Dear Dave

  Judging a book by its shopping

Dear Dave,

Yep, you're right, that's outrageous. When you take a small child in to see the doctor, you need to be put at ease. You don't need the doctor sticking her head out the door for a double-check and then turning to the child and saying, "Is mummy not here?" as if you're invisible. Being treated like a second-class parent isn't helpful.

It's fairly typical, though. I discovered this only a few days after Fraser was born:

During the pregnancy, one of Sarah's blood samples showed abnormalities and so they gave her an extra scan. The suspected problem wasn't there but they did notice a possible issue with one of Fraser's kidneys. We had to go back for another test once he'd popped out. (Translation: Once he'd been yanked forcibly into the world by his head.) As tests go, this one was about as much fun as an oral algebra exam conducted in German. It involved getting him to pee liquid containing a metallic solution and X-raying him to see everything functioned correctly. The really good bit was that they put the liquid into him through the same apparatus they were expecting him to use to get it out again. (Boy, did he look surprised and betrayed.) Everything was being set up and I was told to put on a lead apron. I went to get one and turned back to find the technician was halfway through telling Sarah about the procedure without me. Since Fraser's day-to-day health is my responsibility, this would have been annoying at the best of times but it was particularly unfortunate because Sarah was still sore and drugged up on pain-killers. She was not in a fit state to take in and remember all the information. I wasn't too impressed.

I hate to think what it's like for divorced or unmarried dads. They probably get not only ignored but asked for paperwork in triplicate before being allowed to give medical consent. Gah!

Thankfully, Fraser was fine. These days, on the rare occasions when Sarah and I find ourselves talking together to healthcare professionals about the kids, a weird form of simultaneous translation can end up taking place:

Doctor (to Sarah): Has Marie had all her vaccinations?
Sarah (looking at me): She has, hasn't she?
Me (to doctor): Yep, she's up to date with all her jabs.
Doctor (to Sarah): So she's up to date with all her vaccinations?
Sarah: Yes.
Me (to doctor): When should she take these pills?
Doctor (to Sarah): Three times a day, preferably with food.
Sarah (looking at me again): Er...
Me (checking my hands to make sure I haven't inadvertently turned invisible): That will be fine...

To be honest, it's unfair to pick on the medical profession. Whenever I go to the barber, I'm always asked if it's my day off, despite usually having a gaggle of children with me. There are simply not of us housedads around to make an impact on people's assumptions. I even met a mother of small children recently who was totally unaware of the existence of housedads. That's right - she'd never heard of either of us. (Peculiarly, and to her great credit, she was also the first person in years to work out I'm a housedad without being told. Go figure.)

Sadly, living with bizarre attitudes and false suppositions is going to be part of a housedad's lot for many years to come. Maybe the next generation will fair better. I doubt it, however. My own household isn't that enlightened. The boys are already looking for rich women to marry so they can stay home and play computer games. If they can't find any, they're going to send their sister out to work instead...

As for me, I caught myself making snap judgements of people in the supermarket checkout line the other Saturday, simply on the basis of their shopping. I've been trying to stop doing this sort of thing but if the thirty-something woman in front of me is buying a packet of salad, a bottle of red wine, some chocolate and a sachet of cat food, I can't stop the Bridget Jones alarms from ringing. You know how it is...

On this occasion, I was put in a nosy mood by the middle-aged woman at the front of the line. She was buying six bottles of water and six bars of soap and nothing else. I couldn't help wondering what she was off to do. I couldn't figure it out. The very fact I wasn't able to pigeon-hole her straight off made me set to work on the other people ahead of me.

The man behind her was purchasing two bottles of washing-up liquid. I can't imagine just buying washing-up liquid. If I were nipping into the supermarket to buy washing-up liquid, I'd also buy six pints of milk, a dozen apples, two loaves of bread, a packet of biscuits and some cheese. It wouldn't matter if I'd already bought all these things on a trip to the shops in the morning and I was merely popping back because I'd forgotten to get washing-up liquid - I would buy them a second time since, like as not, we'd be running low once more. There's even a chance I would be so intent on buying milk, I might forget the washing-up liquid again.

I had to suspect the guy wasn't a housedad.

Next in line was a younger man buying sixteen cans of lager. You can't really argue with that kind of focused purchasing. It was doubly impressive, as his mate was in the other queue, also buying sixteen cans of lager. I could only assume there was football on.

Directly in front of me, a thirty-something woman was buying two selection packs of Cornetto cones and eight rolls of toilet paper. I pictured a Bridget Jones convention with much ice-cream and crying.

