Wednesday 26 March 2014

A Word of Advice

"Dad, what's the Internet?"

"Well, it's a way for people to tell other people their opinion about things they don't know anything about. "

And so, this blog was born.

Regular readers may have noticed that, for a blog about parenting, there's not a lot of advice in here. At least I hope you have. I am not someone to seek advice from. I am someone on the verge of losing my parenting qualifications for gross incompetence. I was barely qualified as a person before I even had kids. I'm the only person I know who, whilst on a date, was asked;

"Can I ask you a personal question? "

"Sure. "

"How long have you known you are gay?"

"Well... Wait, what? I'm not gay. "

"Really?"

"NO! Er, I mean no. "

*Awkward pause*

"Wait a minute... If you thought I was gay, why did you agree to go on a date with me?"

"This is a date? "

On a holiday I managed (in the space of a weekend) to knock myself unconscious with;

A stairwell
A power shower
A six foot pink plastic phallus

I still can't tell the time on anything other than a digital clock (because digital watches ARE THE FUTURE).
Largely I write this to amuse myself (occasionally, I'm led to believe, other people are amused to. By my grammar). Any advice is accidental.
The reason for this is that parents just can't stop handing out advice at every juncture. It's bad enough in the real world where you can't say;

"My son's a bit poorly at the moment. "

Without some genius replying

"Have you given him calpol?"

No. I've given him methadone, you blithering imbecile.

However on Facebook, as with all things, the arsehollery is multiplied by a factor of the internet³. For instance, if you child has a fever;

"My health visitor said give the calpol when his temperature has come up. "

"Don't give calpol on a day with an 'n' in or SOMETHING AWFUL WILL HAPPEN."

"We distracted our daughter Hegemony by playing the harp and then soothed her pain with a patchouli poultice. "

"The doctor will say that you should give him calprofen. Ignore the doctor because despite their expert knowledge and experience they don't know as much as me because I have two year old and an opinion."

We're all guilty of this (I AM A MASSIVE HYPOCRITE). We justify it with the words "I'm just trying to help" when what we're actually saying is; "Please validate my existence with gratitude."

Why? Because you never hear your kids say;

"Thanks for cooking dinner, it must have taken ages! "

"I'm just going to tidy my room. "

"Would you like me to open a bottle of wine?"

"I've flushed the toilet. "

And if you do they're just covering for the fact that they've shat down the back of the sofa. Again.

So the next time you're gritting your teeth whilst someone vomits their unwanted parenting tips on you, just remember; they're living with slave driving, egocentric ingrates.

Then remember it was their choice, and tell them to piss off.

Friday 21 March 2014

God Only Knows

I won't lie, this post is going to alienate a few people. Bit of a dangerous move on my part because losing one reader pretty much halves my readership.

The other week I went to see the Boy in a local production of a Russian folk tale. It was about the unilateral annexation of a state by a repressive regime. No wait. It was about an egg and a firebird. Or was that the news? It's so hard to keep up. Anyway, the Boy was proudly playing Chicken Number four. An important role, for the first forty five seconds of the play, leaving him plenty of time to stare vacantly into space and see how far his index finger would fit up his nose for another fifty nine minutes. Still, for the princely sum of five quid I got to sit on a school bench, work on my piles and crane round someone's head to catch a glimpse of the Boy. Who was fiddling with his bits at least all of the time.

This, however, was not the worst of the experience of the day though. Unfortunately, as often happens when I'm unaccompanied, I somehow attracted the attentions of a lunatic. Whilst in the queue I found myself chatting with the support of supermum you often find at these events. Some of you will know the type. Typically isolated by the other parents because they've all spoken to her once in the past, with the unmistakable air of someone who believes that they have been gifted a view of the world that is unshakeably RIGHT and must be shared with the world. Whether or not they want to listen.

Sadly, because I'm not terribly good at being overtly rude, these people are the flies around my dog shit. So this happened;

"Do what school does your Boy go to? "

I foolishly told her.

"Oh. That's a faith school, isn't it?"

