Wednesday 28 December 2011

Arrgh!

Here is a list of things that I am scared of;
  • Spiders
  • Tunnels
  • Being touched
  • Funnel Web Spiders (they live in tunnels)
We'll ignore the whole touching thing, I get asked about that a lot. Most commonly; "How did you have kids?" The response to this is; "Disappointingly quickly" which has nothing to do with not liking physical contact.

Weirdly, as I type this I can hear the Wife rolling her eyes.

Anyway, I have three phobias, which is a fair collection for anyone. This is why it doesn't come as a great surprise that the Boy - who is essentially me³ - is scared of just about anything you care to mention. I'll give you and example; earlier today the Wife put on a DVD to keep the Kids quiet. The Boy watched it for ten minutes, then ran away saying it was too scary.

It was Lady and the Tramp

Yesterday we treated the Kids to staying up with us to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special. The Boy spent an hour with his hands over his ears, insisting the Wife covered his eyes. It wasn't entertainment for him, it was self-induced sensory deprivation. I sat with him to watch Finding Nemo about a year ago. Let me give you the plot breakdown (as far as we watched) from the Boy's point of view.

Pretty fish talking
Pretty fish EATEN BY MASSIVE EVIL FISH
Pretty fish talks to small pretty fish
Small pretty fish ABDUCTED BY MASSIVE GLASS-FACED MONSTER
Pretty fish goes looking for small pretty fish
SHARK ATTACK!

You would have thought I'd made him watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Which is ironic because the first film the Girl ever watched was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She was about a week old, she wouldn't sleep so I lay on the sofa with her and watched it. In some ways I think that was a mistake. I think it might have given her ideas.

Clearly then, nightmares are a bit of an issue. The Boy's first recurring nightmare was that there was a bee in his room. This was whilst he was still quite young.

"There's a bee in my room! Its going to bite me!"
"Bees don't bite. They sting you."
"Whaaaaat?"

Which is why we've had to choose our words carefully. Not that I always remember.

"Night night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite."
"Whaaaaat?"

On the other hand the Girl is scared of nothing. She'll happily play with cats (as demonstrated), dogs, snakes, alligators, plastic bags (thanks Granddad) or electric outlets. She's the one that stands on the arm of the sofa and dives onto the hard wood floor, or surfs the stairs. On one occasion I got home from work and on opening the door was greeted by the sight of the Girl hurtling down the stairs face first and crashing into the radiator. The radiator seemed more bothered than she did. She simply got up, dusted herself down (well, pulled her trousers up) and ran into the living room to watch the tweenies.

Meanwhile, the Boy was being terrorised by a moose with a wellies on its antlers.

Tuesday 20 December 2011

I Felt Your Presents

Let me ask you a question, my lovelies. When do you think Christmas starts? First of December? Twenty-fifth of December?

Optimistic.

Try mid August. Ish. In truth you can't tell exactly when its going to start. All you know is that it will start during an advert break with the words

"Ooh... I would like one of those!"

And you're off and running. From this point you'll find yourself saying; "If you're good then maybe we'll get you <insert toy name here>." Unfortunately, its not quite that easy. The Kids change their mind like they change their underwear (with the Girl, that's several times a day). The Boy has been doing a lot of Ooh-ing this year. Initially it started with the sort of things you might expect; Hot Wheels, Nintendo, Hexbugs... After a couple of days he started to say it about pretty much every advert. This led to

"Ooh... I would like one of those!"
"Really?"
"Yes! What are they?"
"They're tampons."

Fun? Yes. But six months of this can get a bit dreary. When it finally gets to the time of the year I'm given Christmas cards by people I sit next to at work (WHY???) I'm all strung out with it. Don't get me wrong,
I love Christmas. However... at the risk of sounding peevish, this will be the twenty fifth year running that I don't get an Optimus Prime. So despite loving Christmas, I also find it all rather irksome.

Before I had Kids, Christmas felt (to paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams) like having my brains smashed out by a bit of tinsel wrapped around a large, gold brick. Too many hours in the pub, too much alcohol, too much Slade, too many drunken headlocks telling people I'd just met "I love you!"