Then I glanced at my own basket. I had fifty portions of fruit and vegetables, two loaves of wholemeal bread and a large tub of natural yogurt. I was too overloaded to carry milk or cheese and I didn't have any children with me to explain the unnatural amount of veg I was holding. I must have looked like some kind of health food junkie on my way to eat carrot sandwiches and then wash them down with pro-biotic digestive goodness.

I hastily grabbed a packet of biscuits from a display and added it to my supplies. This merely made me look like I had a health food junkie for a wife and I was hoping to smuggle some sugar into the house.

Who knows what the people behind me were imagining? I didn't look much like a housedad.

Then again, maybe I never do.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised at the reactions we normally get. Yeah, it's annoying when we take the kids to the doctor but maybe there's some way we can spin it to our advantage. Obviously, there's a lesson to be learned in not leaping to conclusions about other people but there's also an opportunity to totally mess with their heads at the same time. If no one can guess or take in our actual jobs, we have the freedom to masquerade as International Men of Mystery. We can pull crazy stunts and dress like Austen Powers and no one will look at us any more strangely than they do already.

I went home and pondered this while eating the biscuits. Then I discovered we were out of milk and I had to go back to the shop for some more. When I was there, I bought two bottles of washing-up liquid, eight rolls of toilet paper, sixteen cans of lager, a couple of packs of Cornettos, six bottles of water and half a dozen bars of soap.

True, this probably only ranks me as a Decidedly-Local Man of Puzzlement but it should have kept everyone in the queue behind me guessing. It's a start.

Groovy, baby!

All the best and I hope Sam recovers from his cough soon.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad

  11:00 AM - Permanent Link - 3 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Trying not to freak

Dear Dave,

A couple of weeks back, you asked about any differences I'd noticed between the way housedads and housemums bring up children. I told you how my priorities sometimes seem to vary from the mums I meet. I'll often hold off in teaching the kids new skills, such as using cutlery, until a time when I think they'll learn quickly rather than pushing them to develop sooner simply because 'they're the right age'. I pass this off as being laid back but it's really just an attempt to keep my socks clean.

Having thought about it further, I've realised that there is another category of activities to be considered. These are the things which they can do fine but I won't let them do because I don't trust them to pay full attention to the task.

To be fair, I usually have good reason for this lack of faith. Take our recent visit to the dentist as an example. Fraser has been brushing his own teeth since he turned seven, nearly a year ago. I supervised to begin with but he got on OK and I left him to it. By last week, when we went for our check up, I hadn't watched him do it for months and I assumed he was still being careful.

Big mistake.

The dentist scraped around inside his mouth for mere moments before pulling out a partly-chewed chocolate raisin, three Rice Crispies, a car number plate and the lost Ark of the Covenant. I'm back to brushing his teeth half the time again just to make certain.

I don't even trust the children to walk along the street without micro-management. Coming back home with all three of them yesterday, I said, "There's some dog poo in the middle of the pavement up ahead."

"I remember," said Lewis. "We saw it on the way to school. It's really squidgy."

"Yep, that's the one," I replied and that should have been enough warning. Still, when we got closer, I couldn't resist saying, "The dog poo's here. Watch out."

Marie appeared oblivious to my words, so I grabbed her hand to guide her past. She immediately stopped right next to it and started screaming that she didn't want her hand held. I had to concentrate on preventing her from throwing herself to the ground in a tantrum and rolling in the poo. Fraser walked right into us. Then he made as if to step sideways to go round us. "Watch out for the dog poo!" I shouted. I grabbed Fraser but then ran out of hands. Lewis ignored what was happening entirely and ploughed straight through the middle of the swampy puddle.

Honestly, I might as well not have spoken. In fact, things might have gone better if I hadn't.

This constant intervention on my part is much more of a problem than letting them develop at their own pace. It doesn't matter to me what method the kids use to eat their food as long as, when they head off to play, they have clean hands and I have clean socks. I'm sure that some day they'll decide forks are a good idea and take to using them on a regular basis. I could be yelling at them to avoid the dog poo forever, though. I can't be doing with that and I don't want to be brushing Fraser's teeth on the night before his wedding. At some point I have to let them work it out themselves.

This is difficult. Say I were to let the boys navigate their own way along the pavement, would I trust them to clean their own shoes if they got it wrong? Probably not, which leaves some very unpleasant work for me. I'm likely to be pointing out potential squidgy disaster for a while yet. The kids shouldn't always expect me to predict and preempt catastrophe for them, however. I can't be ready for everything. On a trip at the weekend, Lewis spilt a sticky drink made from slush and concentrated evil over himself. I wished I had a change of clothes for him with me but I didn't because he's six. If I carry around spare clothes for a six-year-old, when am I going to stop? He needs to learn to hold the cup when he uses a straw. Hopefully, having had to wear ice-cold trousers for a bit and then sit on the toilet for five minutes while I toasted them under a hand-dryer will have taught him that lesson.

