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. 

Pee Aye Are Tee Why?

I got invited to a house party this weekend. Yes I did. An actual party with people, and music and sambuca. This is a good thing (except for the sambuca, which was very very bad) It's been so long since I've been to a party that if I'd had a child during the last one, that child would have already finished school, fomented a loathing of me, stolen my car, had a spell in prison and written a book about me by now. 

I'm that popular.

Not to say that I haven't been to many parties. Back when I was in the last two years of school I spent so much time at parties I wrecked my exam results with a mixture of hangovers and ignorance. But this was when I was interesting talked about things other than the Kids. That's right, parents. The reason you're not getting invited to parties is not due to the difficultly of finding a baby sitter that isn't a convicted sex offender - it's because people know at some point you'll mention your kids. And from there it's only a matter of seconds before you've got your phone out and you're scrolling through pictures of them saying; "This is him sitting down. This is him standing up. This is him on the toilet. This is him playing with an electrical outlet..." And you'll be saying; "Oh, she's really very clever. I don't want to boast but she'll definitely be a doctor/lawyer/banker/rocket scientist/arms dealer" whilst everyone around you remembers the day they saw your precious little sweetums drinking out of the toilet. Eventually you'll find yourself sitting alone with the dim realisation that you're THAT person at the party. 

"Which one has the kid?"

"See those two people talking?"

"Yeah."

"See the bored one?"
"Yeah?"

"He's the other one."

Anyway, back to me. The friends throwing the party (who, for the sake of anonymity I will refer to as the Smiths) have a son who is friends with the Kids. Consequently we had to indulge in some subterfuge to get away without a drama. Fortunately two things worked to our advantage. Firstly the Boy has become obsessed with the educational benefits of television and has been so distracted he hasn't asked any awkward questions. This has not been without it's pitfalls.

"You can learn a lot from telly."

"Really, Boy. What have you learnt today?"

"Well... Finish Powerball tablets are great for getting rid of stubborn stains."

Secondly, they were having a sleepover at Grandma's. Grandma foolishly turned up a bit early to pick them up and unwisely said "Shall I take them now?" During the time it took her to ask this question the Wife and I had strapped the Kids in the car, shoved her out the door and double locked it.

At four o'clock the next morning the Wife and I were about 80% proof, comprised of a winning mixture of beer, Prosecco, red wine, bourbon and the aforementioned sambuca. I had been told four times by four different people that I looked a bit like Nick Frost (bastards). I had proved once again that when I dance I look like I'm falling downstairs in a set of leg calipers. At one point I had a massive geek out discussion about Japanese cinema and thereby alienated half the people at the party.

"Has he got Kids?"

"Worse. He's comparing Akira Kurasawa's 'Hidden Fortress' with Star Wars."

"Tosser."

 My favourite moment of the evening was when I was reading a note on the toilet door ("This toilet blocks easily. If you're planning something more... solid... please use the upstairs loo") when the Smith Boy ran up to me, yelled

"No poo! No poo!"

And ran away. Random.

Much enjoyment was had, and new friends made - until finally the Wife and I crashed in the Smith Boy's room (I hasten to add, he had been taken to his grandparents by that time). I caught a few fitful hours sleep before being woken up by the uncomfortable sensation of a full bladder and the discovery of a piece of Lego  jammed in my eye. And then the regret. Oh, the regret... The headache was bad enough. The cannonball I had somehow negotiated into my bowel was worse - there was a sense of foreboding about it. Like something awful that would happen out of the blue and all at once. It was bad enough to have it's own theme music. Like Darth Vader.

Some hours later I was in the toilets at the M4 services weeping silently and praying a travelling doctor would find me and administer an epidural. And then the toilet blocked when I flushed it. A battle ensued which I won't describe, but assume it was lengthy and undignified (although successful I should add. I'm not an animal). Heavens knows why by for some reason at bed time that evening I decided to tell the Boy what had happened in the M4 toilets.

"You blocked it?"

"Yeah."

"Wow! Awesome! It must have been huge! Like this big."

And to my distress he held his hands about three feet apart.