Not that I've finished drinking at Christmas. This weekend the Wife and I found time (and willing babysitters) to go out for drinks and dancing. This ended with the Wife blowing her groceries in the taxi rank and me spending several hours getting intimate with the toilet bowl at home. At one point I woke the Boy up because I was crying "Why won't it stop?" and (bless him) he asked me if I was okay.

That's some great parenting right there.

I woke up with a bruise on my chest from falling into the toilet and when the Boy said "Good morning" I accidentally replied "Armitage Shanks." He then told me that I needed drink hot water for my tummy and trundled off to get me a glass.

"Dad? Is the hot water on the left?"
"Yes."
"Okay! Which way is left?"

This is one of the difficulties of Christmas with the Kids - you just can't afford to drink that much. It's testament to what great children I have that they were content to watch Cbeebies whilst I dozed on the sofa. They even tried to get rid of my hangover, although they did this by riding their scooters over bubble wrap. Which made me a bit shouty.

So the one thing that I used to do at Christmas - drinking - has to stop. Instead Christmas has become all about making sure the Kids have a magical time. Partly through Christingle services and nativity plays which I've covered before, and trips to see Father Christmas. Those personalised videos you can set up from Father Christmas are brilliant too. But the most important thing is to make sure you get the right present.  Now before you say kids are too materialistic these days

"Daddy, can I go in your bedroom?"
"No yet, your Christmas present is in there and its not wrapped."
"Pleeeeeeaaaase???"
"Not until its wrapped!"
"BUT DAD!"
"Look, you can't see your present until Christmas!"
"I KNOW! I WANT TO JUMP ON YOUR BED!"

They're not. I'm an optimist, so I've argued against people who claim people don't understand the spirit of Christmas. Last year I took the Kids to my mum's on Christmas Eve and on the way over...

"You're going to sleep in the big bed at nan's tonight, Boy."
"Yeah, and the Girl can sleep in the car."

Actually, that rather disproves my point...

What I mean is, its nice to see their faces light up, but that's not the main reason to buy the right present. Lets be honest, within five minutes the toy will be lying in the corner of the room whilst you're forced into pushing the Kids around the floor in a box. Or at the very least the Boy will be dressing up the Girl's new doll whilst she chases the cat with his remote controlled car.

No, its important to get the right present because the more they want something, the more able you are to blackmail them with it. And the blackmail game starts in about October, which means we get about two months of relatively good behaviour before filling the house with all manner of noisy, god-awful crap.

Anyway, as a Christmas present I'm going to leave you with a quote from the Boy I've been holding back thus far. Its pretty much my favourite one. It was while we were on a camping holiday about eighteen months ago.

"Daddy, why are you chasing that kite?"
"Because its our tent!"


Merry Christmas everyone!

From the Wife, the Boy, the Girl and Me.

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Birth

Last week at work, amongst topics of conversation ranging from the state of the economy to vaginal flatulence, I was asked a series of questions about birth. So I thought I might do an entry here.

In the autumn of 2006 the Wife woke me up with the words "Guess who's water's broken?" to which I, in my semi-conscious state replied "I don't know... whose?" And at this point I'd like to take the opportunity to break a few myths

Myth 1

People always panic in the films, don't they? Its all "get hot water and plenty of towels!" and people passing out.

I have to say, there was no panic. There were corn flakes, there were some phone calls... the Wife had a bath. No panic. I know that's not as funny as running into walls and bags of clothes bursting open, but I wasn't at all nervous. Its true what they say. Ignorance is bliss. I boiled the kettle for hot water, but only because I wanted a brew. At no point were towels involved.

After an hour or so the Wife's contractions got to the point that we needed to phone the birthing unit. It was all very calm and pleasant, we drove through the middle of the night to the unit and got parked up, dragged the small bag containing the ENTIRE CONTENTS OF THE HOUSE inside, popped the Wife on a birthing ball (for the uninitiated, a massive beach ball you sit on and bounce up and down on) and set in for the wait. It took about ten minutes for me to realise that the birthing room was about the temperature of the surface of the sun. By the time the Boy was born four hours later I was about half the size I was when I went in. A tip - dads, dress for summer regardless of weather conditions.

