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. 

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.

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."

Trampy Castle

When I was at university a friend of mine invited me to go to a Pantera gig at the Brixton Academy. Apparently his girlfriend had refused because he'd taken her to see Rage Against the Machine and someone had headbutted her in the mosh pit. "She's a bit sensitive about being headbutted" he rather gentlemanly stated. I fared about the same as his girlfriend, returning from the gig with a black eye and the imprint of a size nine Doc Marten on my face. Not to say I didn't enjoy myself. It was great. But it wasn't a shock to discover the guitarist later died of a lead overdose brought on by a gunfight at a gig. These days I'm less adventurous. The nearest I've come to this level of violence was being knocked out of my seat by a glitter pyrotechnic which hit me in the face at a Peter Kay gig. Embarrassing. The Wife found me lying stunned on the floor, glasses askew, looking like Liberace had upchucked on me.

However, both of these experiences pale in comparison to the wholesale slaughter involved in adding together; children, fizzy drinks and a bouncy castle. Take my word for it, at the merest sight of a bouncy castle your otherwise well behaved child will start frothing at the mouth, mount a brief and hilariously undignified attempt to get on it, and then lose all memory of the social skills you've been battering into them since the year dot. My two are still little enough to be at the mercy of the bigger kids, meaning whenever they get on a bouncy castle they spend the vast majority of the time being trampled on. This then means that the Wife and I end up in an endless dreary cycle of ;

1. Throw child into the melee
2. Watch as they pinball helplessly around
3. Retrieve crying child from bouncy castle
4. Calm them down
5. Have an argument because you don't think they should go back on
6. Lose the argument
7. Fling child back into the mayhem once again.

This is what happens when the bouncy castle is hired by responsible people. Alternatively you can be invited to the party of your kid's less charming classmate. You know the one. The one that when you're told -

"I've been invited to[anonymous] party."

- your initial thought is; "Oh... bollocks."

"I thought you didn't like him because he keeps hitting you?"
"Yeah. I hate him. But he's got a bouncy castle."

Admit it. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that lives in the council house with the rusting washing machine in the front garden. The one whose dad is a "Chewbacca" (hairy, refuses to wear trousers, shouts incoherently, cheats at boardgames...) and spends the party sitting in a corner, endlessly pouring Stella Artois down his neck, chain smoking and using the word "f**k" as verb, noun and punctuation. The one whose mum sets the bouncy castle up right next to a row of concrete fence posts, a pile of scrap metal and (in my imagination) used hypodermic needles. That one. Those are the sort of parties when you realise; a) why bouncy castles are wipe clean and b) the benefits of free health care.

And the public ones are even worse. When the Girl was only two I took her to a fete at the local park. Typically it was full of bouncy castles and inflatable obstacle courses of all shapes and sizes. Also typically, she chose to go on the one for the oldest children. The entrance to this was a narrow slot at one end, which she couldn't climb up to, leading me to post my daughter into what was essentially the seventh circle of hell. Or at least a machine for mincing children. Happy children went in one end, got mashed and stamped on and asphyxiated before being ejected, squalling and purple faced at the other end. And it was two quid a go. It was like having to pay to have hemorrhoids.

It's not easy seeing the Kids put through this. Whenever another kid treads on the apple of your eye the first reaction is to wade in and hand out a shoe-ing. Of course, you can't do that. Their dad might be bigger than you.

And you shouldn't attack other people's children. Obviously.

Sometimes however, you snap. At another party the Boy was being treated like a tennis ball by a slightly larger and vastly more obnoxious boy on a bouncy castle. I tried to let him fend for himself for a while, but bless him the Boy isn't a fighter. After a couple of minutes I intervened and asked him if he was all right. The boy pushing him snarled "I haven't done nothing" before preceding to shove someone else around. I ignored the urge to drop kick him over the fence and pulled my Boy aside.

"Dad, he keeps pushing me."
"Right, next time he does it, tell him to stop or you'll get angry. If he does it again, tell him again. If he does it a third time..."
 "Tell him again?"
"No, shoot him in the face with that Nerf gun."

