Angus' daughter Melissa and her best friend, International Erin, arrived yesterday amongst a cloud of snow flurries (we call her International Erin as her parents spell her name "Erin", as opposed to the Swedish spelling of it, which is truly international indeed). Angus decided to up the embarassment factor to the nth degree, so of course he brought the Nikon D50 and my bounce flash (which is a great big fuck-off amount of kit) and took photos of them exiting the gate, as well as making them pose in the middle of foot traffic in front of the "Welcome to Britain!" sign. It's always fun to embarrass your guests, and when they're two Swedish teenagers? Even better.

Melissa's humiliation was so rife you could bottle the stuff and sell it at the Estee Lauder counter.

International Erin is a very quiet, very blond child, and whenever you ask her an opinion about something, you get the answer (croaked in a hestitant, delicate whisper) "I don't know."

This is applied to anything.

"International Erin? What do you like for breakfast? Cereal?"

"I don't know."

"Fruit?"

"I don't know."

"A steaming plate of baby back ribs?"

"I don't know."

She's a bit nervous about flexing her English muscle although she speaks it with no problem, so we're managing on a mixture between Swedish and English for now.

Melissa was delighted with her room-I'd spent the weekend re-painting it and Angus hung up some shelves just for her. Whenever she arrives she takes a moment to unpack her things and move items around the room just so, so she and Angus did that. He also told her that we were engaged to be married, and how did she feel about that?

"Cool," came the breezy teenage reply. "That's ok."

Allrighty then.

I made risotto for lunch while the girls turned the lights off in the living room and watched Van Helsing. Then the four of us packed up and went to Sainsbury's to try to deduce just what this wild creature International Erin ate outside of her native habitat. We asked her in the car.

"International Erin, if someone asked you what's your favorite food, what would you say?"

"I don't know," came the standard reply. Then-"I like to eat Africans."

How do we translate this one...

"Africans?" I ask. "You mean African meals, African-style cooking?"

"No, I like to eat Africans," she replies.

We sit there. "So, you like your Africans baked, boiled, or fried?" Angus finally manages.

We switch to a Swedish/English mixture and though none of us are entirely sure what she means (even Melissa, who is perfectly fleunt in Swedish), we worked out she means a type of African stew served on rice, so if you're an African in our neighborhood you can sleep safe tonight, you're not on the menu.

In the shop we buy a lot of fruit. Melissa comes up to me in the meat aisle. "So Melissa," I say. "When we finally get married I expect you to be a part of it. A big part."

"Cool," she says in the way only teenagers manage.

Melissa hugs me.

"What's up?" I ask. "Did you stick something on my back?"

"No, I just wanted to hug you. I feel happy." she says, smiling.

I smile back. I love being a stepmother. It's finally all coming together, I finally think we're going to make it. I'm on Cloud 9 while we keep shopping.

International Erin comes forth and announces that her other favorite food is biscuits (cookies)-she eats them all the time, she says. I figure her mother must know what she's doing-International Erin is so tiny she gives Nicole Ritchie a run for her money, so ok. As Melissa is not shy of the biscuits either we head to the biscuit aisle. Britain has a number of biscuits that are pretty unique, so we bought some of those-Jaffa cakes, Hobnobs, mini-rolls, flapjacks. I vow to make all of their regular meals very healthy and vegetable-laden as balance for the biscuits. Somehow we managed 8 bags of the stuff, but the girls will take most of them home for distribution amongst family. Angus-still heavily dieting-has managed to avoid them all, but I'm not so keen on sweets anyway, so the temptation is no problem.

A woman comes up to me, looking at my cashmere jacket. "I've been meaning to come up to mention your jacket each time I've seen you in the shop," she says, touching my arm. It's a nice jacket, one of the few decent ones I own. I'm still feeling a bit high from Melissa's hug, I decide to let the woman admire my jacket. I feel like Jesus, without the washing of the feet part.

She reaches for my back, and hands me a sticker. From one aisle over I hear Melissa laughing so hard she sounds like she's going to vomit.

It's a sticker for Fairtrade Bananas.

Bitch put the sticker on my back.

We head home and the biscuits get mentioned from International Erin. "I love biscuits," she babbles.

"Do you eat them often?" I ask.

"Oh no, I sneak them at school, my mom only allows me to eat fruit," she chirps happily.

OH MY GOD. We've just violated another mother's covent. We are the good guys riding in on a shiny chocolate horse, her mother is the baddie dressed as a dried apricot.

"Um, International Erin?" Angus says hesitantly. "Let's keep this biscuit business between the four of us, ok?"

"OK!" she giggled.

I'm going to have to make so many vegetables it will look like we've all gone on the cabbage diet.

Off to London for the traditional sight-seeing now for the girls, and I'm sure more humiliation will occur.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:15 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 979 words, total size 6 kb.

1 It's always fun to embarass teenagers!

Posted by: kenju at February 09, 2007 12:01 PM (L8e9z)

2 I bet the sticker was payback for the previous embarassment. Good luck and enjoy!

Posted by: Hannah at February 09, 2007 12:47 PM (5w+E2)

3 classic teenagers! allways get over on ya, YO!

Posted by: j.m at February 09, 2007 02:58 PM (0KGz0)

4 Dont worry, all moms know that their kids will take any opportunity away from them to eat the wrost, biggest amount of junk food they can get away with. I have said before how sometimes this annoys me because I am forced to feed my child only good things because he will get enough junk from others. If my child did not get junk at another kid's house or at his grandparents I would, frankly, wonder what they had against my offspring.

Posted by: That Girl at February 09, 2007 03:03 PM (SihST)

5 Loved your post today... well, I love all your posts. But somehow this one was particularly sweet. I'm usually a lurker, but I have to say how much I enjoy having the opportunity to read your blog most every day. Thanks Helen!

Posted by: Annette at February 09, 2007 04:29 PM (ZOAmr)

6 That's the kind of stuff I used to do to my mother when I was a kid....now I feel bad. But, witch always got me back. I guess you're gonna have to think of something!

Posted by: Heidi at February 09, 2007 04:35 PM (I1a0d)

7 It sounds like fun!

Posted by: sue at February 09, 2007 05:50 PM (vHjq2)

8 Two things - one, I can't believe that Angus didn't ask the kids how he felt about you being engaged before he asked you to marry him. Not in a "how dare he not consider the feelings of the CHILDREN" kind of way, just in a "huh. that sounds like something he would do" kind of way. And second: Mmmm... Hobnobs... I really must buy some of those soon.

Posted by: amy t. at February 09, 2007 06:31 PM (3dOTd)

9 Oh cashmere? Yeah, that's totally a wet-willy offense.

Posted by: Ms. Pants at February 09, 2007 06:59 PM (+p4Zf)

10 Oh, sweet, delicious oaty HobNobs. I have to go to Canada to buy them, sadly.

Posted by: Sigivald at February 09, 2007 07:51 PM (4JnZM)

11 Enjoy the visit. Sounds like it has started off wonderfully!

Posted by: sophie at February 09, 2007 09:07 PM (1HOa8)

12 Secret cookies. Heh. I am of the opinion that a parent should provide an abundance of healthy food but not forbid the junk food. Sooner or later the kid catches on that the healthy stuff is actually pretty tasty. (And, crazily enough, I still think of fruit yogurt as a treat since it got served as dessert. Yay.)

Posted by: B. Durbin at February 09, 2007 11:18 PM (tie24)

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