The Wife bounced up and down on the ball until the labour pain got so bad we put the TENS machine on her. This is like one of those abdominal exercise machines that electrocutes you to a six pack. It did feel a bit like pouring salt in the wound - wiring her up to the national grid, but it seemed to work for short while until the gas and air came in and the good times rolled. Well, at least between contractions. The Wife was steady as a rock, calm and collected, focused on the task at hand. She only offered me violence once when she was gesturing for the gas and air and I misread the situation and handed her the cup of ice chips. They promptly flew through the air as she snarled through gritted teeth; "No motherf****r, THAT!" and stabbed a finger at the gas.

Myth 2

Some people (I'm guessing men here) still claim birth is actually painless.

My arse. It wasn't painless for me, let alone the Missus. She was in so much pain she squeezed my hand tight enough to dislocate my finger.

(I realise at this point I'm about to lose the mother's in the audience, but hear me out on this one)

 Now here's a thing - imagine you're in the birthing unit, your wife is in the throes of labour, you're surrounded by women all of whom have had children. There's a slight iciness when you speak or you're spoken to because, on some level you're being blamed for the pain your wife is in. Like (true story here) when your "mates" tell you to meet them in a certain pub before a Charlton match and you turn up wearing your Charlton top to discover its where all the Millwall fans are. Like that, except without flying barstools and a mounted police officer to rescue you. You are, in short, not particularly welcome. Your wife squeezes your hand and dislocates your finger. You yowl in pain. The midwife looks at you and asks you what's wrong and you find yourself - amongst the blood and screams - saying; "I think I've hurt my finger."

For once I chose the wise path and didn't say anything. Not because I'm brave but because I'm a coward. And regardless, I was watching her go through child birth. I had bigger worries.

Whilst we're talking about the pain, I'd like to dispel one other myth though.

Myth 3

Whilst the Wife was pregnant with the Boy a colleague showed me an article in a women's magazine. It was one of those classy, 60p magazines that have headlines on the front cover like "I Was Sold into Slavery By My Mum" or "My Dog Exploded Doing a Wee". I think it was Vogue. In this article it said that it was; "not unheard of for women to orgasm during child birth."

That is likely in the same way that being struck by an asteroid made of jam is likely.

Moving on...

The Boy was a water birth. The best way to imagine this if you're a prospective dad and a film fan is this; watch the scene in Jaws where Quint gets eaten by the shark. But play it backwards at low speed so it takes about three hours.

 The best thing about a water birth is that as a dad you get a role to play. Aside from giving encouragement (don't, in your exuberance, yell "GIVE IT SOME WELLY!!" or people will judge you), you get given a sieve. Yes. A sieve. This was handed to me with the words, "just in case something pops out" to which I rather naively thought; "I'm never going to fit the baby in this."

No. I was on poo duty. However, it is my pleasure to say that the Wife behaved impeccably. Even when she was completely off her tits on the gas and air. Because the thing is, it only works if you breath a bit of gas and then take it out of your mouth to breath some air. My Wife in her befuddled state couldn't understand what the mid-wives and I were saying when we were trying get it off her. I ended up putting my foot on her shoulder so I could pull it out of her mouth. When she wrestled it back off me (she held my head under the water)* she actually knocked out one of her teeth putting it back in her mouth. Since I'm quick on the uptake, I formed the conclusion she rather wanted it back. After that I didn't argue with her and when the mid-wives tried to get me to do it again I simply replied, in a quavering voice; "But I want my child to have a father!"

Myth 4 

Childbirth is awful right? Wrong.

