers to Rachel’s questions. I breathed a sigh of relief and got on with the necessary explanations.

‘Sure she will find you, honey.’ I said. ‘Tooth Fairies have antennas.’ They are like little divining rods that lead them to wherever the teeth are. And not only was there a Melbourne Tooth Fairy, I explained, there were hordes of them plying their trade worldwide and hauling their stash to their corner of Fairyland each night.

When we got home, I gave her the traditional apple to help things along. I mused that growing those teeth had taken up a third of Rachel’s life and caused many sleepless nights for all concerned, now she was happy to shed them without a backward glance. She munched and then we spent an exciting afternoon checking out the unattractive object of the Tooth Fairy’s desire.

‘Why do they want my tooth, Nanna?’

In typical Rachel fashion she was not going to be satisfied until everything was known to her on the topic, especially as there was a whole dollar involved in this transaction. More questions were asked and answered. Fairies grind the teeth and sprinkle it on their cereal for calcium and they dust their wings with it to give them more staying power on those long journeys to and from Fairyland. (When her daddy had asked that question tooth power included fuelled dump trucks and locomotives.)

And where was Fairyland? For those of you not in the know, Fairyland is up Enid Blyton’s Far Away Tree. If you are lucky enough to find that tree it is right up the top, where a different and ever more exotic country lands each day.

Rachel and I spent a pleasant afternoon discussing the most effective place to put her tooth. We checked out and rejected several locations, including under the pillow: too easily lost and the mantelpiece in the lounge room. How would the Tooth Fairy know who it belonged to? We finally settled on dropping it into a glass of water and putting it on Rachel’s bedside table.

Ten year old Dezzy, Rachel’s sister, was at the other end of the room during this discussion, busying herself with something arty-crafty. She had her head bent low throughout it all but I could tell she was listening. She had long since extracted the last dollar from the tooth fairy, but being the nice child that she is, she wasn't about to spoil it for her sister. Dezzy just smiled and kept her counsel.

‘Tooth Fairies are shy, Rachel, yours won’t turn up until you’re asleep.’ It had been an interesting and exhausting afternoon, but Rachel wasn’t quite done yet. She clutched her tooth to her, Rachel had a request.

We added a letter to be placed under the glass. ‘Dear Tooth Fairy,’ Rachel dictated, ‘this is me, Rachel. You can have my tooth for your breakfast cereal. Could I have an extra fifty cents so I can buy a chocolate ice cream with sprinkles? Do Tooth Fairies have teeth?' Love, Rachel.’