Fat chance, I know, but maybe one day...

I'm working on it - I'm trying to let the kids act for themselves. If the boys aren't prepared to take their gloves with them, then they have to live with that decision. I'm not going to spend time persuading them to look out of the window before making those kinds of choices any more. It's up to them. I've also started Fraser on applying his own eczema cream. I suspect sometimes as much goes on the carpet as on him but he's getting there. I try not to watch and I keep clean socks handy.

My natural tendency if the kids are struggling or making poor choices, is to step in and do the job for them. They'll get on better in the long run if I'm clear about what needs to be done and the consequences of failure and then trust them to get on with it. At some point a line has to be drawn. It becomes time to say, 'You're another human being, you know what you have to do and it's your responsibility to do it.'

Wish me luck. This is hard enough to do with adults... and they get to clean their own shoes.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

  10:15 AM - Permanent Link - 3 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Trousers are more important than Grand Theft Auto

Dear Dave,

Famously, the last time I went into the city to buy trousers, I came back with an Xbox 360 instead. It was a couple of years ago and I made the mistake of going into GAME at the start of my trip. I was so surprised to find the consoles in stock, I bought one immediately. I hadn't counted on how much they weigh. I was an aching, sweaty mess within minutes. I half-heartedly glanced round the menswear department of John Lewis and headed home.

Bearing in mind that my second-best pair of trousers had a hole in the knee so large that it kept catching on furniture as I walked by, I should have dumped the Xbox in our hall and headed straight back to the shops. I hate clothes shopping, though. Psyching myself up to go twice in one day was beyond me. (Not to mention that I had a new games console to play with.) The following Saturday seemed soon enough to buy trousers.

Unfortunately, it was another three months before I bought any. We were staying with my parents in rural Norfolk and I ended up going to the nearest small town to buy some. The situation was desperate by that stage. Even my best pair of trousers had developed excess ventilation. There was only one shop in the town that sold clothes that I might wear and that were in my price range. It was a case of buying anything which fitted. I did that.

The results looked fine and I had no more clothing worries until a six weeks ago, when I discovered my current second-best pair of trousers had a gaping hole. It wasn't in the knee this time. I got by for a while by coordinating my underwear with the trousers but it wasn't really a long-term solution. I had to return to central Edinburgh and brave the horrors of Princes Street in search of something to keep me decent.

A few years back, a couple of menswear retailers weren't doing so well and I saw an interview with a director of one of the companies on Working Lunch. He basically blamed us for his woes. With a touch of irritation, he noted that men in an age range between twenty-five and forty-five don't buy clothes.

This isn't entirely true. We do buy socks and underpants when our partners insist. We also need two sets of work clothes (one to wear, one to wash). Housedads even need five sets of work clothes (one to wear, three to wash, one to beat with a stick until it stays still long enough to be incinerated). Then there's a few t-shirts for sunny weekends, a new pair of pyjamas every decade or so and, erm... er... ...

Yeah, anyway, we do buy clothes. What the guy was really saying was that we only buy what we need to keep us warm and to prevent us getting arrested. This is true. My mission objective as I boarded the bus was purely to find sufficient apparel to stave off hypothermia and custody. Avoiding looking ridiculous was desirable but not essential.

Since it was last Tuesday, everywhere was plastered with adverts for Grand Theft Auto IV. I ignored them. I had to concentrate on buying trousers. I had to not think about it being release day for one of the greatest computer games ever made.

Trousers.

Must buy trousers...

It was harder than I expected. I don't mean steering clear of GTA. That was easy - every shop selling it was too full of people wanting their copy for me to be able to get inside. I'm talking about finding trousers I liked enough to cough up the asking price. As it's a while since I regularly went clothes shopping, my expectations were out of kilter with reality. I was looking for trousers that had fallen through a worm-hole from 1995, complete with a 1995 price. Worse yet, there were shops I used to patronise that I walked into and felt almost too old for. I can probably carry off wearing faded jeans at the moment but in a year or three? I doubt it. Considering how infrequently I buy clothes, this was an issue. I didn't know what to do.

My feet took charge and carried me into Gamestation on autopilot. After fighting my way past all the people buying Grand Theft Auto IV, I discovered that Wii Fit was in stock. (The emergency team digging Nintendo's minions out of a mountain of cash must have hurried the job along so they were ready for a call-out from Rockstar.) I had games to trade and some vouchers to spend and, well, one thing led to another and I found myself without new trousers but carrying a heavy piece of interactive hardware. This felt spookily familiar.