After all this you may be wondering why you'd want to go through it. I'm not a particularly schmaltzy guy (partly because I don't know what it means) but it really is the most amazing thing in the world. And as a bloke you're pretty much a spectator, so you might as well enjoy it because you can bet your arse your other half won't. I got as involved as I could, checking on his progress, cutting the umbilical cord, dressing him for the first time. The only thing I didn't do was look at the placenta. I saw a picture of one once. It looked a bit like something that you used to see eating small towns in B movies.The Girl was born at home, the Wife only bothered waking me up when it was time to call the mid-wife and by the time the gas and air arrived it was too late for it to work. So the Wife gave birth to the Girl with no pain-medication at all. I have never been so proud of and amazed by anyone as I was that day.  I don't think any experience in life can compare with childbirth, and the moment you hold your kid for the first time. Even if they crap on you. Which they might. And then you get to watch them sleep which is one of the most beautiful experiences life can bestow on you,

Myth 5

You'll never sleep properly again.

Actually, that's not a myth. You won't.




* Its possible I made that up.

Sunday 11 December 2011

Boys Versus Girls

This evening when I got the Girl out of the bath (after the normal, ask, ask, ask nicely, threaten, shout extravaganza) she looked me square in the eye and in a no-nonsense tone said;

"Winkle."

What she's pointing out here, in her own individual way, is that boys and girls aren't the same. Now I know you know that (or some of this is going to be a BIG shock) but the Girl is only just getting her head around this. Up until recently she insisted she was a boy, to the point the eyes were poked and faces scratched should anyone be foolish to contradict her. She was quite determined and it lasted about eighteen months. That phase has now almost passed, and now she thinks she's a cat. Its all part of a learning journey for her, and bless her it must be confusing. The Boy still can't always be relied on to get things right

"I've got a dad. He's called mum."

But then thinking that I'm a woman is an ongoing trend with him. I've mentioned before about "worming" Bill (see Ess Eee Ex), or only ever comparing me with female characters in programmes. Even when he's saying something he imagines can't be misconstrued he doesn't quite get it right

"Does your friend Steve make you happy?"
"I er... well... Its not like we take windy walks together, Boy."
"You're weird, dad."

A friend of mine once said that boys are physically exhausting, and girls are mentally exhausting, which I agree with. I also agree with it the other way round. The Boy is equally good at manipulation, the Girl is equally rumbunctious. Since the gender divide is so blurred, and since the Girl has idol worshipped the Boy since she was born its natural that she feels left out of being a boy. To be honest, when they're toddlers the only differences are anatomical. The Girl was born when the Boy was about two, so for two years I'd got used to changing nappies on a boy. Changing nappies on a girl is a whole new experience. Apart from the fact that, as a man, I'm not sure what all the bits are, the cleaning process is considerably different.Which is why she'll say things like

"I've got a winkle on the inside!"

As I say, we've only recently come out of the other side of the Girl thinking she's a boy. However there's a psychological phenomenon known as an "extinction burst" (see, you're learning something!) which means a behaviour shows a dramatic increase shortly before it stops. This explains why we had the comment above tonight, and only yesterday this - which I will leave you on.

"Daddy, what are these things behind my winkle?"
"They're, uh, your nuts, Boy."
"Oh."

The Girl, at this point, looked between her legs, looked baffled and said

"I haven't got any nuts."
"No darling. Girls don't have nuts. Only boys."
"Do you have nuts?"
"Er. Yes."
"Can't I see-"
"NO!"

Friday 9 December 2011

Christingle

The Boy attends a faith school, which ordinarily is of no consequence. The Wife and I hold our own views on religion, but chose his school because it seemed like a good one rather than to brain wash the Boy into conforming (as if that would work on him). Plus the council told us it was that or the school down the road. We didn't fancy that. It is an academy of excellence, but unfortunately it's chosen specialist subject is murder. That might be an exaggeration.  It does have the look and the catchment area you normally in shots of the aftermath of the London riots though. So we passed.

The one time of year it is an issue is Christmas. Or more precisely the Christingle service. The weird thing is; I went to church as a boy myself and never encountered Christingle myself. So for the uninitiated, let me give you the low down.

