My son recently reminded us of that time he wanted to buy a farm (and I didn’t). I remembered blogging about it, and found it as a guest post on my friend’s site. I decided to repost it here so that I’d have it in my own archives. This happened about three years ago.
“La ferme” has both a naughty meaning, which is, “Shut it!” or “Shut your mouth!” and a normal meaning, which is “the farm”. Today we’re here to talk about the farm because we don’t swear in our household. In any language.
The day started out innocently enough. We were met at the school bus stop with one of the other families who brought their dog along for the walk. There were all sorts of squeals and other expressions of delight, very little of which I heeded because I was trying to ensure that William wouldn’t jump from in between my legs into oncoming traffic.
But the impression stuck. That night over dinner, 6-year old Gabriel said that he would like to have a dog. Juliet, knowing our reticence, qualified it with “just a little dog.” A little dog that’s “nothing at all” (rien du tout)!
William declared he would like a cat, but his idea was immediately squashed with a “Bah non!” from his older siblings. “Nina is allergic to cats and she wouldn’t be able to come visit.” Nina is their grandmother.
And somehow the talk escalated – like, Cuban Missile Crisis-escalated. We went from buying a dog to buying an entire farm in a matter of seconds. I was soon to regret my quick retort that if Gabriel wanted a farm, he could get a taste of it by waking up at the crack of dawn to start doing chores.
Instead of deterring him, it prompted a reverent look as he said with determination, “I am not even going to sleep at all. You’ll see. You’ll all be in your bed and I will be outside working. With tools!”
Then he marched off without removing his dinner dishes from the table.
When I came downstairs to put them to bed, he said, “I know Mom. We can get a rooster! That way you won’t have to set your alarm (because you don’t like to get out of bed in the morning). The rooster will do it for us. The rooster doesn’t even sleep, you know.”
“Sorry buddy,” I replied. “Daddy said no to the chickens. I already asked.”
“Well what about a pig? Pigs don’t make any noise at all.”
Trying to contain my laughter, I said, “Honey, we don’t have enough room to have a farm in our backyard. Farms take up a lot of space! We have just enough room for us.”
“We don’t have to have a vegetable garden. We could have a farm instead.”
“No.”
“Well then can we get rabbits? They’re small and they don’t even make any noise. They just eat carrots.”
“I don’t think so honey.”
His voice rose a pitch in desperation … “Can’t we at least get a cow?”
Later, from the warmth of his covers, he mumbled sleepily, “I’m going to pack my bags and leave here. I’m going to go somewhere else and start a farm.”
“Darling,” I said coaxingly, “Don’t get all worked up before we talk things through with Daddy. We can’t make any decisions without consulting him, you know.”
He covers his eyes with his forearm at the sign of relenting on my part and bursts into tears. “And I never even got to ride a horse,” he sniffed.
“Aw honey, we’ll talk it through,” I said, “We’ll think of something.”
Suddenly he perks up, exclaiming, “I have a great idea. We can build a barrier and put life-size fake animals in it. It won’t be real so there won’t be any noise or any mess. It will be fake.”
“Hon, a fake farm with real life-sized animals might cost a bit more than we have right now,” I answered gently.
“I know!” his eyes lighting up. “I will give you all my coins so that you can buy it.”
“It won’t be enough,” I replied, my heart filled simultaneously with laughter and ache.
“Eleven coins won’t be enough,” he said, his question pitching downwards with a note of reproval in his voice. “Oh wait …” he remembers, “we have to take out the three pieces of American money.”
Then he continues, “Eight coins won’t be enough,” he says with a note of reproval in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said shaking my head.
Somehow I console him enough to get him to sleep. Later on when Matthieu came home, I warned him that our Gabriel may bring up the subject of farming the next day and will need to be met with a straight face.
“He was so impassioned by his plea, he was crying over the injustice of what wasn’t going to have,” I said. “So we need to be compassionate. I hope he forgets, but he may not.”
Sure enough, the next morning the first words out of his mouth were about … la ferme. And when he went upstairs to eat breakfast, he started drawing up plans for the layout of his farm. “And I’ll need a hammer and some nails for the fence …”
And just when I thought we were out of danger from this becoming a permanent subject, he calls to me as he’s heading out the door, “We need to get a farm, you know, because I drew up three pages of plans for it and if we don’t get one I will have to throw all three pages in the garbage.”
“And that will be a waste!” he said emphatically.
“That’s enough!” I snap. “La fer—!”
Droit d’auteur: brenstef / 123RF Banque d’images
that’s just so cute – i would love to buy a farm someday
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Too bad you didn’t have a way to show him how much work a farm really is. I bet that would change his mind quick.
Jennifer recently posted…A Trip to the Farm
hahaha! I was rooting for him, I confess. My parents bought the farm, and it was my mom’s lifelong dream. She waited until she had enough coins, though.
How on earth do you get everyone not to swear in your house, in any language? Des shouted something colorful during a work dinner last night. I was mortified but I could see all the co-workers trying not to laugh..unsuccessfully.
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