I considered going home with my prize but I knew I'd never live it down. Perspiring slightly, I continued my quest.

Luckily, the Wii Fit balance board isn't quite as cumbersome as a 360. It is close, though. I resolved to find some suitable clothing as quickly as I could, before my arm fell off.

Things didn't improve. Everywhere I went, there were more bizarre clothes that would have needed to be half the price for me to take a chance on them. I thought one pair of trousers was OK until I realised the legs zipped off to turn them into shorts. I'm sure that's a feature my kids would love to experiment with endlessly but I wasn't so keen.

It was all a succession of baggy sacks with too many pockets, odd jackets and pink shirts with blue stripes and matching purple ties. I was tempted to flaunt some of my rips and get arrested, just so I'd be able to wear some decent coveralls.

Then I walked past British Home Stores. I stopped and walked back. I didn't feel quite old enough to shop there but I decided I'd better have a look, for the sake of completeness. Sagging from despair, weariness and the knowledge I'd turned into my dad, I went inside and took the escalator up to the first floor.

I was greeted by row upon row of chinos in unremarkable colours. They were even in the sale.

I had come home.

Despite it being lunchtime, there weren't many other shoppers around. I can only assume they were off buying Grand Theft Auto IV somewhere. The couple of blokes I did see hunting through the racks were fifteen to twenty years older than me. This was disturbing. I'd apparently moved up an age bracket in my consumer preferences. Who knew what I was going to start feeling the urge to purchase? Slip-on shoes? A cloth cap? A newspaper that didn't come free on the bus?

I found myself called towards the tartan slippers.

Trousers...

Must buy trousers...

I concentrated on the task in hand. I was surrounded by suitable trousers and I needed four pairs. Which ones to buy? First choice was black. I'm not keen on brown. It lacks the style of black. White was out of the question. It needs washed more often than other colours (like black, for instance). Beige (or biscuit or light brown or whatever it is) was nice but almost as impractical as white - I need something which doesn't show grass-stains and dirt. You know, like black. I considered getting a grey pair but, although I'd wear them, I'd be wishing they were... well... black.

Basically, I was thinking black.

I couldn't quite bring myself to buy four pairs of identical black trousers, however. I opted for two black pairs and two dark blue pairs. I'll probably only wear the blue ones in emergencies but, hey, I tried...

I bought some plain, white t-shirts as well and checked to see if they had any shirts in my colour (light burgundy). They didn't but the three I have already will last a while yet - they're only threadbare, not full of holes. Who cares that one has paint on and the cuffs are frayed on another? At least they still have most of their buttons.

I cut my losses, went home and collapsed. Mission accomplished. More than that, Wii Fit had given me its first work-out and I hadn't taken it out of the box.

Why is it so hard to buy clothes? I like to think it's because I don't care what I wear and so it takes me ages to get round to it. The truth is more that I'm incredibly fussy about what I wear and I know that it's going to be a real effort finding the things I want. These things are smart-casual, trousers (preferably black), plain t-shirts (white or black) and collared shirts doomed to a life of unbuttoned crumpledness (burgundy) i.e. what I always get. I should simply walk into shops, point to myself and go, 'Do you have this, except without the holes and stains?'

I could change my look but it's not worth it. When I got contact lenses as a teenager, one of my friends said, 'Why do you have those? You looked better with glasses.' Six months later, when I couldn't wear the lenses for a few days, the same guy said, 'Why have you gone back to glasses? You looked better without them.' Since then, I've never been much bothered by fashion.

I like the way I look and other people have either got used to it or just don't care. Why mess with that?

I'm going to regret not buying more of those black chinos...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: stuff, Wii, Xbox 360

  11:20 AM - Permanent Link - 1 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Three words

Dear Dave,

It's amazing how quickly things change when small children are around. They're constantly getting bigger, developing new skills and requiring different care and attention. Just when you think you've got it sussed, they learn a new trick that turns your world upside down. Whether it's rolling over, eating solid food or knackering the lock on the front door so you have to climb in and out a window (been there...), you adapt to their behaviour. Within days, strapping them down, carrying a spoon and hiding your keys are second nature. Shortly after that, it becomes difficult to remember what life was like beforehand. Besides, there's never time to reminisce - you're already having to deal with the next change.