Essentially the Christingle service is a Christmas carol service for children. There's rather more to it than that, but I'll get the important part a little later. Last year I went to my (and the Kids) first Christingle service with my mother-in-law. Having navigated the Girl past the font without her bursting into flames and keeping one hand clamped over the Boy's mouth to stop him talking about poo, or singing his favourite song which was, embarrassingly; "Sex on Fire" by Kings Of Leon. He'd picked that song up a few weeks before and the intial amusement of him singing;

"Whooooaaaaaa, my socks are on fire!"

had worn of once he'd started getting the lyrics right and yelling

"That man's sex is on fire! Put it out, daddy!"

and finally come to a head with the conversation

"What did you do at school today, Boy?"
"Sang songs."
"What songs do you like singing?"
"Sex on Fire, but they won't let me sing that."

So you can imagine there was a level of stress involved before we'd taken our pew. I've never been particularly comfortable in churches myself, and while the Boy seems to get on with it okay, the Girl will develop ADHD the moment we cross the threshold. As such, most of the service was spent doing the parenting equivalent of putting an eel in a jar, with the Girl by turns jumping on the pew, shouting "RAAAARRRR!" whenever the priest said; "Bow your heads an pray" and occasionally biffing the elderly gentleman in front of us in the back of the head. You be surprised how few times it took before he turned round and dropped the "c-bomb." So, whilst juggling a highly strung Girl, preparing to clap a hand over the Boy's mouth and fending off abuse from the potty mouthed 90 year old chap I was handed two (not one, mind, two) of these

A Christingle. Suitable for kids of no ages.
So, to clarify this is an orange, with a candle in the top, a red ribbon, four cocktail sticks and some raisins. This is symbolises (and I'm quoting Wikipedia here); the world (orange), fruits of the four seasons (raisins), the blood of Christ (ribbon) and the light of the world (you can probably work that out yourself.) Alternatively, its a festive hand grenade. As if it wasn't enough that I had two very sharp objects to hold whilst the Girl jumped up and down on the Bible, they then set light to them. So, its sharp, on fire and round bottomed so you can't put it down.

Seriously, don't go. Because that's not even the most dangerous bit. After the service they invite you to have a mince pie and a cup of mulled wine. At this point there was a stampede of zimmer frames, crutches and surprisingly angry pensioners towards the back of the church. The Girl got caught in the middle of this stampede and reacted in the only way she knows how, she threw a tantrum. This lead to the unenviable situation of me, standing in a church, pushing pensioners around. And I'm informed that God doesn't go in for that kind of thing.

Thursday 8 December 2011

Away in a Manger

Quite frankly, I deserve a bloody medal. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending three Christmas plays. I wouldn't mind but I've only got two kids.

Before anyone thinks I'm cruising school plays for nefarious reasons I should point out that the Boy's school put on two plays, and I had to watch both of them. Watching your own kids in a school play is ok, because you can laugh at them. Laughing at other people's kids is just plain mean though. So you have to laugh at the funny bits, and it's not always easy to work out which bits are funny.

First up was the Girl's play which, If I followed the plot properly was about Rudolph the Reindeer being too ill to pull Santa's sleigh and being replaced by Ralph the Reindeer who claimed he could fly but couldn't. A kind of festive "Rogue Traders." The Girl was dressed as a reindeer because (weirdly) we had a reindeer costume, and very cute she looked. When we entered the hall she was sitting with her friends on the stage, craning her neck to see us before beaming and waving. So far, so good, we thought. Earlier the Wife and I had discussed that if she managed to start the play smiling it would be a minor miracle. The Girl does not do attention. On her birthday when the cake came out and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" she threw herself on the floor and screamed until everyone stopped singing and started crying. Even some of the mums. So I was working on the principle that so long as no one lost an eye, it was all good.

She lasted about fifteen minutes before ad-libbing a line

"I need a wee!"

and needing to be rescued. Needless to say we couldn't get her back on the stage and that was pretty much her career in drama over.

A few hours later, after taking the Girl for a tantrum in the local petting zoo, I went to see the Boy's play and enjoy another hour and a half perched on a seat half the size of an arse cheek. There's nothing like seeing your little Boy dressed in an old shirt, wearing a tea towel and a coit on his head, pretending to look full of awe at the glory of the Lord whilst surreptitiously rooting around in his hooter. It really is quite magical. And there's much to enjoy, like one of the Wise Men having a billious attack at the side of the stage, or the Angel Gabriel singing Away in a Manger with the sort of gusto and venom only the Sex Pistols managed. Honestly, she scared me. When she sang "lay down his sweet head" it sounded like "You're gonna get you f**king head kicked in."

