Toys

Well, don't we all need a bit of cheering up? Christmas has come and gone, the piles of wrapping paper swept away, the toy boxes turned into cars, or trains, then stabbed with pencils, jumped on and left out for the bin men. No more threats that Father Christmas will pass by our house if the Kids don't stop shouting, jumping off the sofas or running sophisticated phishing scams on the Internet. All is back to its humdrum mundanity.

Except, of course, in my household.

The Girl got a baby for Christmas. Not a real one, obviously. She's not the Virgin Mary. Although saying that, she has a baby, there was no conception and

"What are you going to call your baby, darling?"

"Jesus."

Naturally.

I am quite petrified of this new addition to the household. It's a bit realistic. You can feed it water, it can cry "real tears" (if your tears are made of tap water) and it urinates. Most commonly on me.

"Ha ha! The Girl's baby wee-d on dad again! Make it wee on his head."

It's not enough my children have pissed on me. Now their toys are doing it too. Fortunately for me, it can't vomit.

It can poop, however. Not a joke. It came with it's own supply of "porridge" (honestly, I'm not making this up) which you feed to it, and when you put it on it's potty and press it's belly button, it poops. I have omitted to inform the Girl of this.

Furthermore, it's interactive. We bought a horse for it (since no baby is complete without a horse) and when the baby gets near to it, it neighs and makes carrot crunching noises or (bizarrely) sings the name of the manufacturer. Checking the brochure, you can also buy a "magic potty" (two words that rarely go together in my experience) and a moped.

Drink that in for a moment. A moped. For a baby. I'm guessing someone was on crystal meth when they pitched that one.

The Boy got a Nintendo DS. Because we're tight arses, he's playing my old GBA games on it - his favourite of which is Tony Hawks Underground. Although the Boy is a bit confused and keeps referring to it as

"Steven Hawking underground."

Which would make a rather different and somewhat more disturbing game I feel. Still, you can understand the confusion. One may be a skateboarder and the other a theoretical astrophysicist, but they're both on wheels.

I was quite glad he liked that. I was pleased that he wasn't playing something more violent (although admittedly the most extreme violence you get in Nintendo games is Super Smash Bros). I felt this way right up until I heard him say to the Girl;

"And if I do this he falls over and leaks blood... I'll do it again.... Hahahahahahaha!"

So somehow he's managed to turn a skateboarding game into Faces of Death.

To top off the toy based weirdness, the Girl had a muttered conversation on a toy mobile phone today and when I asked who she'd been speaking to she said;

"The baby-our-Lord-Jesus' mummy."

Now, as I've mentioned before, we're not particularly churchy in my Family, so this was a bit odd.

"The baby Jesus' mummy?"

"The baby-OUR-LORD-Jesus' mummy."

"Oh. Right-o. What were you talking about?"

"My baby is having a sleepover at the baby-our-Lord-Jesus' house."

"I see. Your doll has a play-date with Jesus?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"Spain."

Brilliant. So she's come out of the psychotic phase and now become a religious zealot.

This sort of thing doesn't appear to happen to other people.

Merry Bloody Christmas

Last month I foolishly turned forty. Forty has a level of gravitas previous decades don't have. People in their thirties go clubbing, people in their forties buy Volvo's  Ignoring the fact that I never liked going clubbing and I've recently found myself eyeing up the latest Volvo with an envious eye, I'm still in denial. Why? Because in ten years time I'll be fifty, and that doesn't bear thinking about.

Hence my recent silence on the blog, because in spite of the Wife organising a surprise party and then whisking me off to Edinburgh* I've been lingering in a month long temper tantrum about it. Fortunately my family can always be relied upon to give me the get up and go to hide under the duvet  and cry.

So, just to cheer everyone up, along comes Christmas. This year we swerved the Christingle service as my skills in juggling burning fruit have not improved since I last spoke to you about this (http://todaymyboysaid.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/christingle.html). It was a close run thing though. I took the Kids along to see the church Christmas tree lights switched on which was just before the Christingle service. We stood around in the dark four half an hour, then an old man dressed as a sex offender dressed as Father Christmas turned up in a tractor (obviously), handed out sweets for ten minutes and then switched the lights on. To get an idea of how impressive this was get up and switch on the light in the room you're in. It wasn't that good.

I was quite keen to scarpa at this point, but in a typically-slightly-dodgy move, the local church had an elf on stand-by - with a box of sweets, trying to lure the Kids into the church. Now, I went to church in the seventies and eighties, and I know what a trail of sweets into the church leads to. So the Kids and I had another role reversal, where they insisted we went into the church, and I told them I didn't want to go. For once, I won. By offering them sweets. 

When we got home the Boy raced upstairs and I went and got the jacket potatoes I'd left cooking from the oven. This, as it always does, set off our smoke alarm - which is set off by steam, but not smoke. So as long as our house catches fire during a flood, we're all good. As I went over to wave a tea-towel under it I heard the Boy yell;

"Sorry! That was me! I farted!"

To which I replied;

"If they're strong enough to set off the smoke alarm, you're moving out."

A few days later, the Wife and I went to the Boy's nativity play. I may have been expecting a bit much, but here's my review.

The acting was appalling, the sub-plot was just tacked on (it started with aliens landing in Bethlehem - which I'm pretty sure didn't happen), the chemistry between the characters was non-existent, the music was badly chosen, there was casual violence (when the Virgin Mary placed the baby Jesus into the manger by throwing Him from the other side of the stage) and the set looked like it had been designed by a five year old. I made this last comment as a joke to my Wife, who smiled thinly until the Head Teacher thanked the 50-something art teacher for "building such a wonderful set single handedly" and I felt a bit guilty. Honestly, it looked like an explosion in an aluminium foil factory. 

The Boy did well though. He managed to keep his fingers out of his nose for the whole thing.

The Girl's performance in her nativity play was a great success in comparison to last year, where her only line was "I NEED A WEE!" This year she got to play a shepherd, so the Wife sent her along with a cuddly sheep toy we had lying around the house.

On that, I'm pretty sure we have a cuddly version of every animal that ever walked, crawled or slithered on it's belly. We've got a cuddly velociraptor, for crying out loud. And it's not like we buy them. People just give them to us. There must be something about my family that says; "Crap attractor."

Anyway... The Girl's nativity play was called "Father Christmas needs a wee" and was, as you can guess, massively traditional. The Girl said her line well, then instantly got bored, dropped the sheep on the floor, kicked it a bit, picked it up and then repeatedly beat herself in the head with it for the next five minutes. Then she got a bit distracted, and her teacher had to go to the front of the stage and tell her to bugger off down the back. Fortunately the Virgin Mary took the attention off the Girl by dropping the baby Jesus on the floor and pushing Him into centre stage with her foot. Baby Jesus eventually exited stage left after a fairly decent pass from the Virgin Mary to one of the three Kings. And since no one lost an eye, I thought it was a great success.

Tonight the Wife and Kids decorated the Christmas tree with chocolates - a tradition from her side of the family. My family ate chocolates. But then we also got up, opened all our presents, had crisps for breakfast and did our best not to talk to each other until Christmas dinner. Then the Queen would come on telly, my dad would shout at her and then fall asleep in front of "The Dirty Dozen". So the Wife's traditions are probably preferable.

The Girl did a sterling job of hanging the chocolates, with the small issue that she put all of them on one branch. The Wife tried to point out the error of her ways, but the Girl said;

"I did that so they don't get lonely."