"Yes. "

"I couldn't send my child to a faith school. I'm an athiest."

"Fair enough. "

"I don't think my child needs people to tell them fairy tales about heaven so they feel better about dying."

"So your child doesn't believe in fairy tales? "

"No."

"So no Father Christmas? Your kid doesn't believe in Santa? "

"Oh, yes. Of course he does."

"So... What's the difference? "

"Well, I don't believe in heaven."

"Oh, right. I've got some bad news about Father Christmas for you. "

This went on. It struck me as odd, as I tweeted my irritation with her as she continued to talk, that people like her actually exist in the real world. Ordinarily you only encounter them in badly written books. Which may explain why she fits so well into this blog.

"Still, it's nice that dad's make the effort to get to these things. Although I always think, at the end of the day, it's mum that kids want to see. "

"Oh, you can just f**k off."

I replied, before I'd really thought it through, somewhat surprising myself.

You see, there's something about a self righteous atheist that brings out the worst in me. I have no problem with atheists, a person's view is their entitlement. It's not my view, but I understand and respect it. But the sort of bombastic hypocrite that decries the bigotry of religions by sweeping statements about religion being the cause of all the ills in the world really could do with talking less shit and getting enlightened. People cause the world's ills. Not abstract concepts.

My kids believe in heaven and that keeps them from worrying about their own mortality and that of those they love. It hasn't warped them, and they are happier for it.

Although the other day the Girl did tell me;

"I'm not going to die until I'm a hundred. When I'm crucified."

So it might be that I know nothing.

Monday 10 March 2014

Falling Down

Well, the party season has started, and the stakes just got raised. The Boy went to two parties this weekend, involving him in a trilogy of fun that went from ice hockey to quad biking to Quasar. Gone are the days of standing in the corner of a church hall, drinking a cup of tea whilst watching your little darlings dodge vomit on a bouncy castle. Now I'm being forced to join in. And I'm not a join in sort of chap. I'm more of a "come near me and I'll cut you" sort of chap.

The Boy has been ice skating before. We got him and the Girl six ice skating lessons after Christmas and after six weeks and thirty quid the Boy went from being able to stand up on the ice to being able to lie on his back and yell "I can't get up!". Somehow he managed to remove information from his brain. This was probably because ten minutes into his first lesson he nose dived spectacularly and hurt his wrist. Naturally, when he came off the ice he said he didn't want to do it any more. Naturally, I told him we'd spent the thirty quid, so he was bloody well going back again. I'm caring like that.

It was with some trepidation that the Boy arrived for the ice hockey. Only it wasn't ice, it was a waxed floor. This meant that it was easier to skate on supposedly. It also meant that after an hour everything I owned had wax on it and I was almost entirely frictionless. 

Certainly the Boy found it easier to move around on. Especially when he had one of those penguin shaped things to push around. However, at one point this got taken off him, and he found himself stranded in the middle of the rink. He looked forlornly at me.

"Help!"
"You're fine. Just remember your ice skating lessons!"
"I only learnt how to fall over!"

I couldn't argue with that. So, with a due sense of dread, I went and got some ice skates that purported to be my size, but turned out to be clown shoes.

I have been skating once before. It was about twenty years ago. I remember three things;


  1. I didn't like it
  2. I fell over in such a manner that when I hit the ice my elbow drew a big question mark in blood on the ice
  3. I had to be rescued by a twelve year old boy

You see, dear reader, I have the grace and elegance of a duck with an inner ear problem. Thus, when I went out onto the rink, things were destined to go only one way. Down. 

I managed to get over to the Boy with only a small amount of wind-milling my arms and stood with him, encouraging him to walk like he'd been shown in his lessons. After a moment or two he got the hang of it, and started to build his confidence.

"That's right. Like this, Boy."

And I instantly fell over. Not in a "whoops-a-daisy" way, but the sort of way people fall down a flight of stairs in leg callipers.

"Did you fall?"

The Boy asked, observant as ever. I responded with something that sounded like, but definitely wasn't;

"Nollocks."

