Jessica – I’m going swimming in that pool.
Ben – That’s not a swimming pool, that’s Optimus Parrot.
Jessica – It’s rubbish.
Ben – It is absolutely not rubbish.
Jessica – I’m going swimming in that pool.
Ben – That’s not a swimming pool, that’s Optimus Parrot.
Jessica – It’s rubbish.
Ben – It is absolutely not rubbish.
I do need to ask: What exactly IS Optimus Parrot?
Really more a question for Andrew – he and Ben were playing Lego and made a robot-esque model (Ben is very into Transformers). Because it had an orange beak style nose, Andrew called it Optimus Parrot and the name has stuck. Other models in this series include FlyBoy and George.
This evening Optimus Parrot was decommissioned, i.e. taken apart, because, according to Ben, he fell over too much. He was rather large and unstable, particularly after several rebuilds by Ben. Similar fates befell Fly Boy and George. In their place Ben built a flat speeder-like robot called Fly Spray, so called because he can both fly and spray. I built a fire fighting robot called Fire Force and an R2D2-like robot called Bumblebee Fixer.
Naming robots with Ben is an interesting process of negotiation. For instance, Fire Force was originally Fire Fire Fire Fire Whoosh Water Spray, which I contracted to Fire 4 and then hit some inspiration with Fire Force.
Up until this point I wasn’t hugely interested in having children. However, as the Mums seem to do all the difficult and painful stuff (childbirth, nappies, punishment) and the Dads get to make Lego things and play with train-sets and go to football matches, it seems like a good laugh.
I wonder why more people don’t have children?
Then again, if we had a baby girl I wouldn’t be happy at having to do tea parties and dollies…
PS – “Fire Fire Fire Fire Whoosh Water Spray” is a fantastic name for a robot. It deserves its own low-budget animated TV series.
PPS – I still don’t understand how a robotic parrot can be mistaken for a swimming pool, even by someone with such a small grasp of architecture as a toddler!