Awwww, you're thinking. How sweet. Except she's put them all on the bottom of the tree - so she can reach them. I tell you, she's a conniving little sod that Girl. 

Since they'd done such a good job I decided to take a picture of them, which I thought was rather lovely until I looked at the Girl and discovered that to spice up the photo she'd put a toy horse in her mouth.

For Christ's sake.

Have a very merry Christmas, people. Love from Me, The Wife, Boy and Girl. 

Child's Play

This morning, as every bloody morning, the Kids woke up early. Startlingly, the Girl is rather considerate in the dirty hours of the morning and does her best to be as quiet as possible. The Boy on the other hand is the definition of that quote from Not Your Average Dictionary;

Boy - n. A noise with dirt on it.

To fully understand the whole variety, pageant and volume of his noisiness you have to imagine the noise an elephant makes if you push a pineapple up its arse. And to understand what it's like waking up to this every morning, imagine you're the pineapple. 

Blundering out of bed with one eye just about open I heard the Boy making a weird, high pitched noise from the Girl's room. Grumpily I hissed "SHH!" at them as I struggled to find my glasses (hidden, once again, under the bed courtesy of the glasses goblin). There was a brief lull and then a loud slap followed by the Boy again making that weird high pitched noise. So, stepping up a gear, I burst into the Girl's room.

"Right! Will you... what the hell are you doing?"

The Boy was on all fours on the Girl's bed. The Girl was spanking him.

"He's a bad doggie!"

"I cannot deal with this at... where's my watch? FOR CHRISSAKES, ITS NOT A COLLAR!"

This sort of thing is not particularly unusual. Well the spanking is a bit weird, I'll grant you. But, they play dog and cats quite a lot. Yesterday they found a child harness and started using it as a lead, one walking the other around the house. To be honest, it's quite nice that the harness is getting some use. We bought it a couple of years ago to protect pedestrians when we took the Girl out. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to use it much because getting her into the thing was like feeding a cat into a garden strimmer, and the situation came to a head when she made me cry so we gave up.

Mind you, since the Girl has started coming out of her three year psychotic episode she's become even more maternal than before. Naturally this has brought out the worst in the Boy. Tonight on his return from his football lesson the Boy strode into the living room and in a Homer-Simpson-esque moment, took of his trousers and threw them on the floor. The Girl picked them up, put them in the wash bin and brought him a blanket. Frankly, his wife is going to have a lot to deal with. Then, whilst sitting on the sofa watching cartoons he said (without deigning to bother with eye contact)

"What's for dinner?"

"I'm not your staff, Boy."

"What stuff?"

"Staff."

"I don't know what you mean and I'm trying to watch telly."

Not that the Girl has completely lost her edge. 

"Dad, I drew a picture of you!"

"Oh, wow. Thanks! I like how you've drawn my hair."

"That's not your hair, stupid. You're on fire."

"Of course I am."

The Boy came round in the end, as he always does (sometimes with a judicious application of behavioral modification technique I like to call "shouting incoherently"). He claimed the other day that he wanted to be more like me, which led to the Wife's eyebrows raising at such an alarming rate they nearly came clear off her head. Yesterday he started his "being like dad" lifestyle choice by telling me off.

"Come upstairs, it's bathtime!"
"A-HEM! What about the ice cream?"
"What about it?"
"You haven't put it away. Don't you think you should?"
"I'll do it later, Boy."
"No... you'll do it now."

I'll give him this, it worked. I stomped down the stairs like a stroppy teenager, put the ice cream back in the freezer and returned with the words;

"THERE! Happy now?"

By this evening - by virtue of having the attention span of a stobe-lit goldfish - I'd forgotten about his new plan. After our little argument about him treating me like a slave this afternoon he became more contrite, and when it got to bed time he asked me very politely.

"Could I have a poo before bed?"
"Of course, Boy. You don't have to ask."
"I'll do it as fast as I can. I just need to get it out of me."
"That's lovely. Go to the loo then."

He duly did so. I went to help the Girl clean her teeth because she'd "forgotten how to" again and as I did so I became aware of this noise coming from the toilet;

"Nnngggngnnngggg...."
"Why are you making that noise?"
"You always make this noise in here."
"Stop trying to be like me. I mean it."
*Plop*
"Ahhhh... that's better...."
"Boy, stop giving me a running commentary about your toilet antics."
"But..."
"STOP BEING LIKE ME OR I'LL FLUSH YOU DOWN THE TOILET!!"

Fireworks

It's been a busy few weeks in our household, with Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes night and two birthdays in the middle. So our normally ramshackle, chaotic house has been turned into something like the seventh circle of hell.

First there was the Boy's birthday, which included the usual highlights of screaming children, masses of toys with teeny, tiny parts that vanish neatly up a vacuum cleaner and, of course, cake crumbs. Everywhere. At one point I found cake crumbs under my eyelids.

As with last year the Boy entered into the spirit of things by greeting each new arrival at the house with the word;

"Present?"

In a resigned "you've-been-at-the-door-for-nearly-two-whole-seconds-why-haven't-I-been-given-a-motorbike" tone of voice.

Then, because we feel that our lives are just too damn stress-free, we threw a party for both Kids between their birthdays. I have dealt with kid's parties on numerous occasions in this blog, so I won't go into details. However, I would like to make two points;

First of all, if someone suggests playing musical statues, punch them firmly in the eye and drop the F-bomb on them. Even if they're elderly. Because I'll guarantee whoever suggests it won't be the one that has to pick whoever is "out" when the music stops.

"Er... the little girl dressed as a zombie. Sorry, darling you're out."

"No I'm not."

"Er... you are, I'm afraid."

"Mum, he said I'm out. I'm not out."

"She didn't move as much as that boy."

"Um... okay. The little boy dressed as Harold Shipman. You're out."

"YOU SAID SHE'S OUT!"

And then, of course, I weakened.

"Okay. We'll start over."

Fatal. We had about six rounds where no one was out. Frankly we'd still be there now if we hadn't just randomly thrown the prize into a scrum of kids and let them fight it out.

Secondly, if you have a bouncy castle, you'll want to deflate it while they eat. This is a completely sensible move as; whilst the bouncy castle is wipe clean, most of the rest of the hall won't be. However it comes with a sting in the tail. When the kids have all finished eating and you switch the generator back on the kids will go i.n.s.a.n.e.

IN-friggin'-SANE.

I suspect the Romans during the last minutes at Pompei had more decorum than these kids. They let out a scream that stripped the wallpaper and then started chanting. Seriously. Chanting.

I don't know what they were chanting, but they were all chanting the same thing. It sounded a bit like "Kill! Kill! Kill!" The adults in the room went white. I turned to the Wife and she was mouthing;

"What the fu-?"

We were one step away from human sacrifice and cannibalism in that hall, I shit you not. I consider myself lucky to have my life and sanity.

For once my Kids were paragons of virtue, and were extremely well behaved right up until the Boy disgraced himself at bath time by clouting the Girl whilst I wasn't looking, causing the Girl to say in an offended voice;

"Oi! Dad! The Boy just punched me in the nunni."

Embarrassingly I had to look up what "nunni" meant. I was quite shocked.