Naturally shortly after this the Boy executed the aforementioned little turd with a single shot to the head. I know I shouldn't have been proud, but I was. There in a nutshell you have my parenting technique; morally dubious, but effective. 

The Gift That Keeps on Giving...

Here's a short story.

On Saturday the Kids and I went over to my Ma's address, as we often do. Whilst we were there the Girl said that she wanted to make a present for the Wife, and drew her a picture and wrapped it up in another piece of paper. I didn't get to see the picture she'd drawn because I was busy failing to teach the Boy to take penalties in the back garden (meaning he's likely to play left-back for England at some point). When we returned home I forgot to get the "present" out of the car. The next day we decided to go out to the coast and as she was strapping the Girl into her seat the Wife found the little ball of paper.. As I pulled out the driveway the Wife opened it up saying;

"Is it a picture, Girl?."

"Yeah."

"Did you draw it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh wow! It's brilliant... er..."

and then burst into laughter. The Boy piped up.

"I really like it because she's drawn the horse doing a poo and a wee!"

I slowed to let a car past, and it was then the Wife turned the picture round and showed me this, which caused me to narrowly avoid driving into a parked car.

Cheval Avec Merde - By Girl Aged 3 1/2

Arse

I just spent two hours wandering around thinking I was being attacked by a jester. Everywhere I went I could hear the cheery jingling of bells, which rapidly became really bloody annoying. I didn't manage to work out where it was coming from until the Boy was dropped off from his swimming lesson and greeted me with

"Why have you got a spoon sticking out of your bum?"

Now in my defence, the spoon wasn't actually sticking out of my bum. And technically it wasn't really a spoon it was a reindeer. Or a wooden spoon painted to look like a reindeer (complete with a bell on its collar - hence the jingling noise), which the Girl had pushed through the belt loops of my jeans whilst I wasn't paying attention. This makes me fear the day that she learns to spell rude words, because at some point I'm going to end up wandering around with "Bell end" written on my forehead. Not that I need this, people come to that conclusion astonishingly quickly when they meet me. Once, at a festival someone threw a pint glass full of piss at me from about thirty feet away. It's rare that people have such good aim and are such a good judge of character.

Bums are an oft-commented-upon part of life's rich pageant of life in our house. Recent the Boy clumped himself on the wall and yelled

"Ow! My butt!"

It was odd enough that he was using an Americanism, but even weirder because he'd hit his head.

Whilst we were on "holiday" in the New Forest I was dutifully taking pictures (with my phone, through binoculars - we've lost our camera). I'd had a bit of a row with the Boy because it was impossible to take a photo of him without his tongue sticking out. Finally on a little bridge over a stream, with a beautiful pastoral scene in the background I got him to stand in the right place and then lined up the shot. At which point he mooned me.

You may have noticed that things I do often come back to haunt me. And so it is with the Boy. Two days ago at bed time I had ordered the Kids to get into their pyjamas after bath time. The pair of them had been running around naked, jumping up and down and generally acting like they were in "Where the Wild Things Are." I went out to the bathroom to tidy up the mayhem they'd wreaked, and that was when I heard the Boy say;

"AARRRRRGH!!!!"

He then ran into the bathroom clutching his bum and told me, very earnestly

"Dad, the Girl stuck her finger in my bum!"

Naturally I reacted to this the way any good parent would, and burst out laughing, causing the Boy to have a minor meltdown. In fairness, I was laughing partly out of relief.

Imagine if she'd had a spoon.

The Great British Camping Trip

This is a story about rain.

Being collectively tighter than a duck's arse, the Wife and I have long been associated with going on camping holidays. The Wife will comment that she loves the taste of camping tea, and that the food always tastes better but in truth we do it because we're skint. Otherwise we'd be in five star hotels, drinking Chateau Le Pin and eating grapes off each other. Or in my case, peanuts. I don't like grapes.

So we go camping A LOT, and consequently have a tent approximately the size of Madison Square Garden. Admittedly I've never been to Madison Square Garden, but I did see it in the film Highlander and it seemed quite big.

