“1. Not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff 2. Not hesitating to break the rules of propriety; forward; impudent 3. Necessitating courage and daring; challenging”
There is another use of the word “bold” which isn’t included in the dictionary: in Ireland, it’s also used to describe the behaviour of an errant child. It’s a delightful euphemism for “exceedingly naughty” which eliminates the need for negative and unnecessary words such as "naughty" or "bad".
These days, The Small Girl is rarely bold. At five and a half, she knows her boundaries and is less eager to push them than she is to please me. She does have an incredibly stubborn streak however, and is prone to the odd outburst of door-slamming and pouting. But then again, who isn’t? She has also recently developed a terribly sweet habit of writing notes - I discovered a scrawled and crumpled note in my handbag earlier in the week which read "Mummy you are byootiful" and which moved me to unaccountable tears at the Tescos checkout.
The Very Small Boy on the other hand, is throwing himself with vigour into the business of Experiencing The Terrible Twos. Still an early riser and therefore chronically sleep-deprived, he also has a very low frustration threshold, and has recently discovered that certain behaviours (such as picking his nose and name-calling) infuriate me almost to the point of hysteria.
When I recently banned him from watching a movie because he’d been bold, he began a tantrum of such magnitude that I was (and this is pretty rare) actually lost for words. It began, innocently enough, with shouting and foot-stamping, then progressed to tears of rage, screeching and lashing out. After about half an hour (and having provoked no reaction from me) he began to do all the things which usually really infuriate me. And when, two hours later, he was still jumping up and down in the kitchen screeching and crying, one finger wedged firmly up his nose and shouting “Mummy I hate you!” at the top of his voice, I did what any reasonable parent in that situation would do - and got out the video camera to record the tantrum for posterity.
Usually though, the Small People are both pretty well behaved, and are now at a stage where they gain a great deal from each other’s company. They play happily for whole hours at a time in their new playroom, creating imaginary games and entertaining themselves (while I, unsure what to do with all this newfound harmony, pace about uneasily, half-heartedly starting creative projects which I never quite finish).
I was sitting at my sewing machine the other day, trying to decipher the incomprehensible roman blind instructions in my soft furnishings book, when the Small Girl stalked sullenly in and deposited a note on top of my new Ikea curtain material. It was folded in two and had "luve" printed spider-like on the front. I opened it, and read:
"my bruther haz bin bowld"
Heart sinking, I got up and followed the Small Girl back towards the playroom. But I never did get to find out what bold thing her brother had done – before I had the chance to ask, they had turned on their music and both leapt up to dance to their current favourite Jedward song, which is called - appropriately enough - “Bad Behaviour”.
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