Do you recall what it was like having only one child? I suspect the memories are hazy now that it's been six months or so since Daisy's arrival. (Sorry to hear she's not coping well with teeth, by the way.) As for not having any children at all, that must seem like a half-forgotten dream. Isn't it weird going to visit people and discovering that their cupboards don't require a special trick to open and their kitchen chairs don't have plastic covers? It's like a strange alternate universe where kids aren't in charge. Freaky.

A couple of years ago, when the guys came round to shoot each other in computer games, I always lost because I was permanently distracted. It's not easy keeping a bottle in a baby's mouth when you need both hands to hold a controller. I kept ending up using my chin in some fashion or other but none of the possibilities really did wonders for my aim. Having to frequently leave the room to get more milk or wipes or a fresh nappy didn't help either. I always returned to find Rob grinning and my virtual self replaced by a pair of smoking boots.

Last year, things were different. All the kids were tucked up in bed by the time Mike and Rob arrived. We normally got to shoot each other in peace. I still tended to get blown to bits on a regular basis but it was much more relaxing without having to juggle an infant.

Now, it's all gone and changed again. The other night, we had to wait our turn for the telly. Marie gets to listen to some music at bed-time but she shares a room with Lewis and he doesn't like the music. Somehow he's managed to negotiate to be allowed to sit in the lounge and watch a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon while her tape is on. We couldn't get going on our game until Dr Robotnik had suffered his usual 'hilarious' comeuppance. Even then, we had to keep relatively quiet so he got to sleep and so that Fraser didn't emerge to complain that we were disturbing his obsessive reading of Harry Potter.

All the interactive fitness gizmos I'd been mucking about with the other day were still lying around, so I thought we'd have a go on those, drink a beer and then see if our scores improved. I was looking forward to watching Steve flail about in front of the EyeToy. (That's another change - Useless Dad is now a regular at our little gatherings. Shockingly, perhaps that name isn't even accurate any more. I think the time has come to acknowledge his hard work and perseverance in the field of childcare, while still recognising his reluctance, insensitivity and lack of initiative. He is hereby promoted to Mostly Useless Dad.)

Things didn't go entirely to plan. We ended up playing Burnout with the music turned off.

"This is harder than it looks," said Rob, as he smacked his gleaming sports car into the front of a bus at a hundred miles an hour. Metal crumpled, other vehicles swerved, an HGV jack-knifed and a wheel bounced off down the street.

"Told you so," I said, steering my own car round the mayhem and claiming the lead.

"What was that thing you did with your chin?"

The race through city streets packed with traffic was moving too fast for me risk taking my eyes off the screen and check how he was doing with feeding baby Luke. The light splatter on the side of my neck suggested that all was not going well, however. Steve, meanwhile, was busy discouraging Josquin from chewing on a dance mat. The poor kid had some teeth coming through and had barely slept for days. (He's eighteen months or so. You've got a long way to go yet. Sorry.)

"He's looking tired," Steve said, prodding Josquin in the hope he'd fall over and pass out from exhaustion. "I think it's working. Drive faster, you two!"

I was already driving at such speed that my eyes were watering from squinting at the blur of polygons in my half of the screen, but I did my best. Engines roared, headlights flashed and obstacles swished past.

Josquin watched the screen. The sights and sounds became mesmerising. His eyelids drooped, the plastic slipped from his mouth and slowly, so very slowly, he keeled over sideways and started snoring.

At the same moment, I took the final corner at supersonic speed, spun out of control and crossed the line going backwards. It wasn't pretty but it was a win, nonetheless. I did a little victory dance - quietly and without moving much. It was more an excited toe-waggle than anything else.

"Luke's nodded off, too," whispered Rob. "Turn the sound down."

"I thought the little horrors were never going to stop crying," said Steve, slumping onto the sofa. He reached for the universal remote before I could stop him and failed completely in his efforts to work it. He proceeded to switch the TV to a repeat of Only Fools and Horses, turn on the surround sound and pump up the volume to maximum.

"You plonker!" yelled me, Rob and Del Boy in unison. A deafening roar of noise shook the walls, the subwoofer sent a seismic ripple through the carpet, Josquin stirred and Luke's eyes opened in shock. I grabbed the remote and pressed my specially-programmed emergency button. The surround sound went off, the VCR spluttered to life, the TV changed channel and the Teletubbies started to splash around in a puddle. We all held our breath. Luke looked at Laa-Laa blearily, smiled and fell back to sleep. Josquin rolled over but didn't wake. We all let out a sigh of relief.

"What did I miss?" said Mike, returning from a trip to the toilet.

"Shhh!" We all made the noise so loudly that it nearly woke the children again.

"Fine," he whispered. "Does this mean we can shoot things now?"

I nodded. "If you get me a beer."