In spite of what I'm about to say, I love camping. However the Kids love camping. It's a "going back to nature" thing. As in - not washing and acting like animals. So last week we shoved every blanket we owned into the car, hitched up the roofbox and headed to the New Forest.

Now... I was a bit worried about the weather. For the previous week I'd been looking on every weather website I could find, unable find a forecast that I liked. The best of them said; "Torrential downpours, temperatures just above freezing, outbreaks of hypothermia, occasional shark attacks." But based on the fact that a) we couldn't get our money back and b) neither of us wanted to deal with the Girl's reaction to a cancelled holiday (BOOM!), we went.

We pitched up in the early afternoon with the sun shining, managed to get the tent up without divorce being mentioned, chatted amiably with the friends that were with us. As ever in my life, things started swimmingly, before going a bit wrong.

Going camping is not the most relaxing of holidays. For a start it's the only sort of holiday where you have to build your accommodation on arrival. Also, the Kids are generally so excited that they don't manage to fall asleep until several hours after their bed time. When they do go to sleep it's not long before someone shouts "I NEED A POO!"  forcing you to negotiate a number of zips, hurdles, tent pegs and guy ropes in the pitch black, trudging across to a hole in the ground someone has creatively called a toilet and watching the apple of your eye crap on a hedgehog (true story). In fact, most camping holidays I've been on have been dominated by the logistics of having a crap. Hence I spend a lot of time drunk.

Then there are the camping beds. It takes a particular person to go into the design of camping beds. The sort of person that wanted to go into dentistry or vivisection but thought they were a bit "soft." 

• Example 1; the inflatable mattress that you spend three hours inflating on arrival. Net result; waking up in the early hours to discover it has a puncture and you're lying on the freezing ground with paralysing backache

• Example 2; the child's "Readybed" which consists of an inflatable mattress and zip-on sleeping bag. Net result, you're awoken in the early hours because the Boy has flipped over and capsized for the fourteenth time in the night and is being suffocated by the mattress

• Example 3; self inflating mattresses which, for reasons best known to the freak that designed it, are frictionless. Net result; you wake up on the other side of the tent. Or someone else's tent

This means you spend the holiday constantly exhausted and paranoid about your next bowel movement. Or at least I do.

Day two arrived and brought with it the sort of weather you can only expect when you're on a camping holiday in England and GOD HATES YOU. The rain was falling like Facebook shares (topical!) and bouncing off the ground. And just to compound matters, halfway through the day there were gale force winds. So we went off to the National Motor Museum which was brilliant for me because I love cars.

On entering the dimly lit hanger full of cars the Boy suddenly excitedly yelled

"Look! Shaka laka boom boom!"

"That's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

Naturally being a car enthusiast I took to explaining to the Boy the history behind the cars such as Bluebird, or Graham Hill's 1967 Lotus formula 1 car. The Boy responded to this with

"Ha ha, that car looks like an orange!"

Or, when I was explaining how the internal combustion engine worked yelling

"Suck! Bang! Blow! Squeeze!"

"It's 'suck, squeeze, bang, blow' and for Chrissake's stop yelling that!"

We also went on the monorail - except the Girl who climbed the two story building to board it, decided it looked like a roller coaster and galactically shat herself. It was a grand day out. Save for the fact that as the day went on the rain got harder and the wind picked up. Later we got back to the camp site to discover the awning for our tent had been rescued from inside our tent by our friends. And then they went to the pub and all their tents fell over. I rushed around, re-constructing everyone's tents before assisting a French couple who's tent had actually turned into a hot air balloon. Much fun was had as their tent canopy dragged us face down around the field. Oh how we laughed and swore. Fortunately, our tent stayed up, and when our friends had decided (wisely, since their tents had holes or bits missing) to go home, we decided to brave the night. I'm pretty convinced the people in the Titanic's lifeboats had a better night's sleep than we did that night. It sounded like an Apollo mission was launching in our tent.

However I'm pleased to say that the next day the weather improved and we got to spend two days wandering around the New Forest, communing with nature and seeing thousands of wild ponies.