Sadly for this blog, it all went rather swimmingly and I was very proud of both my Kids. However, it wouldn't be right to finish on that note, so I'll finish with this.

On our return we gave the Boy his dinner, forwent his bath because, well, we couldn't be bothered, and we were in the process of reading him a story when he suddenly leapt to his feet, clutched his bum with a look of surprise and said "I need a poo!"

It was at this point that I spotted a A toy lying on the floor. A small brown plastic bear that looked remarkably like a nugget of poop. I couldn't resist.

"Oh no! You've already done it! Look!"

With a panicked expression the Boy looked at the toy and said;

"Oh! You frightened me then! I thought I'd poo-ed out a bear!"

I'm having that as my epitaph.

Sunday 4 December 2011

Ess Eee Ex


I've not had the best day today. The Girl has been in a miserable mood all day, refusing to get out of the car when we got to my mum's house, yelling "No!" in response to everything that was said to her and generally giving me the stink eye the whole day. This came to a head when, whilst I was crouching down sweeping the fireplace, she put a cup of drink in my hood. I don't think she was being mean, I'm pretty sure she mistook me for a table. I didn't notice. I got juiced.

I could deal with all of that though. What was more of a struggle was the conversation with the Boy about girls (on to which I will come later). I'm not squeamish about sex, I should add, I just think its all a bit unhygienic and poorly thought through. I do, however, believe in telling the truth to my Kids and not hiding things from them. Which is why, one bath time when he was four, I had absolutely no idea how to answer

"Daddy... am I sexy?"

I defy you to find that in any parenting text. You see, that's why I'm here. Not to tell you how to deal with it. To tell you to expect it. Now naturally the immediate response is "No", however its not as straight forward as that. Aside from the fact that he doesn't actually know what sexy means, you don't want to hurt his feelings. I simply said "No to me Boy" and left it there. Quite frankly it doesn't do to even think about who would when he was four. So we'll move on from that.

Today's conversation went like this.

"I've got way more boyfriends than girlfriends."
"Er... what?"
"More of my friends are boys than girls. I've got about three girlfriends, but I've got a hundred boyfriends."

A hundred, at this point in his life, is the highest number possible.

"Right. You mean friends that are boys. That's normal, Boy. When I was your age most of my friends were boys."
"Yeah."

And here comes the mistake, dads. This is the point where I sought to amuse myself in the Boy's discomfort, and it backfired.

"But when I grew up I started to have more friends that were girls."
"What?? WHY???"
"Because I like girls. Er.. women. You'll learn when you get older. You'll want to kiss and cuddle them."
"WHAAAAT???? NO WAY! I'm only going to kiss and cuddle boys!"
"Ha ha ha... What?"
"I'm not kissing girls! I'm only going to kiss boys! Well... not kiss them. Maybe just cuddle."

I'm barely experienced enough at heterosexual sex to discuss it with the Kids (much, MUCH later in life) let alone homosexual sex. And yes, I know its not about sex as far as he's concerned. I'm not stupid. But when you have a conversation that goes like this

"Do you like Bill, daddy?"
"Yes. I do."
"Do you love him?"
"No. I like him."
"Do you want to worm him?"
"What does that mean???"

You can't help but worry a bit. And no, I never found out what "worm him" meant. After our conversation in the car I decided to switch subjects. Its best not to have him still talking about sex when he turns up at my mum's. She's still mentally dealing with a  misunderstanding from about a year ago.

"Next time I come to see you, nan, you can blow me."
"Yes, I... WHAT?"
"Like this."

And he blew her a kiss. Seriously thought she was going to have an aneurysm. He doesn't know what he's talking about, you say. He's just a boy, you say. Yeah. Ok. I'll leave the last word, as ever, to the Boy.

"I like Cbeebies. Daddy likes to see boobies!"