Guy Fawkes night was a lesson in going from the sublime to the ridiculous. On the Friday before we took the Kids to the local police headquarters for their yearly free firework display - which involves lots of confiscated fireworks being set off for charity. I can thoroughly recommend it because it was very spectacular. Mainly because it didn't quite go to plan. About ten minutes in they set off a firework that sent up a steady stream of rockets. Initially it all went well, the first rocket went straight up and exploded and the crowd went;

"OOH!"

The next firework went up at about a forty five degree angle and burst just over the crowd's collective heads. The crowd went;

"UH?"

Then the third one went off parallel to the ground and the crowd went;

"AIEEEEE!"

After this things got a little duller, as everything went to plan. Right up until the big finale when a very large rocket lifted a whole three feet off the ground before exploding in a gigantic shower of sparks, sending people in fluorescent jackets swearing and running pell-mell in every direction. The Boy thoroughly approved.

"That... was... AWESOME! Tell them to do it again! THAT MAN'S ON FIRE!!! BRILLIANT!!!!"

Then, a week later, we had fireworks night at Grandma's. This was a very different experience as it involved my mother-in-law tipping her cardboard recycling on the lawn and setting light to it.  In all honesty it lacked a certain razamatazz.

Typically the Boy has gone a bit obsessive over Guy Fawkes night, and only tonight was still going on about his attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament (Guy Fawkes I mean, not the Boy.)

"So why do you think he wanted to blow the Houses of Parliament up, Boy?"

"Because he was a bad man."

"And why do you think he was bad?"

"Because he was Catholic."

Right. That was a bit steep, I thought.

"Er, Boy... you know I'm Catholic, don't you?"

"Yup."

"Oh good. Well that clears that up then."

And then there was the Girl's birthday. This was not unlike the Boy's birthday, with the family coming round with presents, and tiny things vanishing up vacuum cleaners and the entire world being indelibly coated in cake crumbs again to the point that birds now attack me in the street. Since the Girl is a little bit older, she didn't throw a tantrum when we sang happy birthday to her this year, which was a blessed relief. She was unbelievably well behaved in fact and we were very proud of her because she's being going through a bit of a feral stage recently.

Unfortunately to counteract this "stress deficit" the Wife and I had unwisely said our Niece could stay over. Now, that sounds like I don't like my Niece, which isn't true. I'm very fond of her. She's very funny and sweet. But...

She's also, to put it mildly, rather high maintenance. To demonstrate this an hour after we'd got the three of them to bed she suddenly strode into the living room and with a no-nonsense look in her eye she looked at me and said;

"I'm hungry."

So an hour after she went to bed my Niece was eating a ham sandwich at the dinner table. As was the Girl who'd followed her down to see if she could get away with it too. Which - it turns out - she could. Meanwhile the Boy called me back upstairs to grumpily enquire;

"Seriously, do they have to sleep in my room?"

"Well, they aren't at the moment. They're eating dinner. Again."

The next morning became a battle of wills between my Niece and I. One which I constantly came out the loser. First she woke up with the Boy at five o'clock in the morning and had a long whispered conversation at the volume of a jet plane taking off. When the Wife went to go and "talk to them" (or, more accurately, shout "SHUT UP!") she discovered the Niece prodding the Girl who was still asleep.

This is not wise. In fact, on a scale of "things I don't intend to do" I would put it on a par with resting my genitals on the nose of a hungry wolverine. Fortunately the Wife intervened before the Girl woke up and discretely told our Niece not to prod the Girl. It was close. Someone could have lost an arm.

Scream

I'll be completely honest, I hate Hallowe'en.

Don't get me wrong, any excuse to dress like I used to in my gothic youth should be a good thing, and I love horror films. But let's be honest Hallowe'en is essentially a one night amnesty on doorstep robberies. It's as if just because it's All Hallows' Eve teenagers are allowed to demand money for menaces by virtue of standing on your doorstep wearing a sullen expression and a bin bag. The only time I've enjoyed Hallowe'en was the year I took to answering the front door with a baseball bat and; "TRICK, YOU BASTARDS!"

So when I got home and the Wife said;

"Get the Kids into their costumes. We're going trick or treating."

I was annoyed. We don't live in America, I'm not smuggling E.T. out of my bedroom, and jacking the Kids up on Haribo for the next week did not appeal at all. So I told the Wife who's boss by saying;

"Right-o, love."

Now it strikes me that if you're going to go trick or treating you should take things seriously and make an effort with your outfit. The Boy agreed with me and took careful stock of his dressing up outfits before choosing a skeleton (not skellington, I hasten to add) costume.

The Girl initially wanted to be a Pirate Cat. This, I explained to her, was not really what Hallowe'en was all about. in a breakthrough moment, for once she took some advice rather than simply yelling; "No."

Then she ignored my advice and dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. With fairy wings. And an axe.

Fortunately for me the Wife's idea of trick or treating was to drive over to friends and family's houses. A great idea because you avoid knocking on the door of the crazy cat lady up the road who hasn't got any sweets but has some "brown cat eggs" she insists you take. So we went over to see Grandma. Who wasn't in.

The four of us sat in the car, waiting for Grandma to turn up, in the pitch dark, listening to the wind. The Girl's wind. Bless her she'd been ill the night before and still wasn't herself. Eventually Grandma turned up from work, looking slightly flustered. Sportingly we let her go inside before we walked up to the front door and bellowed "Trick or treat!"

Sadly, the gusto with which the Girl yelled proved a bit much for her fragile digestive system, and there was a very suspect bubbling noise and a look of surprise that suggested something untoward had happened.

I'll admit, as a trick on Hallowe'en, shitting yourself it pretty radical. Meanwhile Grandma exercised her right to make a slightly weird situation very weird indeed.

"Trick"

She said, which made both Kids turn to look at the Wife and I with an anxious look that said; "We were promised sweets!"

"I haven't got any sweets. Why don't you take me to the local shop and I'll buy you some."

This was a rather strange thing to say since, as the Wife pointed out;

"You work in the local shop. And you've just finished work."

So, just another normal day with the Family...

*Sigh*

Death Again

"Dad?"

Said the Boy the other night as he was cleaning his teeth for bed.

"Yes?"
"What age are you when you die?"

Now that's not a question you want to have to answer when you've got to get the Kids into bed before you have a pizza. Still, I believe in answering most of the Boy's questions.

"Well, most people die in their seventies and eighties. Although some people die much younger, and some people live to be over a hundred. And then they get a telegram from the Queen."
"Which kills them off."
"Er. No."

The Boy hasn't asked many questions about this recently. The Girl however is still very much in the "Your Dads dead, isn't he dad?" phase. Which can be a bit brutal in it's matter-of-factness. So, to give the Girl some kind of background we took her and the Boy to my Father's grave this weekend. Not the whole weekend, mind. We did other things.

I hadn't been there for about four years, I'm not mad keen on revisiting my Father's grave site, but the Kids set about it like we were going to Centre Parcs for the day. This was fine save for the fact that they decided to pretend to be dogs for the first ten minutes kind of clashed with the atmosphere. A bit.

Still, my Ma and I introduced them to my Father's headstone, with the Boy looking less baffled than I would have expected him to. They both said hello, it was nice. Weird, but nice.

Then we took a stroll around the rest of the graveyard, while the Boy and Girl asked me a lot of questions about death. Eventually, we got back to the car, got in and as I was about to pull out of the graveyard the Girl said;

"I've got a shell!"
"Oh, right..."

And then I got a sinking feeling.

"Where did you get it from?"
"One of those."