I hate ponies.

Nails

Since starting this blog I've been accosted on a number of occasions by people telling me that I give the Girl bad press when I suggest she'll grow up to be an assassin and such. Whenever I'm accused of this I remember a particularly awful tantrum the Girl once threw whilst we were on a trip to Ravensglass with some friends. I won't go into the details, all you need to know is that my friends now say "Ravenglass" the way Vietnam vets say "Saigon." When people say "My kids throw tantrums" those that have seen the awful splendour of the Girl in full flow simply smile and shake their heads, whilst the Wife and I laugh somewhat shrill and hysterical laughter.

That's not to say she hasn't got a sweet side. Lately she's been playing doctors and nurses (the non disturbing kind) a lot, and she's very caring. Today she wrapped me up in bandages and patted my head very sweetly.

"There, there. Mummy has to go away." *Leaves room*

"Er... where are you going, Girl?"

"Mummy will be back in a minute, darling."

"Ok."

*Several minutes pass*

"Are you ok, Girl?"

"I'm just getting some nails, ok?"

"Some nails?"

"Yes. Mummy has to nail you down to the bed, ok?"

So it all got a bit violent in the end, I'll admit. But she really was being very sweet. Part of what makes her particularly scary is that she's also tough as nails, as I've mentioned before. Aside from being incredibly robust (I get no greater thrill than seeing people's expression change when they pick her up - from "Ah... she wants a cuddle" to "Jesus Christ she's heavy!") she can tobbogan down a set of stairs and crash face first into a radiator without raising more than a quizzical expression. Three times we've been woken up by the crash of her face planting into her bed side table and entered the room to find her, still asleep, clambering into bed with bits of lego stuck on her cheeks. I've always been a bit nervous around big dogs because if they turn I'm unlikely to be able to fight one off. The same kind of goes for the Girl. She's three and a half, but I think in a straight fight she could probably take me. Or at least I did until we went to Legoland last week.

Legoland Windsor is brilliant, I should say, and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. Aside from the fact that they have a Millennium Falcon ten feet wide made of lego, it's also quite good fun for kids. However, I would urge you to do a bit of research about the rides. Because we didn't and I suspect the Girl is going to hold a grudge. As ever it all started quite well, we went on the Spider Spinner and the Girl (who has previously been a bit skittish on such things) loved it. Then we went on Pirate Falls and let ourselves down really rather badly. I'll fully admit I was feeling rather cocky. All of the rides had a minimum height of 0.9 metres and I figured if they were going to let three year old kids on the rides they not going to be all that right?

Well, yes and no.

Pirate Falls is a log ride that rumbles along nicely enough with skeletons coming out of treasure chests and the like before climbing twenty feet and plunging back into the water. I think the picture of the Girl and Boy below is more descriptive than anything I can say.

Fun for all the family. Except these two

That is not joy. That is an unbridled paroxysm of terror. Look at the Girl's eye - she actually thinks she's dying right there. I should add that the camera also caught me very clearly in the middle of a facial transition between smiling and saying the word "Shit!"

After this we went into the castle and found a ghost train called the Dragon. This was far better, chugging along past lego knights and a lego dragon head sticking through the wall, breathing smoke. Then it went through a doorway into brilliant sunshine and turned into a roller coaster. When I'd managed to get my bearings I turned to the Boy and asked him if he was okay.

"No."

He said.

"No I'm not."

The Girl still hasn't forgiven us for this, which is just another reason to be scared of her.

Specs

Recently I had the unpleasant experience of having blood come out of my ears whilst watching the television. This occurred during an article about a woman who had set up a support group. Not such a bad thing, you might think. But this was a support group for mothers "traumatised" by the horror of having to drop their children off at nursery. Traumatised. It didn't help that she had the unkempt, crazy haired, boho-"chic" look of a women that knits her own tampons from coconut hair. Worse still, she went on to claim that after dropping her own daughter off at school (I forget the child's name, I suspect it was "Vulva") she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This caused me to shout unrelentingly at a blankly uncomprehending television until my eyes went blurry and I had to have a lie down. I can't bear melodrama in other people.

