Tuesday, 2nd October 2007.

By Any Other Name

On a bus, coming out of Wurzburg.

We were trying to keep Joshua amused. The journey back to the holiday apartment was twenty minutes long and the scenery, while pretty, was not particularly interesting for a two-year-old. To stop him from running riot, Emily had invented an Eye Spy derivative based on noises. We'd impersonate an animal or a vehicle - "I spy with my little eye something that goes..." and then he'd have to guess what it was. Eventually we worked out that we really should have begun each sentence with "I hear with my little ear..." but by this point we'd been playing the game for some time and decided not to confuse the issue.

All was going well, until I began the next round with "I spy with my little eye...something beginning with...Maa! Maa!"
"What's that noise, Daddy?"
"Oh come on, you know that. It's a..."
There was a blank look.
"It's a g...g...g..."
Joshua's eyes lit up, and he cried out "Grandma!".

Emily spluttered, and I glanced across to the other side of the bus, where Grandma was sitting, trying to look more put out than I suspect she actually was. I wouldn't mind but she's already been mistaken for a donkey in one of our photo montages. Joshua adores all his grandparents, but my mother's always been an easy target for family jokes and he does rather seem to have it in for her.

When we'd recovered, I turned back to Joshua and continued, "Come on then, your turn. I spy with my little eye something beginning with..."
"Nee naw! Nee naw!"
"Ooh! Let me think," I said. "Is it...a fire engine?"
He looked at me, his face utterly serious, and said "No, it's Joshua."