And she pointed to a grave. And she couldn't remember which one. And she threw a wobbler when I said we had to take it back.

I mean, my Kids are many things, but I hadn't expected them to turn into grave robbers.

When we got back to my Mum's place we found two of her neighbours talking. It transpired that someone in the street they had known since I was seven had died. We made the right kind of sympathetic noises, and then the Boy said;

"We've just been to the graveyard! Which hole was he in?"

And then the Girl said;

"I've got a shell! I got -mumph!"

As I put my hand over her mouth.

Still all this chaos and mayhem has made me realise something.

I really miss my Dad.

Flamed

It's been a weird, bookended week of abuse in our household. It started on Monday when I got a text from the Wife about a conversation she had with the Boy.

"Mum?"
"Yes, Boy?"
"If everyone in the world was in one place..."
"Yes?"
"Would they be able to lift dad up?"

Now that's just plain rude. I've been carrying a bit of holiday weight, it's true. And admittedly that holiday was in 1996. And I have been referred to as a "chubby c***" by two separate people who'd never met before. But...

Aw, the hell with it. The Kid has got a point. Although I do feel that this contempt may have been caused by me. The day before we'd been in the car and, for want of anything sensible to say I asked him;

"If you were a building, Boy, what building would you be?"

He thought about it for a long moment and came up with what he clearly thought was a suitable answer.

"A hotel. So lots of people could live inside me. And then I could charge them money."
"Wouldn't it be better to be a bank?"
"Why?"
"Because then you'd have billions of pounds!"
"But I want people in me."
"Don't say that."
"What?"

And then there was an awkward silence. After a few minutes he said.

"Dad. Can I say something to you?"
"Sure, what?"
"I'm not talking to you."

And to prove it, he carried on talking to me about how he wasn't talking to me until I didn't want him to talk to me any more. Eventually, distracted by a passing car he suddenly said;


"I know what kind of car we drive."
"Really?"

I replied, glad we'd changed the subject. And as sure as eggs is unfertilised chicken ovum, he instantly made me regret it.

"Yeah. It's a Shitroen."
Girl: "What's a Shitroen?


Fortunately, the next day I was removed from the simmering anger of the Boy by the virtue of taking my Ma to the hospital. It was nothing serious, just a check up with her neurologist. I'm quite glad it was nothing serious because getting to the hospital, going to the appointment and getting back home took a total of nine hours all told. This was partly because I had an off-peak train ticket and wasn't about to pay an extra five quid to come home straight after the appointment. So, we sat in a coffee shop and talked for two hours. Weirdly we got to talking about my inability to attract women in my youth, which led to this beautiful moment between a mother and son.

"I spent three days in Amsterdam, everyone else had a great time and the only person I pulled was a mental German."
"A man?"

I mean, seriously. I'm married. I've got two Kids. When are my parents going to believe I'm not gay?

When I got back home I assumed (wrongly) that the Boy had forgiven me. Turns out, he hadn't.

"Boy, how about I teach you how to tell the time?"
"I'm trying to lick my foot at the moment."
"Wh-? Just... come here. Look at the clock."
*Sigh*
"So when the big hand is pointing at twelve and the little hand is pointing at six, what's the time?"
"Stupid o'clock."

I gave up at that point. The Boy, however did not give up. At the end of the week, as I picked him up from school he said;

"We're going to make you do lots of exercise when you get home, dad."
"Really? Why?"
"You don't get enough exercise."
"What? I cycle to work! I do about forty miles a week!"
"Yeah, but you haven't changed. You still look like that."
"What?"
*Singing* "Fatman! Fatman!"

Music

Parenthood is a learning journey. And what I learnt tonight was that my Kids are little shits.

Earlier on I picked up my guitar for the first time in a long time. I've been planning to learn a couple of new songs, so I checked the internet and started trying out an Ed Sheeran song. I pretty much got it nailed when the Boy and Girl walked into the living room. The Girl listened for a moment and then, rather melodramatically clapped her hands over her ears, gave an ear-slipping scream and ran hurly-burly from the room. The Boy looked at me disapprovingly and put his hands on his hips.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Are you playing the guitar again?"

"Er... yes."

"Don't."

I remonstrated with him for a moment.

"I wasn't singing!"

"Yeah. But you're playing guitar and the Girl's frightened."

"What's she frightened of?"

I haven't got a lot of pride, my Kids have largely removed what little I had. But what he said next nailed down the lid and planted it.

"She thinks you're hurting the guitar."

Distantly I heard the Girl, now upstairs, yell;

"Are you angry with the guitar, daddy?"

And then, just to really stick it in and break it off the Boy followed this up with;

"And we both think that song is rubbish."

The Boy has very particular taste in music. For instance, at the age of six he's become quite partial to his uncle's band. Which is thrash metal (and now I wait for a Facebook comment - written in bingo - along the lines of; "We R a death-thrash-garage-fusion, m8 wot R U thinkin?" - so my apologies up front). To put this in perspective, here's a link to his favourite track by his uncle's band 

http://crowuk.bandcamp.com/

I put this fairly unusual taste in music down to the fact that My Chemical Romance were number 1 when he was born. He's quite prone to sing "Five Little Ducks" and with the next breath break into a gusty rendition of "Sex on Fire." Sometimes in church. 

Still, at least his taste in music is similar to mine. The Girl was born when an X-Factor song was number one. So her taste in music is god-awful. When she first saw the Spice Girls her eyes went the size of saucers. She pretty much looked like this;

I luuuuuuurve the Spice Girls

She listens to the Spice Girls at every given opportunity.

She's got a bloody cheek criticising my music.

Best Laid Plans

The Wife and I are currently trying some behaviour modification on the Kids. The idea is to stop the Boy from moaning when we tell him to do his homework, and for the Girl to stop going f**king bonkers the second someone speaks to her, looks at her, doesn't look at her, tells her to do something, has ears she doesn't like, breathes after eleven o'clock or isn't dead. This might sound a bit... Clockwork Orange but it's nothing so sinister.

The Girl

We've created sticker charts. They get a sticker for every day they don't moan or throw a tantrum. When they get thirty stickers, the Boy will get a Mandalorian Battle Set and the Girl will get her knife collection back. I mean, er... we'll buy her a toy horse.

This has been fifty percent successful thus far. By which I mean, the Boy gets it and behaves, and the Girl... Well... the flaw in our plan is this - if she doesn't get a sticker because she's thrown a tantrum... she throws a tantrum.

Today I had to take the Boy swimming. I've mentioned his swimming lessons before and they haven't got any less aggravating. Since the Wife was going to work, I had to take the Girl with us. So, on returning home from work I checked how the Girl's mood had been with the Wife. She rolled her eyes, and told me a horror story that involved her Pre-School teachers having to team up to talk her into going into school. And then she wet herself. Twice. So, I went off to talk to the Girl, who curled up in a ball and started shouting "No" at me - which meant I had to come up with a plan to stop her going ape sh*t at the swimming lesson. It's something I have nightmares about - lots of people, slippery floors, a large quantity of water and an exploding child.

Therefore I came up with a plan. I grabbed the Girl's headphones and brought them along. The Boy got changed in the usual fashion.

"Get undressed."

*Blank look*

*Sigh* "Take your top off."

*Takes top off*

"Carry on."

*Blank look*

"Take your shorts off."

*Takes shorts off*

"And the rest."