One of the other dads had to help me up and take me to the side. The Boy refused to be seen around me for a while after that.

Then he went quad biking, which was hilarious for a range of reasons. One was that I have never seen a group of children so excited. They were literally frothing at the mouth, unable to form coherent sentences or even sounds that resembled words.

"Are you looking forward to this, kids?"
"Fmasdallalla!"
"Er, is that a yes?"
"SHAMALIDUKDUK!"

Secondly because they had to wear crash helmets that were adult sized. So the Boy looked like this;

The Stig's bobble-headed cousin

And finally because, from the moment they had their crash hats on the only thing they wanted to do was either punch each other in the face, or head butt each other. It was like a punch up at the National Association of Midget Bikers AGM. And when they eventually broke the fight up and got them on the quads - well. It turns out that when you put your average seven-year-old boy on a quad, they forget what a corner is. The whole time they were on the bikes they would ride in a straight line, stop when they got to a tyre wall and then look in bemusement over their shoulders at the two poor sods running the place. They would then get dug out of the tyre wall, let loose to ride in a straight line and repeat the whole process. I now know what the most soul destroying job in the world is. After five minutes of this I wanted to kill myself on their behalf.

Quasar was the biggest hit for the Boy it turns out - when I asked him what he enjoyed the most. Although when I asked why he replied;

"Because I shot Leon's dad in the nuts like, a hundred times!"

Friday 7 March 2014

Embarrassment of Riches

This blog would work better if one email of my children was called Rich.

I often tell people that I'm "unembarrassable", partly because I have only a tenuous grip on the English language, and partly because of my father. My Dad was very keen on winding up his children in whatever manner he could. Making any kind of verbal blunder in front of Dad would inevitably result in being reminded of this for the rest of your life, in public. For instance, I once tried to ask the question; "How many of the ten commandments are negative?" and instead (because God hates me) the words that came tumbling out of my mouth were; "How many commandments are there in the ten commandments?"

This question has fallen into family lore. In fact, he reminded me of this faux pas during my graduation ceremony from university. In Southwark Cathedral - at the lectern. Via a microphone.

If it wasn't the fruits of the vacuum between my ears, then it was anything he thought of that would amuse him. One particular favourite was intentionally calling my girlfriend by the wrong name.

"You must be Clare."
"Daaad."
"Not Clare? Janet?"
"Knock it off, dad. You're not funny."
"Julian?" 

Due to this I have found myself fundamentally unfazed by, for instance, knocking myself unconscious on a six foot phallus in the sex museum in Amsterdam. Or tripping up and falling head first into a toilet at work.

This was all fine and dandy until I had kids. A few weeks back I picked the Boy up from his dodgeball class. He was clearly quite cheery as I walked around the school hall retrieving his school clothes from the floor, the roof, behind his ears, and the other assorted locations he'd strewn them. As we walked out of the door he showed me the paper chatterbox he'd made. You remember them, they look like this;


"Pick a colour, dad."
"Blue."
"Pee. Eye. En. Kay... Pick a number.
"I said 'blue'."
"That's not a number."
"No..." *sigh* "Eight."
"One...two...three...four...five..."
"I said 'eight'"
"It says; 'You are sexy.'"

He managed to say this, just as we were passing the headteacher, who paused for a moment and gave me a quizzical expression.

"Uh. I don't think that's a word that you should be using."
"Why? Aren't you sexy?"
"No... I mean... well, actually no. But..."
"Is Grandma sexy?"
"Will you, for the love of God, shut up?"

Sometimes it's like being haunted by the spirit of my Dad. The Girl doesn't do this sort of thing. She goes for another kind of embarrassing.

"Dad?"
"Yes."
"I didn't get to the toilet on time."
"Oh, no! Have you wet yourself?"
"No."
"Oh, good."
"I did a poo."

However, the award for maximum dadbarrassment has to go to the Boy at yesterday's swimming lesson. After the lesson had finished he went under the showers and, just as I was walking into the changing rooms with him he clutched his winkle and yelled;

"Ooh! I need a wee!"