Saturday 3 December 2011

Manipulation


Here is the most expensive noise in the world;

"Daaaaaaaaaad. Pleeeeeeease?"

Oh the money, time and patience I've lost over that. I mean, the Kids are quite good at a lot of things; you should see the picture the Boy drew in my birthday card. It was awesome. He drew a knight with a sword. Admittedly the sword looked rather like a penis, but it was really rather good. However, there is no skill they possess in greater or more frustrating abundance than the ability to manipulate you. And its not just "pleasepleaseplease." Oh no, they're far more cunning than that. It ranges from the relatively subtle

"My dinner tank is full, but my sweetie tank is empty."

To an all out broadside

"Look, Boy - nanna and granddad are h-"
"WHERE'S MY PRESENT?"

And its not like they only do it when they want something. Noooooo. Sometimes they're do it to make you go completely out of your mind

"Dad, what's the name of the song I like?"
"Which one? How does it go?"
"Can't remember."
"What are the words?"
"Dunno."
"Are you on a wind up?"
"Yes."

Some time ago I was watching television with the Boy whilst he was carefully rooting around in his nose for something delicious to eat. He was taking his time, to the point I was expecting him to pull Lord Lucan out his hooter, but eventually he latched onto a winner, retrieved it and was about to put it in his mouth when I interceded with "Don't pick your nose and eat it, Boy." He responded by pointing at the television and looking surprised. I looked at the telly. It was showing the credits to a programme. I looked back at the Boy. He had a expression of triumphant satisfaction. The little sod pulled the oldest trick in the book on me at three and a half. And I fell for it. They can even undermine your confidence in making the most straightforward of statements

"Girl, are you being a bit contrary?"
"No!"
"Are you?"
"NO!"
"Ok, then. You're not."
(Boy) "Yes she is!"

The Girl has a ten step routine she goes through every time we go shopping with her. It goes like this

Phase 1: Walking around quite cheerfully.
Phase 2: Walking slowly, frowning.
Phase 3: Refusing to hold your hand any more.
Phase 4: "My feeeet hurt."
Phase 5: "I want to go hoooooooome..."
Phase 6: Sitting down in the aisle.
Phase 7: Ignoring you ignoring her
Phase 8: Lying spread-eagled across the aisle
Phase 9: Kicking people trying to get past her
Phase 10: Screaming like she's being kidnapped when you try to pick her up.

The trick is to get to the checkout before she hits phase six, otherwise you're buggered.

Even the Wife (who, let me tell you, is not one to mess about with) falls foul of this. Imagine you've made lunch, you place a drink in front of your son. He complains its water. You tell him it's not water. He disagrees. You point out it's squash, it's just a bit weak. He disagrees. You tell him to just bloody try it. He disagrees. Finally, you relent and stalk off to make a new drink, at which point he turns to your sister-in-law and says

"See? I told you it was water."

And yet, ridiculously, there are laws against murder. Its best to accept that you can't win all of them. The Boy refuses point blank to eat any food that is hotter than tepid. This has gone on for four years now to the point that we cook his dinner fifteen minutes before dinner time so it has congealed in the manner of his approval by the time it hits the table. At times in the past I've had fights with the Girl that have only ended because I pretended to cry.

I say "pretended"...

I should leave you with this. A couple of months ago I was sitting on the arm of the sofa trying to cajole the Boy into doing his homework about telling the time. It wasn't going well.

"Can you count the numbers on the clock face?"
"No."
"Go on..."
"My tummy hurts."
"No it doesn't. You're just saying that. Get on with it or you won't be able to play later."

His response was unorthodox, unsubtle, and yet remarkably effective.

*Sigh* "One... two..." *Sigh* "Three... four..." (Long pause) "Five... six... ATTACK!"

And he pushed me off the sofa.



Thursday 1 December 2011

Suggestions

Hello everyone. Hope the world is treating you well. I'm looking for some suggestions for topics on the blog, so if there's an aspect of family life or parenting you think I should cover, drop a comment below. You can remain anonymous, and I'll do my best to be funny. Toodles!