*Blank look*

"TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF!"

This never gets dull. 

Once the Boy jumped in the water, I sat down, plugged the headphones into my phone and started searching for Spice Girls videos for the Girl to watch. The Girl loves the Spice Girls.

This seemed to work. The only small problem is that, like all small children listening to headphones,  she didn't understand that she DIDN'T HAVE TO YELL EVERY TIME SHE SPOKE.

"I LOVE THE SPICE GIRLS!"

I nodded, and after making sure she was settled down, watched the Boy and his friend spend the next ten minutes trying to drown each other. It was the first time I'd got to actually watch the Boy swim. Ordinarily I have to entertain a bored Girl. This time there was only the odd

"DAD. IT'S STOPPED."

"Right-o, watch this one."

I was quite impressed with the Boy's swimming. His back stroke was very fast and the only-

"DAD! FAIRIES!"

"Yeah. Great."

-thing slowing him down was his ears - which were sticking out like wing nuts because of his goggles. Would have been a bit nicer if he'd spent less time sneezing in the water on purpose, but you can't have everything. 

"LOOK AT HER BOOBIES! SHE'S GOT MASSIVE BOOBIES!"

In her defence, she was looking at Geri Halliwell, who did have massive boobies in the video. It did, however, look like she was pointing at one of the women teaching the swimming lesson. Who also had massive boobies.

Fortunately for me, the swimming teacher didn't hear, only the people sitting either side of me did. One found it hilarious. The other less so, and looked at me like I'd just urinated in her pocket. As if I'd said it.

Once we got home I took the phone off her, told her she'd been a good girl and just for good measure, she threw another tantrum. 

I'm now considering this;

The Wrong Side of the Road (Part 2)

Despite the sun playing peek-a-boo most of our first full day in France, I managed to get sunburn. Not sunburn in any normal, conventional sense. No. In my finite wisdom, I decided to put factor thirty on my tattoo and my mole and then, being distracted by the Girl shouting at wasps, forgot to put any other sunscreen on. When I get sunburnt I find it's very binary in nature. I either don't have it, or my skin turns the colour of red wine and then sloughs off in great quantities for weeks on end. Plus, it creeps up on me. So I didn't notice how burnt I was until I got home, had a shower and started screaming. When I got out of the shower a gibbering, scarlet wreck I glanced in the mirror to discover I was glowing red save for a neat circle around my tattoo and another around my mole. I looked, in short, like the flag of Japan in reverse. 

The next day it was cloudy and grey, so someone (an idiot) came up with the grand plan of going to the local caves. As you may recall, I deal with tunnels in the same way small children deal with a cold, clammy hand grabbing their ankle as they climb into bed. The same is said for caves. So it was a surprise even to myself that I was the idiot that suggested going to the caves. I suggested it for two reasons;

1. it would be cool in there
2. they are called La Grotte Clamouse - which makes me laugh (it sounds like someone crapped on your dessert)

The Kids loved the Grotte, and to anyone not concentrating on the billions of tonnes of rock just waiting to collapse on their head, it is very beautiful. Unfortunately, for me it was like being suspended by a single cotton thread over a ravine filled with crocodiles armed with chainsaws. Whilst on fire. For two hours.

"Daddy's saying 'ship' a lot."

On and on and on it went, with our guide taking pains to explain how the caves were first discovered, and when this seventy tonne stalactite came crashing down, oh, and how the caves fill up with water in seconds during a rain storm. Lovely. Next time we're on holiday I'm going to suggest train surfing.

"And 'ere we aff a tank wiz ze fish zat aff no eyes..."

I turned to the Boy and said (in a noticeably quavering voice)

"Boy! What do you call a fish with no eyes?"

"No eye deer!"

He replied, and cracked up at his own joke. Tosser.

Eventually we got out, only avoiding being crushed to death by the piffling fact the cave didn't collapse whilst we were in it.

"That... was... AWESOME!"

The Boy yelled, and we took him and Girl to the shop where they eschewed buying anything cave related and instead bought the worlds most disgusting sweets. They consisted of little plastic fire extinguishers that sprayed cola flavoured hydrochloric acid in your mouth. Naturally, the pair of them redecorated the interior of the car with them, smearing the windows and creating a large, mobile wasp magnet.

The next day we went to the local market. Now I have failed to mention up until now that we were with family. Brother-In-Law, Sister-In-Law, Father-In-Law, Step-Mother-In-Law, Step-Brothers-In-Law and their respective girlfriends. The group of us went to the local market, wandered around acquiring all manner of tat and then took a seat at a bar in the town square to enjoy the particularly awful service. After forty minutes of waiting we moved to another bar where we waited forty minutes to be told it would be forty minutes before they would serve us. This made the Girl grumpy. To compound matters, the Wife had volunteered to take one of the Brother-In-Law's girlfriends to the local tattoo parlour to help her book an appointment. The Girl wanted to go. We disagreed, 

Thus was lit the fuse on the worst tantrum she's thrown in recent years. We waited for the Girl to look the other way and I hissed "Run!" at the Wife. This gave me about thirty seconds of peace before the Girl looked back round, saw what had happened and went a funny colour.

Interestingly the French have a different way of dealing with the sudden appearance of a satanic, screaming infant in their midst than the English. In England, everyone pretends not to have noticed. In France they treat it like a form of street theatre, and pull up chairs next to you to watch.  So, with approximately two-hundred people looking at me, I tried to deal with the Girl. Since she was blocking the door of the bar and I was getting "that look" from the staff, I braced myself and  picked her up. My plan was to take her to the other side of the road, where she couldn't get in anyone's way. I imagine it was a similar experience to cuddling a wolverine. She screamed blue murder, kicked and fought and then ran her fingernails across my sunburnt shoulders.

Ouch.

This made me let go, at which point she tried to run out into the road. In a moment of panicked reflex I managed to grab the back of her dress and yank her out of the path of a car before we both ended up in a pile by the side of the road. What felt like a month passed and, just as she was calming down a little old lady with a zimmer frame came over, smiled at me and before I could say; "Non!" started talking to the Girl - who reacted with such volume and bile the old dear literally ran away. And queue another god-knows-how-long of; "No! No! No!" Eventually I managed to distract her by showing her a statue of a lion and in a blink of an eye the whole storm passed like it had never happened. The assembled throng of French market goers looked disappointed, turned back to their drinks and went back to ignoring us.

The next day we went straight to the lake, as this didn't appear to cause the Girl to melt down. I like the lake, it's very peaceful save for the Girl yelling;

"SHUT UP! WE'VE GOT TO BE QUIET!!"

We swam a lot. The Boy insisted, at one point yelling at one of the Step-Brothers-In-Law;

"GET IN THE WATER, YOU JESSIE!"

Before more kindly pointing out;

"It's okay once it's over your nuts."

We inflated the Kids dinghy, tied it to my foot and swam out across the lake, looking for fish and dragonflies. When it was time to come back in I turned around and made for the bank again.

"Did you tie that on properly?"

The Wife asked. I sagely nodded, and explained my expertise with knots.

"Are you still attached Kids?"

"Yes!"

I gave the Wife a "told-you-so" look and swam on laughing about how funny it would be if we turned around and found they were a dot on the horizon.

"Dad."

A small voice said.

"We're not attached any more."

And we turned to discover they were, in fact, a dot on the horizon. Took me a quarter of an hour to catch up with them. By the time I got back I was shattered, and the Girl was geographically disadvantaged;

"Are we in England?"