And he ran away, still holding his winkle. I sighed and went into the changing rooms, sat down and waited. And waited.

And waited.

After about ten minutes it started to dawn on me that I was the only person in the room without a child. That I was, in the eyes of the other parents, a grey haired man with "the look", sitting on his own in a kids changing room. This started to attract looks of suspicion. After a few more minutes the other parents were holding towels around their kids and looking at me as if I was something they'd trod in. This became a little uncomfortable, so as a defence mechanism I put my hand in my pocket and reached for my phone, and stopped when one woman saw what I was doing and her eyes went as wide as saucers.

It was at this precise moment that the Boy strode into the changing rooms, completely naked and twirling his soaking wet swimming trunks around his head. For the first time in his life, he appeared to have a moment of clarity, and became aware of his surroundings. He looked first at me, then at the woman who had been looking at me (now aghast), then dropped his trunks, wiggled his hips so his bits jiggled and went;

"WOO!"

Tuesday 4 March 2014

Back Once Again

How the hell is it March?

Well, somehow three months have gone past since my last post. There's no specific reason for this - just the usual case of man planning and God laughing. Still, you'll no doubt be very pleased to know that pretty much nothing has changed in our lives since the last time we invited you in. As if to prove this yesterday, the Boy managed to do a poo that was lime green. Well, lime green and brown. This may seem like an exaggeration, but I can assure you it isn't and no I'm not going to post a picture because this isn't http://www.ratemypoo.com/

Yes. That website exists. You're just going to have to deal with that information.

I won't lie. I was a bit surprised by a lime green poo, so I called the Wife in to look at it. She was quite surprised too and, after a moment of consideration said;

"You know, that might work in the living room."

Over the past ten years I've got to understand how the Wife's mind works, and it occurred to me that she probably meant the colour. Not the actual poo. Since the Boy is seven and the Girl is five we've had several crap-free years with our living room, and I'd started to take it for granted. Plus, as a coffee-table centre piece, I don't think would have worked with the Denby tea set.

The Boy was simply delighted with what he clearly considered a new-found super-power - and was mildly crushed when we pointed out it was probably because he'd eaten candy floss the day before that was a level of blue that can only be conveyed in capital letters, font: helvetica, pica: 16

BLUE

Oh yes. Still, on a certain level it pleases me that the Boy is still young enough to think that the attractiveness of food is directly proportional with it similarity to the colour of a crayon.

Although I do wish he'd stop eating all the crayons.

Typically the Boy dealt with his disappointment that he was not going to be able to produce a rainbow or even tartan bowel movement by delving into the very secrets of the universe and coming up with the following question;

"Is it possible to flambé a platypus?"

This was infinitely preferable to the conversation the Girl was trying to embark on with me whilst she was sitting in the bath that went along the lines of;

"Do babies come from here?"

She pointed at her... er... lady garden.

"Um, yes. Darling. How was sch-?"

"What, from the hole?"

"How was school, darling?"

She ignored me, and leaned forward in the bath as if trying to see up-

"I CANNOT FUNCTION IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES!"

I yelled, and flounced out of the bathroom like the big frilly girl's blouse I am.

In fact, there is one new aspect to our lives - we're moving. Which means that the Girl can alienate a whole new set of neighbours by making a noise like a wolverine being fed into a jet engine when we're unreasonable enough to ask her to get changed, or look at her funny. Or breathe after eleven o'clock. And of course the Boy will do his bit by, as he currently does, singing a non-stop medley of the hits of Cher.

I have to take a certain amount of responsibility here, because he heard me singing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" a few weeks ago and got a bit obsessed with the song, so I bought it for him and put it on his MP3 player, which was I thought was a fine idea. Mainly because I had never heard anything other than the first verse and therefore wasn't expecting him to walk around school singing;

"Picked up a boy just south of Mobile, gave him a ride, filled him with a hot meal. I was sixteen, he was twenty-one. Rode with us to Memphis and papa would shot him if he knew what he'd done."

There's a possibility this will have repercussions.