There are three words in the English language that, when uttered by a child, can elicit a whirlwind of mixed emotions. Three words, spoken in utmost innocence, that can make every mummy’s heart skip a beat.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
Rockstar is holding a (supposedly) children’s scissors in one hand, and is staring in fascination at the bright red blood oozing out of the index finger of his other hand. We won’t be doing arts and crafts for the rest of the evening.
I’m one of those mummies who has been trained by her child over the last year or so to have a Pavlovian reaction to these three words. Here’s why:
“Mummy, what’s this?”
He’s standing in the middle of a swarm of angry red ants in the park, having trampled not a few on the pavement.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
He’s staring with his face barely two inches away from a giant bumblebee in a friend’s garden.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
He’s about to pick up a big fat caterpillar so hairy it looks like a toiletbrush.
(I have no idea what kind of rash those bristly white hairs may or may not cause, but the way they’re sticking up all over the completely unconcerned jet black caterpillar as it inches along its merry way with my fascinated son in tow, I don’t want to find out.)
“Mummy, what’s this?”
It’s the putrid remnants of a crushed up snail.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
A dead bird. No one touches dead birds in Hong Kong because of bird flu. During the flu season we saw someone in those white bio-hazard-type suits liberally spraying the thing with disinfectant before lifting away with tongs (in which case what’s the suit for?) outside the McDonald’s in Sai Kung.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
I have no idea. But it looks like some kind of slug with horns that has died and met Keith Haring who then gave it various appendage-looking waving limb things before painting it all red / orange/ white against bold black and sending it back to this world where it now haunts little children who have tendencies to molest slugs. The darn thing has twitchy little things like snail horns sticking up everywhere (tho the ones on what I suppose is its head are a little longer than the rest of em.) It might have said “I come in peace. Take me to your leader” if I let my first born, my only child within earshot of it. Maybe those horn things shoot venom. Or have some hypnotic effect if you stare at them waving about long enough.
Note to self: Look out for any rumor on the nature trail at the Peak that involves weapons-grade Plutonium storage. Someone in the HK Government might hate rich people. “Take that, you rich people who clamor to live up here and pay lots of taxes.” Diabolical.
“Mummy, what’s this?”
His dinner. When he doesn’t want to eat it.
