Pip Jones
We didn't get any Olympics tickets – did you? Despite the fact the stadium is within a proverbial stone's throw of our house (we could even hear the opening ceremony fireworks), we're unfortunately not having much to do with the whole thing, other than on the TV anyway.
That hasn't stopped us from getting into the spirit though and last week, having spent a couple of hours making a mess in the garden at high speed, we came into the living room where Ruby, Ava and I decided we would make some medals.
When I say Ruby decided, I mean I decided and because she'd probably not heard the word 'medal' before, the idea was interesting enough for her to stop waving The Snowman DVD in my face (this nearly always happens when we enter the living room, she's completely obsessed with it).
So, I collected the various materials we would need for our creations: card, scissors, sticky tape, magnetic letters (R for Ruby, A for Ava), a pencil, string (didn't have red, white and blue ribbon) and silver foil.
Yes, silver. It's important to instil just the right amount of ambition in one's children, I feel (and I was right out of gold leaf).
The making of the medals didn't take all that long really. But I thought Ruby's might have stayed in one piece a little bit longer than it did. As it was, it was dismantled approximately one minute after it was popped around her neck (and I had taken the picture above).
You see, despite the fact that Ruby had held and squished the card before watching me draw a circle and then cut it out, despite the fact she'd helped stick down her letter R in the middle of the circle, despite the fact she'd pulled off a piece of foil all by herself and we had wrapped it around the card and pressed it around the magnetic letter so the silvery R protruded, despite the fact she'd stuck it all down at the back with sticky tape, and despite the fact she had watched carefully as I made a hole at the top with a pencil and threaded the string through, despite ALL that, Ruby could not be convinced this thing was a medal.
"Issa biscuit," she said.
"No, darling, it's not a biscuit. It's your medal! We just made it!"
"Issa biscuit, mummy," she insisted. And she seemed very pleased.
"It's not a biscuit."
"Issa biscuit," she said as she unwrapped it. I sighed.
"You see, Ru? It's not a biscuit."
Ruby looked at the dismantled medal in her hand and sniffed it (it really, definitely was not a biscuit). Then she looked at me (with my raised eyebrows), and at Ava, who was running round cheering herself for winning silver.
"Mummy?" she said.
"Yes, Ru?"
"Biscuit?"
"No."
She put the dismantled medal down and stayed quiet for a second.
"Mummy?"
"Yes, Ruby?"
"Snowman?"
Sigh!