Angst in her pants

H is very good at putting two and two together. Sometimes she goes a little to far though and makes five. Our student nanny is from Melbourne, yesterday, when I went to Kelburn with H, I realised she had renamed Kelburn to Melbourne in her mind. This kind of thing generates wonderful malapropisms. She had a conversation with Damon about the "Terrible Arks" it took him a while to figure out she meant the "Wearable Arts".

One day I was on my own putting H & K to bed. They had just got settled and were sweetly snuggled down in their beds and I was just about to give them each a kiss, close the door and give a sigh of relief, when H leapt up and started wildly scratching her bottom. My heart sank. I thought I'd finished my motherly duties for the day and now there was a problem. I even knew the cause of the problem - overenthusiastic wiping. And as I pulled myself back into mummy mode I said:

"Do you have bottom angst?" I thought it was a rhetorical question. I thought it was a way to take it lightly, remind myself that some problems are unsolvable and lighten my mood.

"Yes." H replied with absolute conviction. "I have bottom ants."