Interestingly (well, maybe not) I'm also a hypocrite of epic scale. And prone to significant fits of melodrama. I once commando-crawled out of a bedroom at three in the morning because there was a spider on the ceiling. So when the Wife recently told me that the Boy had to start wearing glasses because he's shorted sighted I handled it in my own idiosyncratic style - denial, grumpy acceptance and then sadness.

As I took the Boy to have his glasses fitted I kept looking at his face conscious that it was the last time I would look at his face without thinking it looked naked without glasses. I felt quite glum about this. When we got home he asked me why I kept looking at him funny, and I didn't know how to answer him. The Boy, being five and subsequently far more emotionally mature than me, took this all in his stride. Assisted by the fact that he was getting Ben 10 glasses and this, in line with his new vocabularic* trend was "Awesome." I have to say, in this respect it is awesome. As I've mentioned before, I had National Health glasses as a child. In the eighties NHS glasses were largely bought by parents that were on the breadline or, in my case, bastards. Where his specs have Ben 10 written on them, mine had "Apply fist". 

My concerns that he'll get bullied have been somewhat alleviated by people pointing out that Harry Potter has made wearing glasses cool. This hadn't occurred to me because the Harry Potter thing has largely passed me by. I put this down to the fact that I've never read the books or seen the films BECAUSE I'M NOT TWELVE.That said, my misgivings were not soothed by

"Boy, you need to put your glasses on."

"But I've worn them once today."

"You have to wear them all the time."

"Whaaaat?"

And to compound matters the next morning (having had to be reminded to put his glasses on) the Boy said

*Sigh* "Oh yeah. I forgot I can't see. That's two things that are wrong with me."

"Two?"

"Yeah. I've got a verrucae."

Bullying aside it turns out I still have a whole new world of worry. The Girl is currently stuffing the Boy into a cardboard box yelling (quite viciously)

"Do you like it in there? DO YOU?"

Not that I'm worried about her state of of mind. I've long since been convinced she's destined to be an international assassin of some renown. I'm worried about the Boy's glasses.

Everyone else has been more than impressed with how cool he looks in his specs. Adults are particularly taken with them - Facebook has been replete with "Likes" since I posted a picture of him grinning away (with food in his teeth). I suppose it's partly because he looks like a Little Professor.

The Boy

Only without the moustache. Or off switch.

This weekend I met up my Brother's family at my Ma's house and my brother was kind enough to complement the Boy on how cool he looked. Sadly this didn't get noticed by the Boy as a moment later my four year old Nephew hit my Brother in the face with a large foam number 7.

"Ow. What number have you got there?

"Arse."

He doesn't talk much, the Nephew. But he's a cracking judge of character.

*Before the comments come rolling in, it is a word, you just haven't heard of it because I made it up.

Cool

Today we went to a park. A very impressive park. The sort of park that, if it had been around when I was a kid would have induced instant and uncontrollable bowel movements. It had rope climbing frames, a pirate ship, a death slide, a splash park and all manner of devices designed to make parents say; "Er... Aren't you a bit small for that." It was trouser-explodingly exciting.

"Awesome!"

The Boy yelled as we went through the gate.

"Yeah! Look, there's a pirate shi-"

"A BIN THAT LOOKS LIKE A ROCKET!!!"

"Yes, but the p-"

"AND ONE THAT LOOKS LIKE A FROG!!! Awesome!"

Awesome, it appears, is the word du jour. Or "cool." Although the Boy's standards are rather low. After the usual ten minutes of clutching his winkle he finally admitted he needed a wee and we dashed to the toilets. Here the Boy had one of his formative moments by using a urinal for the first time. There was an awkward moment when he compared his equipment to the man already peeing

"Daddy..."

*Through clenched teeth* "Say NOTHING."

Then, stupidly I said

"Remember why you're in trouble at school..."

"I didn't look up her skirt! That was Henry! I just touched her!"

*Hurriedly* "On the hand, yes I know. I don't know why I started this..."