"Right you are," he said and was back before I'd finished setting up the PlayStation. I was the only one drinking. Steve and Rob required their wits about them in case the kids tried anything. Mike had had all he wanted already. Unlike me, he's somehow able to hold a controller and a Guinness at the same time without mishap or impairment. I'd had to hold off because, up until that point, putting a can down would just have been an invitation for Josquin to try and eat it.

We settled to blasting each other with shotguns. I took a big swig of my beer so I could handle what I knew was coming.

"So, Ed," said Mike, "have you worked out who you are since last time?"

"Not really," I replied. You'll recall that Mike is concerned about me and how I'm adjusting to my ever-increasing obsolescence now the kids are getting older. As my friend, he's taken it upon himself to make me think a little harder about where I'm headed. Since he's also the minister at our church, he's been trained to a professional level of persistence that's wearing down my defenses. This was his third or fourth attempt to get me to talk in a couple of months. Pretty soon, I'm actually going to have to do it. "I'm still a housedad..."

Even as I said it, it felt unlike it had ever done before. Things have changed. I looked over at Steve, who had the pasty, grey complexion of a dad who really knew the meaning of full-time. He had dozed off himself, doubled over and with his controller acting as a makeshift pillow on his knees. The analogue sticks were creating little dents in his forehead. Every so often, the controller gave a faint rumble in a hopeless attempt to wake him.

Seeing him, I realised that describing myself as a housedad means a very different thing from what it did a couple of years ago. Even being a dad has changed:

Rob was still cradling Luke, afraid to put him down and cause another bout of screaming. The constant shifting about to maintain grip, avoid over-heating and stay comfortable was affecting his aim. I, however, had the kids in bed until morning. I was missing out on a stack of cuddles but I had the freedom to have a drink (or maybe two!) and relax for whole hours at a time.

Theoretically, anyway. After years of rushing round all day and being on call all night, it's hard to relax. I keep thinking, 'Time to myself and some semblance of energy to go with it - I must get things done!' Marie's started nursery but I feel like I'm getting less rest than I did before. Maybe it's good that I've got enthusiasm for other projects or maybe it's avoidance of Mike's question. I don't know.

"What three words would you use to describe yourself as a dad?" said Mike, pressing me further.

Since the kind of dad you are is really just an extension of who you are, that was simply another way of getting me to describe myself. Unfortunately, there was only one answer I could think of straight off. "Efficient," I said. "There's food in the fridge, the kids are ready for school on time and the house gets cleaned on schedule."

"Sounds fun," said Rob.

"I try to be fun as well," I said hurriedly. 'Efficient' - was that the best I could do? "And, er, sympathetic. I like to think I'm sympathetic."

"Are you?" asked Mike.

"I'm more sympathetic than I am fun, to be honest. Sarah's the fun parent. She's the one who comes home and plays with them before bed and takes them on trips at the weekend. I'm the one who has to make sure they get dressed on time, do what they're told and eat their vegetables."

"So you get things done and it's dull but you listen when the kids complain?" said Rob.

"That's not what I said."

"What did you say?" asked Mike.

"Hey! Stop ganging up on me!" Mike was serious but Rob was merely trying to distract me while he crept up behind me with a bazooka. I let him have it with a very large gun.

Before I could say anything else, Fraser appeared at the door. He was almost crying. "I've had a bad dream," he said.

I frowned. "Your light's only been out for ten minutes. You can't have been asleep."

"OK," he sniffed, "bad thoughts then."

"That was very sympathetic," muttered Rob.

"All right, all right," I said. "Back into bed Fraser. I'll come through and talk to you."

Once we were in his room, I asked him what the problem was.

Through tears, he said, "I was thinking about when we die and go to Heaven and we're with God. It'll go on forever and it'll never stop and that will be bad."

"Er, why?"

"Because we won't die and it will just go on forever," he said. Considering he has an aversion to change that stretches as far as never wanting the laminate floor in the kitchen replaced, this fear of eternity was perplexing.

"Not exactly," I said. "God is outside time and space and without time there can't be forever. Yes, Heaven won't end but that's not the same as..." I trailed off. Fraser was looking at me blankly. I cursed my natural propensity to mix physics and theology. I decided to go for a different approach. "We don't know what Heaven's going to be like. It's going to be so different from here that it's hard to describe, but Jesus promised that it will be good. Do you think he keeps his promises?"

Fraser smiled and nodded.

"Right, then don't worry about it. Lie down, close your eyes and think about Pokémon." I gave him a hug and he nestled back under his duvet. I returned to the lounge.

"Everything OK?" asked Mike, as I took my seat.