The rest of the holiday passed relatively uneventfully. The Boy found a level of humour I couldn't have imagined when I explained what happened to the French monarchy;

"Ha ha! Heads cut off! Brilliant!"

And before we knew it, we were having a meal out to celebrate our last night on holiday - where I had the single best pizza of my life. The Girl, clearly enjoying the bonhomie of our last night, pole danced gratuitously for us, around a tree growing up through the middle of the restaurant.

Dear god, no.

Once she finished she sat on the floor in the middle of the restaurant, legs akimbo, skirt hoicked up, and graphically scratched her bits and pieces - thereby putting everyone off their food.

And then, at the end of it all, something weird happened. On the journey home we stopped at some services in the middle of the night so the Kids could go to the loo. The Wife took the Girl to the lady's, whilst I took the Boy to the men's. As the Boy and I walked back out into the warm night I realised I'd had the first real family holiday abroad that we would all remember - and I came over a bit wobbly. I picked the Boy, gave him a cuddle and told him how much I loved him. He smiled, looked at me and said;

"You're the best dad in the world."

And then;

"Heads cut off! I love it!"

P.S. I mentioned the murder thing, didn't I? Funny thing - we were in the South of France, four people got murdered in the Alps and I got bombarded by people asking "Was it near you?" I've come to the conclusion people were rather hoping I'd been shot. Which is just plain mean, you rotters.

The Wrong Side of the Road (Part 1)

For once I have a lot to say, so this will be a two part post.

Yesterday my next door neighbour gave me a very funny look. The sort of look I expect she'd have if she'd found me unexpectedly in her bathroom. I'd been innocently packing our belongings away in the shed after our trip to France last week. The Wife had let the chickens out of their run for a while, and they were merrily getting in my way. Chickens are fundamentally stupid animals, and when you approach them they think you're going to kill them, so they do the only thing they can think of to survive - they offer themselves up for sex. I have to say, when the Wife gets angry enough I try the same tactic. It doesn't work for me.

Anyway, they do this by crouching down and raising the shoulders of their wings slightly. They also stop walking, which meant I was continually staggering around, carrying heavy stuff and trying not to tread on the bloody things. Eventually, this all got a bit much for me. I'd had two hours sleep, driven eight hundred miles and been subjected to motorway service station coffee. So I yelled;

"For Christ's sake I don't want to shag you, you dumb ****ing bird."

And that was when I saw my neighbour.

It was nice to be back. And by nice, I mean shit. Only a week before the whole family had been positively ecstatic at the thought of buggering off to the south of France and doing little other than eating and sleeping. So much so the Kids nearly exploded with excitement as we boarded the ferry at Dover at eight in the evening.

"We're in France!"

"We haven't left yet."

The plan was to drive through the night from Calais to Montpellier, swapping the driving duties as we went. How simple it all sounded. The ferry crossing was smooth enough, I had been slightly nervy we might have to endure one of those vomit-chain-reaction crossings, but it was all plain sailing. Literally. Except without sails. So maybe not. I'm confused, so I'll move on.

The only fly in the ointment was that the Girl insisted on walking around with her hands down the back of her trousers. When I told her off for this she turned and waspishly yelled;

"MY BUM IS ITCHY! I NEED TO SCRATCH IT."

This drew some attention.

Eventually we docked at eleven PM French time. We bundled the Kids in their pyjamas, strapped them in and -

"Are we in France yet?"

"Yes."

"Why are we in France?"

- were off. Now you'll be expecting me to tell you that something happened with Kids on the way, probably involving poo, and the whole journey turned into a nightmare. Wrong. Instead, I had a coffee on the ferry and threw our whole sleeping/driving plan out of the window. I couldn't get to sleep when I needed to and then when it was my turn to drive, all I wanted to do was sleep. At one point I was so mesmerised by the combination of unlit roads and tiredness I couldn't work out how to pull off the motorway. You might wonder why we didn't stop and sleep, but that would have meant driving for seven to ten hours with conscious children in the back. If I tell you I would rather risk hurtling into a ravine with my entire family than suffer that, the parents among you will probably understand why.

The Kids woke up just after dawn, just before we were about to cross the enormous bridge at Millau. It's an amazing spectacle and you haven't seen it I urge you to do so. It's very beautiful. The Boy was very impressed and, as we drove onto it said excitedly;

"We're on the bridge!"

And then, slightly ominously;

"The bridge of dooooooooooom."

And then;

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

As it turned out, we didn't, which everyone agreed was the best outcome. Still, it took another couple of hours to get to where we were staying and even then we had to fart arse around, waiting to be able to get into the house we were staying in, driving around, being lost, trying not to shout at each other, shouting at each other. The short version is that after thirty six hours without sleep we finally got into the house.

To celebrate this the Girl threw a two hour tantrum because after twelve hours of being drive through France she didn't want to get out of the car. Any other child would have stabbed you as soon as you looked at your car keys, but not my Girl. She's got commitment. And she's contrary. Consequently, barely able to see with exhaustion, I carried the wailing wildcat into the house and essentially sat on her until she calmed down.

After forty hours without sleep I finally drifted off, only to wake up the next morning to find my left eye had stopped working, meaning the Wife had to drive everywhere. The upside of this was that I could drink. So I got plastered. This, I discovered, massively improved my outlook and therefore I decided to remain that way.

We spent most of the next few days swimming in the local lake, sitting in the sun whilst the children played, drinking wine (us, not the Kids), eating out and relaxing. The Kids were particularly taken with lake and especially with the idea that if the needed a wee they could simply walk out to waist height and... bingo. The Boy pretty much turned this into his new hobby. The Girl didn't initially get the idea and would simply walk a foot into the lake, sit down and wee. At one point she was eating an apple when she was caught short. Clearly paranoid that her apple might become contaminated, she held it up above her head whilst she sat in an inch of water and wet herself. I have a photo if this. It will be brought out when "boyfriends" turn up at my door, oh yes.

Fortunately they didn't crap in the lake. I'd had my concerns but the one time the Boy needed a poo (as ever, announcing it with panicky gusto to the world) he allowed the Wife to trot him off to the porta-potty we kept in the car. It's basically a stool with the seat cut out, over which you place a bag and they crap in the bag. Then you tie the bag up and throw it into any passing convertible with the roof down. At least that's what I do.

After some time the Boy returned without the Wife. When I asked him where she was he jerked a thumb in the direction of the car park and said;

"She's double-bagging and gagging."

It transpires that the Boy had been "saving up" and done a poo so big the Queen turned up and smashed a bottle of champagne over it.

Coming up in tomorrow's thrilling instalment;

I get sunburn

I get claustrophobia!

The Girl throws another tantrum!

French drivers!

We set the Kid's adrift!

A quadruple murder!^

A terrible secret is revealed!*

^ Er... well, sort of.

*Not really.

Back in the Sun

At the risk of making people think all I do is go to the seaside, we went to the seaside again last week. The same seaside. And I wouldn't mind, but it's not even our local beach. Because we live thirty miles from the nearest beach. And it wasn't that one. We were only in the car for a couple of hours but I got the feeling that was the Boy's limit because when we got out at the beach the he made me tie a blue towel around his neck and ran off singing;

"Nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna SAT NAV!"