I should add, at this point, that the Boy's school is operating a zero tolerance policy. Seems a bit harsh. He's only five. They'll have him in an orange suit breaking rocks in the hard sun. And now I have the Clash in my head. 

Anyway, then he went to work, and as he did, the urinals flushed.

"Awesome! How did they know? Is there a camera?"

Equally, last night he told me

"I'm really cool. I'm like a stunt man."

This, based entirely on the fact that he'd walked up the stairs. He wasn't even on fire when he did it.

Meanwhile the Girl is going through a maternal stage, carrying her baby with her everywhere. Even to the loo. The Boy, sensing a new way to torture his sister, has latched onto this. Hence I walked into the house earlier to hear the Boy clutching his nipple and crying

"What happened?"

"He punched my baby!"

"She pinched my booby!"

I had to admire the word play, even if they made me feel like a Police officer at a domestic. I tried to settle things down but the Boy had aroused the beast that is the Girl's maternal instinct and she kicked him in the face. This, he later told me was

"Not awesome."

In other news, we're having cat troubles. The Cat insists on catching fleas. The fleas, in turn, insist on biting the Boy. The Boy, in turn, insists on being allergic to the bites. As does the Cat. Not ideal, and having treated the Cat with everything short of weapon grade plutonium or a shovel, nothing has worked. This has lead to me having the following conversation with the Boy

"Adam at school says that I've got chicken pox."

"Does he?"

"Yeah. I said 'I haven't got chicken pox, I've got fleas, you idiot.'"

"Oh... brilliant."

So the wife took the Cat to the vet. The vet has decided that the Cat is stressed. Because it has to crap outside. Whilst this may seem stupid to all but the weirdest, most socially inept of cat people, if you think about it there is some sense behind. Think of the tiger, on the verge of extinction. Has to crap outside. The Lynx, once common across Europe - no litter trays. It's why you see so many cats in rehab clinics. The Cat came home, no less stressed. So stressed in fact, this happened.

Keep back. Cat on the edge. Of falling asleep.

Full Circle

When I was about seven my Dad gave me a copy of Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" to read, and I just devoured it. Before that I'd read nothing but the Famous Five and thought the world pretty much revolved around Dick and Fanny. But reading "Dandelion Wine" was like having someone draw back the curtain on the world. I still love that book now.

Since then I've loved to read. I don't always read a lot, I don't always read quickly, but I always read. That was what made me want to go into teaching when I was younger and in 1992 I went to university to train to be a teacher.

I will admit I went into this with eyes blinded by visions of taking the kids on "learning journeys", and watching their faces light up as they learned to read. What actually happened was they ignored me, or told me to me to stick my f***ing book up my f***ing arse. On one occasion, I was stabbed in the leg with a pair of plastic scissors. I still have the scar.

The culmination of my two years teacher training was when the parent of one of the kids in my class came in to complain that I'd told his son to ask him for help with his homework. His argument, made at high volume with liberal dose of swearing, was that I was getting paid to teach his son, not him. Dealing with the human equivalent of an unflushed toilet is not my strong suit, and I left teaching not long after this and took a job standing in a field for the next eight years (not an exaggeration).

The experience also put me off having children, being near children and pretty much everything to do with children other than avoiding them. It took some time to come round to the idea of having kids. Even when I had the Kids I wasn't always convinced. Once we went out for a meal at a well known Italian-American restaurant and the Kids both decided they needed the toilet. Since I had lost the battle to sit furthest away from the toilet, I got to take them. We went to the disabled loo because dealing with two frantic children full of wee in a cramped space isn't particularly relaxing. Everything went fairly swimmingly right up until I made the mistake of using the loo myself and - at the moment I was at my most vulnerable - the Boy threw the door wide open and wandered back out into the restaurant leaving me on display like a Tracey Emin installation.

But when the Girl tells me

"Grandma got eaten by a bat!"

Or the Boy draws me a picture of an alien that looks suspiciously like a penis, well I can't help but love them. In fact I can't understand those parents that don't want to spend their time with their kids.