"Yes..." I said. I'd dealt with the issue sympathetically and efficiently and I'd managed to raise a smile in the process. It was a pleasing outcome. Maybe my self-analysis had been accurate after all. It was certainly something to think about.

"Good," said Mike. "Rob shot you fifteen times while you were gone."

Rob grinned. "It was an accident - honest."

"That's fine," I said. "I'm guessing from the smell that you're going to have to leave the room soon to change a nappy. I'll take the opportunity to be careless with a sniper rifle."

"Hey!" said Rob. "No fair!"

"You started it..."

"I suppose." He began to get up but the movement caused Steve to tip forwards and land kneeling on the floor, his face buried in the carpet. He continued to snore. "What do you reckon? Should we wake him up?"

"Let him sleep while he can," said Mike.

Rob sniggered as an idea struck him. "How about we shave off one of his eyebrows?"

It was tempting but I shook my head. "A couple of years ago, that was me. Another few months and it could be you. Leave him be. Go change that nappy and bring me another beer on the way back."

"As long as you don't shoot me while I'm gone."

"In your dreams."

"All right," he said, "as long as you don't shoot me much while I'm gone."

"Deal."

And so it was. The rest of the evening passed quite pleasantly...

* * *

Good luck coping with whatever the kids throw at you this week. It will probably be unexpected. It may well be pointy. It will almost certainly be different from last week.

That's part of the fun.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: blokesnight, Useless Dad

  10:00 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Living without Wii Fit

Dear Dave,

I forgot to pre-order Wii Fit. I will probably be the only person in the country not spending the weekend hopping on top of a white plastic tea-tray in the vain hope that a videogame can make them slim and athletic.

Since everyone at Nintendo is currently buried under an ever-increasing mountain of cash and it will take a while to dig them out, there may not be any more stock for some time. What am I going to do? I was relying on this game to make exercise fun and enticing. What better way to lose weight and increase muscle tone than by jumping up and down on a plastic slab in front of the TV in the comfort of my own living room? I've been chain-eating biscuits in nervous anticipation.

Now I'm going to have to go outside and run around or something...

Wait! Surely I must be able to avoid that. Let's see... Hmm... How about...? Yes... These things should do it:



Bear with me while I try a quick work-out...

...

gasp... wheeze...

... ... irk... gasp...

... boing... ...

ouch... wheeze... ... ...

... twiddle... Argh!

wheeze...

Ooh... thud...

...

...

limp...

...

OK, well, that wasn't so bad. It transpires that I already have enough interactive entertainment to get myself leaping about in an aerobic fashion. I could have been slim and athletic years ago. If only switching the stuff on and putting the right disc in didn't seem like such an effort...

I started my work-out with a shot on Sony's EyeToy, the motion-detecting camera for the PlayStation 2. Once I'd blown the dust off it and booted up one of the many minigame collections, I spent quite a while waving my arms about frantically to wash windows, set off fireworks and slap ninjas. Getting the lighting right was tricky and navigating the menus was a pain but I'd forgotten how much fun the thing is. The maraca-wielding antics of Sega Superstars are particularly invigorating. As with all the most energetic EyeToy games, however, it made my arms sore pretty quick but didn't really utilise the rest of my muscles. (At least I didn't put my back out this time, though.)

In an attempt to mimic the full Wii Fit experience and exercise my entire body, I played EyeToy while hopping up and down on one leg. This worked great for the five seconds until I fell over. Then I tried it on the trampoline. This was maybe a little ambitious - my scoring went out the window. It was nearly followed by me.

I moved on to Wii Sports, the collection of sporting simulations which comes bundled with the Wii. You know you're out of shape when pretending to hit a baseball thirty times brings you out in a sweat. I switched to tennis and spent a couple of minutes leaping round the room like a loon, trying to smash a backhand winner past my cartoon opponent. Then I remembered that sitting down and flicking my wrist every so often would work just as well. It wasn't as much fun or exercise but I was getting tired and I didn't care.

I took a breather and did some bowling. After a while, this made my elbow twinge, so I opted for Mario and Sonic at the Olympics (also on Wii). There was something deeply surreal about waggling my arms really fast in an attempt to get Bowser to win a gold medal. I broke some world records, got sore shoulders and was hugely glad that I don't yet have man-boobs big enough to require a sports bra. I quickly changed games to Link's Crossbow Training and started shooting targets with the Wii Zapper. My arms started to complain almost instantly once more and, again, the trampoline didn't do wonders for my high score.

Last up was the dance mat. This was a bit more like it in terms of getting my whole body moving. At least it would have been, if only I had rhythm and coordination. The good feeling from the exercise was counteracted by the frustration of being rubbish at stepping on the correct pad in time to the beat. It was like a Twister-related torture device. I collapsed in a contorted heap of limbs and gimmicky videogame controllers.

