BERTRAM THE BORED BABY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 336, 30 November 1945, Page 16

BERTRAM THE BORED BABY

(Written for "The Listener"

by

M

B.

. E were watching our two-year-old the other day, and feeling grateful that we were no longer two years old. So boring to be a baby. And so we. dreamt up that little horror, Bertram, the Baby with the Adult Attitude. The following is a typical slice of life as Bertram sees it. Needless to say, Bertram is a firm believer in His Majesty the Baby, so his use of the Royal Plural is significant.

OKE up at six o'clock as usual. A grey day and | nothing particular to get up for, still, we started making our usual bid for attention. Must keep one’s*parents up-to scratch. When no one arrived inside five minutes began tearing little strips off the wallpaper. Feel confident that they will be on the spot promptly to-morrow. Insisted on helping our father through his. toilet, and threw all the towels in the bath. This seems quite an effective trick-results almost disproportionate to the amount of effort involved-must add it to our permanent repertoire. The same old breakfast, porridge, toast, milk. To think that once we got a kick out of making squiggles with our golden syrup! Sometimes we could almost regret the callow enthusiasms of our 18-month-old self. How long ago it seems! After breakfast had quite an amusing time helping our mother to wash up. It was obvious that she didn’t want us round, but the dear woman put a brave face on it because she apparently thought it wotld have a bad effect psychologically if she discouraged our youthful attempts at co-operation. We let her off lightly with only one breakage, and a cup without a handle at that. Interesting. We seem to be developing a social conscience. And after this we obliged by going to play outside instead of helping with the sweeping. * * * HE garden is quite interesting at this time of the year-everything budding and so forth. We collected all the spikes from the Russell lupins and several pansy plants and sat quietly in a sunny corner’ to pull them to pieces. Our mother came out in the middle of it, and looked quite distressed. Her eyes filled with genuine tears and she sat down beside us, took the flowers in’ her hand and said, "Oh, Bertram, how could you! See, you’ve hurt the poor little fiowers." You'd think at her age she’d know that flowers are inanimate. Later on we found an old bottle, thrust the somewhat battered flowers into it, a ‘presented it to her with a nauseating

photogenic smile. It worked like a charm. In fact.we heard her telling the insurance man that you couldn’t have a nicer-natured child. Though we certainly hope we'll manage to. Lunch, and again we present that grand old Piunket-approved trio, carrot, potato, silver beet, to-day with the addition of Steamed Fish. Anyone would think we were a chronic invalid. Must see that she reads some G. M. Smith. Sensible chap that. Advocates a good solid mutton chop from the age of 12 months (us, not the chop). Perhaps she’ll be able to turn on a better spread after April 1, though personally we can’t think why parents should need financial encouragement to have children-aren’t we a reward in ourselves? And it isn’t as if we cost much to keep. Personally we just toy with our food. We’ve heard mother say it’s a wonder we manage to keep alive, the little we eat. Still we'll probably manage to use up our 10/in breakages and general wear and tear. bd * a FTER lunch-we are expected to have a little rest. We allow oursdlves to be put in our cot with all our new birthday books to look at. Amazing the tripe théy put across children nowadays. There’s something called Charlie Chipmunk for example. We never liked the name of Charlie, and speaking as a New’ Zealand child we are not interested in chipmunks. The other book is called The Two Naughty Puppies. Sounds as if it had a regrettably moral flavour. The illustrations, moreover, convey little without the text, and, fortunately we feel in.this case, we can’t read. So inconsiderate of. people to choose such unsuitable books. Why not Brick Bradford, where every picture teJls a story, or even better, something like Smith’s Weekly with a few pin-up girls in it? We tear both our books up and throw the pieces, confetti-wise, into the air. When Mother comes in we will scream to be allowed to sweep them up with our birthday toy broom, Interesting to. see whether she will allow us (good for child (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) to help clear up the mess it makes, says the text book) or refuse our demand as punishment for the initial act of destruction. Mother lets us use our toy broom. * Ba * AFTER our rest we get taken for our walk. Not bad fun. We insist on catrying the basket and unfortunately drop half-a-pound of butter on the way home. When we go back for it it is gone. Well, we won’t be the one to be given dripping on our bread. Went outside and started drinking out of the cat’s saucer, earning my first slap for three weeks. Bellowed loudly enough to bring down a Welfare Officer, had one been lurking in the vicinity, and our distress was so long-lived that our mother was compelled to Kiss It Better (tantamount to a verbal apology) and give us a piece of barley sugar. But we were not, on the whole, ill pleased. We like to feel that questions affecting our health are treated with the seriousness they deserve. ° % ® % IVE o’clock and tea. We feel a little exhausted after our long day, and slightly annoyed to find ourselves fobbed off with a ready-to-eat cereal just because it’s easy to prepare ("Simply pour over hot milk") in spite of what Dr.

Muriel Bell has to say about its reduced BL content. We retaliate by knocking over our mug of milk. To our surprise our mother looks distinctly annoyed, so "we cover up by saying "Oh dear!" (we have just learnt the phrase) with suitable contrition and a suggestion of the ecclesiastical. Magic again, Our mother calls us the cutest thing, and runs almost lightheartedly to get the dishcloth. This means, we reflect, that we can spill our milk whenever we want to. Not that we will take advantage of the formula more than‘once or twice a week, because we tealise the importance of, having our full quota of calcium if wes are not to spend too much of our time in the dentist’s chair. oe * oe ATHTIME. We look forward to being grown up, when we can have our bath and relax. But we have unfortunately established a tradition of bath-time foolery which our parents seem to expect and enjoy. After all, they deserve some slight reward for their usually unremitting attention, so it’s a case of jeunesse oblige. We accordingly go through the good old routine of pulling

the plug out, drinking the bath-water, and eating the soap. Old jokes, but with an unsophfsticated audience they still go across. * *e / % AVE been in bed half-an-hour now, thank goodness, and -may even go to sleep if we can’t think of anything else to call out for. One can scarcely demand a third drink of water just for the sake of demanding it. Our father has just come in, and our mother is taking him to task for forgetting the cat meat. She sounds almost shrewish and one can’t altogether blame her. She’s had a hard day. Our stomach feels a little queer. Those cream cakes, perhaps. Still we can go to sleep confident that if we call out in the night we will receive immediate and sympathetic service. Something to be said for parents. We wonder if the service will be even prompter and more sympathetic after April 1.