And now I get to see the Boy learning to read - and I don't think there has been any greater joy in my life. As we were reading a book tonight I introduced him to a new word.

"Weary. It means tired."

*Gasp* "Cool! That's a 'wow word'! Can you write it down and I'll take it into school? I'll get the pen and paper!"

As he ran out of the room he said

"Query."

"Actually, it was 'weary.' A 'query' means something else. A query is like a question."

*VERY excited* "That's another wow word!"

At this point I clapped my hands on my cheeks in mock surprise and (unwisely) said

"I know! Joy-gasm!"

You can probably guess the next bit. Needless to say I'm going to have some explaining to do next parent's evening.

Growing

To be honest, the title of this blog isn't strictly accurate any more. When I first started writing about the Kids the Boy had just started talking and the Girl wasn't doing any much other than puking in my shoes. These days they're growing up fast.. Just the other day the Girl ran into the kitchen and told her mum, quite aggressively

"I'm going through the menopause!"

So these days talking with them is less like a verbal boxing match and more like a pincer movement.

"Okay Kids, who can name an animal other than a horse that people can ride?"

"A horse!"

"No, Girl. Other than a horse. A different animal."

"Er... a camel?"

"Good one, Boy. Any others?"

"A horse?"

"No, Boy. We said other than a horse."

"A camel."

"We've said camel, Girl."

"A flower?"

"Flower's aren't animals."

"A car!"

"Nor are cars."

"Oh."

"A horse!"

I like to think that they're deliberately winding me up. Mainly because the alternative is that they're idiots.

Still, every day they become more like their parents (I'm not saying we're idiots. I am. The Wife married me, so she's got her moments, but we're not... never mind.) Much like myself the Boy wants to crack jokes the whole time, and isn't getting any better.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"I don't know."

"Well... he might have been on fire."

"Whu-?"

And the Girl likes telling people off. Which she doesn't get from me...

"Oh god, it stinks in here! Did you do a blow off?"

"Don't say that, Daddy!"

"What?"

"Blow off!"

"You don't want me to say blow off?"

"DON'T!"

"But you said blow off!"

"I DIDN'T! STOP SAYING BLOW OFF!"

"Dad, you better stop saying blow off. She's gone a funny colour."


Meanwhile I'm still failing to grow up. Last week the Wife asked me to get a bin bag with "some toys we've been given" in them. When the Boy opened the bag it contained two Pallitoy original Star Wars action figure vehicles (look, just suck it up. I'm a geek dad. Star Wars features heavily here). One was a Scout Walker complete with the ORIGINAL BOX. The other one was an AT-AT walker. Lets just pause over the majesty of that announcement....

...

No? Right - a story. On Christmas day 1982 I ran downstairs at five in the morning and ran into my living room because I was fully expecting an AT-AT walker that year. I'd been asking for one since I'd first seen The Empire Strikes Back. When I got into the living room I saw a sheet draped over something, and the sheet had a tag with my name on it and when I drew it back it was a f**king BMX.

"We thought you needed to get out more."

My Mum said. My Dad was a bit more blunt.

"You look like a f**king vampire, Boy. Get some sunlight."

I'm not so petty that I've been annoyed about that for the past twenty-one years. Actually, screw it. I'm way petty enough and I am still angry. Or was, until I got an AT-AT walker the other day. It fixed twenty-one years of disappointment for me and I was overjoyed to play with it with the Boy right up until the Girl walked in and yelled;

"ROBOT DOG!"

And basically ruined it for me.

And yet although the Boy has long gangly legs now, and doesn't like cuddles quite as much as he used to. Although the Girl doesn't throw as many tantrums, and has grown from a beautiful toddler to a beautiful little girl - they're little kids. The Girl has been ill again today, and is curled up on the sofa next to me, clutching her toy horse with the Cat curled up next to her. Its a like an advert for better living in my house right now. Except for the smell of sick.






Two dedications today - apologies, but they're important in my world.

Welcome to the world Christopher - it was nice to meet you today.

Get well soon Maria.

That is all. Go and watch The Voice. Or whatever.