That sat nav has become a bit of focus for the Kids. On a recent trip I took with the Girl she asked if she could look at it. She was absolutely fascinated and kept saying;

"It's talking to me! Hello Sat Nav. I love you!"

Sadly, by the time we got to our destination, it was speaking to her in turkish.

However, it had been a bit of a rough journey. On the way up to our camp site the day before the Wife and I had tried to entertain a grumpy and churlish Girl by singing to her. Turns out this doesn't work, and she screamed at us. A lot. We tried to calm her down but she was quite determined that we should NEVER SING AGAIN.

After a tense few miles in which the WIfe and I tried to act like we weren't giving in to her, whilst actually giving into her, her voice piped up;

"Boris you're a cat/Make a big noise/Playing in the street/Going to be a big cat on Sunday... Weeeeee wiiiill weeee wiiiilll rock Boris."

This annoyed the Boy.

"I want to sing Sex on Fire, Dad." *To the Girl in a condescending tone* "Do you know who sings Sex on Fire, Girl?"

"Boris."

This led to an argument that escalated until I had to tell the Boy off for being rude, at which point the Girl tried to assist me by saying;

"It's not on, Boy. IT'S NOT ON!"

Which seemed to be a bit incongruous from a four year old.

Anyway, back to the beach. We wandered down the pebble beach until we found a position equidistant between the chip shop and the cafe. Our friends had come with us, and together we stamped out our beach territory by the strategic placement of towels, bags, a beach tent and bristling every time someone came near. The Kids switched into their sun suits, the Boy insisted on paddling in a sea the colour of slate and the temperature of Pluto. The Wife went and got chips and whilst we waited for her, I fell asleep and the five kids filled my shorts with stones. There's a recommendation for you (and another reason that pebble beaches are better than sandy ones) - it's easier to deal with a metric tonne of pebbles in your shorts than entertain your kids for an hour. It kept them quiet for ages. Then they buried me (with gleeful assistance from one of the parents - honestly, it was like he was five again). Once again, much better to be interred than have to deal with your kids in any way. Admittedly it all went a bit south when one of our friends kids tried to fill my mouth with pebbles, and I discovered how difficult it is to fight off a determined three-year-old when you're weighed down under a pile of stones.

All in all we had another lovely short break, full of giggles and games and fun. It was so much fun we didn't try to hurry the kids off to be so we could all get drunk. I must be getting mellow in my old age...

Dumb and Dumbererer

Earlier today I was going through my normal routine of preparing the Kids dinner whilst simultaneously teaching the Boy to write and fending off the Girl whilst she attacked me with a toy sword. This type of situation has become deeply ingrained my daily routine, meaning that should I ever be jumped by ninjas in the kitchen I feel I could adequately pacify them and teach them how to do joined up writing. It's a niche skill, I grant you, but it's going on the CV nonetheless.

To add to the never-ending fun-filled, aneurysm-fest that is my early evening, whilst I was doing this the telephone rang. My land line almost never rings, so I ran to the receiver scattering pasta, pencils and children in my wake. When I answered it I heard the phrase that turns my blood to steam.

"Hello, are you the homeowner?"

Now, I've done all those cold call tricks you've read about in the past. I've convinced them to send someone out to my second floor flat to measure up for a conservatory, I've pretended I was at a crime scene, pretended to be dead... all of that. For a while I took to answering the phone with the words "Surveillance Unit" but that just freaked my Mum out. And yes, I've joined the Telephone Preference Service, but they still get through. I reserve a particular hatred for cold calling. I know they're just trying to earn a living, but so are arms dealers and whaling fleets. Plus, I did cold calling for two whole days in my late teens. I worked out that by the time I quit I'd made 170 phone calls and 96 of those had led to my heritage being questioned. By the end of it, I was pretty much agreeing with the rather pointed comments of the poor sods I was calling. In fact it was the only job I've ever had where the Manager suggested I should amphetamines so I would speak faster and get through more calls (true story, folks). So, there you go - I'm allowed to hate them.

Sadly, I'm rather too polite for my own good. I often apologise when people tread on my feet, so I couldn't interrupt as the caller went through the first part of their script.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to sell you anything. We were wondering..."

It was at this point I had a microcosm and handed the phone to the Boy.

"It's for you."

He looked puzzled for a moment but took the receiver and put it to his ear.

"Hello... Yes... Yes..." *Pause* "I've got a wet sock because the Girl dropped her cup on the floor and I trod in it and fell on my bum. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... I NEED A POO!"

He ran up the stairs, shoving the phone at me as he went past. Funnily enough, there was no one on the other end.

Much as I moan about the Kids, I do love them. Especially when they get rid of cold callers. Even when they throw tantrums they can be quite adorable.

"Dad, the Girl says this is her book, but it's my book."

*Sigh* "Right."

"It's NOT! It's my book!"

"It's not her book! She's lying!"

"I am NOT! I'm SITTING!"

The Boy thought this was hilarious. Right up until the Girl felled him with an uppercut. She doesn't do being laughed at.

Yes, for all the frustrations, my Kids are lovely. My Kids. Other people's Kids, now they're a pain in the arse.

Two doors down there are a family with two young boys. The combined brain power of these two boys is approximately the same as a boiled egg. One of them, the smaller one, spends all day stopping traffic by cycling out into the road in front of cars, punctuating the air with the screaming of tyres and shouting of words that rhyme with "truck" and "schmit". The other one likes to cycle up and down driveways. My driveway. Often when my car is on it. His other hobby is gawping. A few weeks back the Wife and I were loading up the boot of the car to go camping, and the mindless little oaf not only stared at us like the kid in the Deliverance, he actually stood at the boot of the car gawping into it. After a while, negotiating around the bovine-faced, gormless fruit of someone else's loins wears a bit thin. I was quite proud it took more than thirty seconds to move from "Excuse me" to "EXCUSE me" to "Will you just piss off!"

Let me make this clear, these children don't have special educational needs, they're just plain dumb. A couple of nights ago I could hear them playing a game in their back garden. I'm not sure what the rules were, but it involved a lot of counting, over and over, at very high volume.

"One, two, three, four, six, seven. One, two, three, four, six, seven."

I managed ten minutes whilst watering the garden before I started yelling;

"FIVE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FIVE!"

And who gets the reputation for being weird? Me. That's who.

I haven't always been this patient and forgiving. Shortly after my father died I remember taking my Ma shopping. As we were walking down the stairs from the car park a rotund creature with a ruddy complexion walked into me (I say he walked into me, seeing him coming I tried to get out of his way and somehow he still managed to get me). He looked up at me with the sort of expression you might expect see on a snail, and walked straight into me again. And so I regaled him with;

"Fat and stupid's no way to go through life, kid."

This appeared to have no affect on his demeanour, which was pretty much identical to a blank sheet of A4. Naturally, my Ma gave me a proper telling off. And then started laughing.

I feel bad for being so annoyed by these kids, I do. The worst these kids are guilty of is that they haven't got any moxie. They are very irritating - they're like dealing with a cat that constantly winds through your feet as you walk down the stairs. Actually, scratch that. When I was a teenager a friend of mine had a Labrador, very cheerful, very friendly, dumb as a stone. It had a habit of following me around everywhere, even to the point that when I went to the loo it was lie against the door waiting for me to come out. Unfortunately it wasn't equipped with the brains to get up when I tried to open the door, and since it weighed a metric ton, it was almost impossible to get back out of the loo. Eventually I would be forced to shoulder barge the door, squeeze my arm and head through and shove the door back and forth, all the while with the Labrador looking at me with an expression that simultaneously said; "Why are you doing this to me? I love you!" and "Derrrrrrrrrrrr...."

