Parenthood is the greatest education of all, you know. I say this only partly because, when you have a baby in the house, you see a lot more Open University programmes (although that 4 a.m. languages slot is very useful). But you'd be amazed at how much babies themselves can teach you.
Take world history, for example. Watching a child grow is like watching the development of the whole planet in microcosm: from the first emergence of life out of the primordial ooze, to the gradual rise of homo erectus, via the extinction of the dinosaurs (or, in this case, any plans you had for the living room) which, of course, couldn't adapt to the new conditions after the meteorite hit.
The curriculum changes all the time. In our house recently, thanks to major developments in crawling, the topic has moved to "the golden age of exploration". Suddenly we're in 15th-century Spain, baby-time, and there's a new world out there somewhere beyond the playmat, just waiting to be accidentally discovered.
Our baby has developed this crazy notion that, contrary to all evidence, the living room is not flat. And she thinks she can reach her educational toys, the ones that her parents spent so much money on, if she crawls long enough in the exact opposite direction.
She was doing this the other day when she accidentally discovered the kitchen. Of course she'd been there 100 times with her parents but that doesn't count. So when she rounded the dreaded Cape Horn (actually the sofa) for the first time just before lunch, you could feel the excitement in the air. Suddenly there it was: the kitchen, where no baby had ever crawled before!
THE trouble is, she thinks things such as the couch and the parental bed are round as well, whereas her parents - old-fashioned flat-earth types - are convinced that if she travels too far in one direction, she'll disappear over the edge. This is what the baby is up against. If the golden age of exploration is going to take off at all, she thinks, she could do with a bit of co-operation from the King and Queen of Spain. But maybe because both of these are suffering from sleep deprivation at the moment, they're taking a very anti-progressive view. There's even talk of a "play-pen", for God's sake - so much for the New World!
Children have a way of making you see the world differently. (For instance, right now I'm seeing the world in a very fuzzy, undefined way because the baby has pulled my glasses off again). And probably the best way to see the world when you have young children is to have eyes in the back of your head.
We're already dreading the next part of the curriculum, where the baby re-enacts major 19th-century developments, such as the discovery of electricity. She's already aware of some of the principles involved, such as that electricity has
`Suddenly we're in 15th-century Spain, baby-time, and there's a new world out there somewhere beyond the playmat, just waiting to be accidentally discovered'
something to do with those triple-hole formations that occur naturally in walls, and it's only a matter of time before she conducts fact-finding experiments. So yet another aspect of the house is about to be redesigned according to principles other than aesthetics.
Everything is a hazard now - even the pile of old newspapers that's growing at about twice the rate of the baby. I know parents are prone to hyperbole about their children's prowess, but I can say without a word of exaggeration that our child devours reading matter. Literally.
In a moment pregnant with meaning the other day, I caught her chewing the education supplement! I know it's probably just some little mineral deficiency in her diet (I've checked the labels on all the baby foods and none of them contain newsprint); but the risk of a newspaper avalanche means these too will have to go soon.
FOR all the worry associated with children, though, there are compensations. I get to mind ours in the mornings, when she's at her most curious. And there was a beautiful moment the other day when she crawled over to a vase of yellow tulips and, fascinated by the colour, tugged at one of the petals ever-so-gently.
Then she yanked the petal violently (babies have no time for sentiment) and the vase tipped over. Fortunately there was nothing broken, and the water was mopped up neatly by the lovely outfit her mother had left for me to put on her, along with the usual directions ("remember, the vest goes on under the top . . .") because she thinks I'm stupid.
So while the baby squelched around in her wet clothes, smiling that at-last-something-exciting-happening-around-here-smile, I went off to penetrate the mysteries of baby-clothing storage. This is one of the modules I opted out of when I enrolled for the baby course; but everything's an education.
I was writing recently about the redundant apostrophe's that you see everywhere nowaday's, and how these were in fact the descendants of an underclass of unemployed commas created by the so-called "writer" Jame's Joyce. Inter alia, I remarked that at least these former commas had found job's, whereas you couldn't say the same for the full stops equally disdained by some of the modernists. But Jimmy Murphy of Terenure has been on to me to point out that many former full stops have found good jobs in the computer sector, working as the dots in web addresses.
Quite right Jimmy, and thanks for highlighting another Irish success story.