They're like that. Sorry about the long metaphor. Anyway, my point is, I have had to battle to become the (by comparison) tolerant person I am today. My worst moment of intolerance was when I nearly ran over girl on a pedestrian crossing. Now, that sounds worse than it was, so let me explain.

I was driving merrily along on my way back from work many moons ago and approaching the aforementioned pedestrian crossing. On the pavement were a group of girls sashaying along, as I was about twenty feet from the crossing one of the girls (who resembled my friend's Labrador in both the looks and weight departments) looked at me and very deliberately stepped out in front of me. I pretty much had an MI trying to stop the car, which I did, about a foot away from her. She then turned to her friends and said in the sort of self-righteous, haughty manner only certain ten year old girls can manage;

"See, they have to stop for me."

Before I replied to this I had to wind the window down, which only slightly took the sting out of the  tail when I leaned out and yelled;

"The reason I stopped is because you're so fat you'd write the f**king car off!"

And at that point she burst into tears and ran away. Smooth moves, on my part, I'm sure you'll agree.

This is why I try harder than ever to deal with the sometimes unbelievably vacuous children I meet when I take the Kids to the park. In fact these days I occasionally find myself feeling quite grateful to them. Because every time the Girl puts her shoes on the wrong feet (there's a 50:50 chance and somehow she gets it wrong EVERYTIME) I think; at least she's never picked up a dog turd and tried to eat it.

I've seen that done before.

Madness

Earlier on this week the Girl slipped quietly into back garden whilst the Wife was having a nap and I was gawking at the Olympics (I mean seriously, women's volleyball - if they only wear a couple of elastic bands, I'm going to stare. It's not my fault). Once out there she took the oportunity to sing "We Will Rock You" to the chickens at very high volume.

There are days where it feels like I'm an island of sanity in a sea of crazy people.

Take for instance the trip to Grandma's over the weekend. A typical family gathering over a Sunday roast, lovely food, a little alcohol... My Brother-in-Law and I having a discussion about geeky stuff when the Girl walked up to me, smacked me in the head with a badminton racket and walked away. No explanation, no rationale. Just sudden and extreme violence.

It didn't stop there. Later when I was coming to terms with my Mother-In-Law saying;

"Wow! Did you hear that flash of lightning!"

The Girl and Eldest Cousin ran into the room and delivered the following disturbing information.

"We're milking the Boy!"

Find that on Mumsnet. Six adults stunned into silence by a single comment, all simultaneously trying to NOT think the same thing.

"He's a cat."

While that made no sense, at least it didn't make the situation worse. Unlike

"We're drinking his milk."

As an adult, it's difficult to remember how innocent children can be. Even so, there's no place for milking your blood relations in modern society.

Later, as Eldest Cousin stood in a doorway giving instructions to the adults in the style of cheery concentration camp guard, I asked her if people either ran away or winces when she spoke. She mused on this said

"Winced."

And slammed the door so hard on of my fillings fell out.

And things got no better on leaving. On the command; "Get in the car" the Girl unleashed hell. After much scrabbling and kicking I finally got her strapped in by telling her if she didn't stop fighting me I was going to kill the cat.

I'm not proud of myself.

The Boy decided to play his part late in the day when I stupidly attempted to teach him something. Thinking; small boy + robot landing on alien planet = excitement I started to tell him about the Mars Curiousity Rover.

"It's landing on Mars tomorrow."

"Right-o."

"It's really big."

"How big?"

"About the size of a Mini."

"A mini what?"

"No, it's a car."

"You said it was a robot."

"No, a Mini is a car."

"Why are they landing a car on Mars?"

"It's... The robot they're landing on Mars is the same size as a type of car called a Mini."

"So it's a really small car?"

"Well... Not any more."

"Like a toy car?"

"No..."

"So why is it called a Mini?"

And then, on seeing my exasperated expression he said;

"You started this."

Beside the Seaside

Those of you that notice such things will be aware it's been some time since my last post. This is due to the sort of work related stress normally only encountered by Indiana Jones. Remember that bit at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark? It was like that except without the arrows, spiders, Inca idol or an unrealistic latex model of Alfred Molina with a spear through his head. You might therefore argue it was nothing like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but you weren't there. Back off, man.

The reason for my ridiculous simile is that I can't go into details about what happened at work. Plus you wouldn't want me to because it's rather dull. Plus I get to compare myself to Indiana Jones (whom I resemble in no way at all. I once tried on his hat in the Disney store and discovered I looked like Quentin Crisp). Anyway, let's just say that the past few weeks have made me reassess my priorities and want to spend more time with my Kids.

Seriously. It was that bad.

Annoyingly I missed taking the Kids to another theme park due to work. Fortunately the Mother-In-Law opted to take my place. Obviously I was very grateful about this because otherwise they couldn't go, and the last thing I needed was two sulky children spreading Marmite on my work. Or using it as dressings in the Girl's baby hospital. More appropriately referred to as a "baby abattoir" since I found one of her dolls hanging by the neck with a very pretty pink ribbon. The Mother-In-Law's assistance has been invaluable since we've had the Kids. Only the other week she came round to baby sit whilst the Wife was out and played Snap with the Kids for hours. Sadly, the reason it went on for hours was because she was using a pack of Star Wars Top Trumps which doesn't have any pairs.

Once they'd got back we packed up the tent and buggered off to the seaside. I love the seaside. Take everything important in your life, cover it in sunscreen and liberally coat in sand. What could be finer? We'd headed once again for the Suffolk coast, which for those of you living outside Britain is what the Shire from Lord of the Rings really looks like. Here we learnt the fundamental difference between taking the Kids to a pebble beach and a sandy beach.

Sandy beach - everything you'd expect. Everything gets covered in sand, everyone looks a bit like a doughnut, I end up with sand under my one of my fingernails ("Oooh!" - I know!) and at some point you lose an item of clothing due to burial. Plus, the Kids don't have any sand discipline which means whenever they move, you get covered in sand. We foolishly positioned ourselves right next to a large and impressive sand castle. The Boy took one look at this and decided he was Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

"I want to build that."

"Well, if you pretend you've built that one, then it's mission accomplished."

"You're an idiot."

Clearly this had not worked. So, he set to work with his bucket and spade. After several failures he gave up and set to digging the deepest hole he could. This was done with the gusto of a Labrador burying your best shoes, and showered everyone within several meters in sand, shells and cigarette butts. Meanwhile the Girl was simply lying face up in the sand looking thoroughly PO'd. The Wife asked her if she was making a sand angel, to which the Girl responded by rolling onto her face. When she came back up for air she looked even more PO'd and now had sand on her eyes. ON HER EYES.

Don't get my cynicism wrong - I love the seaside. I hate the sand. And dads (WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGE COMING UP) if you think it's stressful washing sand out of your own foreskin, it's worse when it's not yours. I do not have the words...

Pebble beach - infinitely preferable. Until the Kids start throwing stones at each other. Or someone's dog. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the Girl staggering around with a large rock, preparing to drop it on a snoozing pensioner.

Oh, and then you decide to go for a paddle in a sea where only a few miles off the coast workers on oil rigs are being told that if they fall in the water they'll die.