I crawled off to play Tomb Raider. I knew I needed to do some stretching as a warm down but I was too tired. I decided to watch Lara do some instead. Unfortunately, this somehow made me lose track of time and I forgot about going to collect Marie from nursery. I had to sprint along the road in order to avoid being overdue and getting a telling off from the teachers. This was easily a harder work-out than everything else put together. I did look rather a sight as I panted and perspired my way into the cloakroom, though.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that being late for things results in more effective exercise than videogames. It's cheaper, too. The videogames just ensure there are fewer witnesses. So, if you have managed to get your own copy of Wii Fit, the best way to maximise its potential is to close the curtains before you switch it on and then hide all your clocks. (You know it makes sense.)

Now... I'm going to go have a lie down.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: computer games, stuff, Wii

  9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Give them an inch...

Dear Dave,

What constitutes a last shot?

That's a tricky question. It's all very well yelling, 'We're going home! Time for one last go!' when you want to leave the swing park but what do you actually mean? Is it one go on everything or a single shot on one thing? What if one child wants a turn on the swings and the other wants to go down the slide? A turn on the swings probably has to be a couple of minutes long to be worth it, so the kid on the slide should be allowed four or five shots to fill the time. Then again, four or five last shots is quite a lot. The kid on the swings is bound to complain that they're only getting one. And that's before they both start wanting a quick spin on the roundabout...

If the weather is nice and you're not desperate for a coffee or the toilet, you may be inclined to humour them but, if thunderclouds or vultures are circling, you may decide to hurry them up. Either way, it's liable to end in tears. Even if you do give them another five goes on the slide, a lengthy shot on the swing and enough time to turn themselves green on the roundabout, there's still a high probability they're going to throw a tantrum as soon as you mention leaving again. Sometimes it's best just to bite the bullet, tell them it's time to go and then go. If you're going to have to carry them off kicking and screaming, you might as well do it before it's started to rain.

Trying to ease through a transition can just prolong the pain. Sometimes a clearly defined and definite decision is the only way. If you're in any doubt, look out the window and try and estimate the distance to the end of the street.

Since, like me, you went to primary school in Britain in the Seventies, I'm guessing you have absolutely no idea how far that is. You're probably not even sure whether to answer in yards or metres. More than that, you know your height in feet but measure things in centimetres. You buy cheese in grams but weigh yourself in stone. Milk comes in pints, petrol comes in gallons and Coke comes in litres.

This is a mess. As far as I can work out, Britain tried to change from imperial to metric units at some point, got halfway through and then everyone who'd grown up with imperial complained that they couldn't be bothered to learn the new system. Concessions were made. We got stuck using both. With all the confusion, I didn't really get taught either.

Given the choice, I'd go for metric. Metric units are a great deal easier to work with than imperial units. I had to do a semester of high school physics in the States and I simply couldn't believe I had to use feet and pounds. It was a nightmare. Still, if I'd been brought up using the system exclusively it would have been second nature and better than the confusing mix I was brought up with. One or the other would have been better than half of each. The Americans did manage to get men to the moon after all.

I, meanwhile, struggle to bake cookies.

Jen over at The Road Less Traveled recently put a picture of some cookies up on her blog. They looked very tasty. She offered to send me some but, worried that Customs would eat them, I asked for the recipe instead. Then, when Fraser had a friend round, I distracted Marie by getting her to make the cookies with me. I imagined an idyllic father-daughter bonding session that had the happy by-product of melt-in-the-mouth chocolate chip goodness. I was prepared for the recipe to be in imperial units. It wasn't an issue. I'm used to chopping and changing between imperial and metric in recipes. 8 oz of flour is roughly 200g. I wasn't expecting to have a problem. I had most of the right ingredients - how badly could it go?

Then I read the recipe and discovered that I didn't need 8 oz of flour. I didn't need 200g... or 300g... or 10 oz... or any other weight. I needed two and a quarter cups.

That's not different units - that's an entire different scheme of measurement. It seems to be standard practice in the States but I didn't know that anyone measured solids by volume (other than Archimedes, of course, and clichéd new neighbours trying to scrounge some sugar).

Under different circumstances, I might have looked up conversion charts online but I already had various potentially laptop-destroying foodstuffs all over the table and an excited child waiting expectantly in an apron. I quickly hunted around and found a measuring vessel marked in cups. Whether these were American or imperial cups, I have no idea, but it was better than nothing. (Americans don't actually use imperial units - they use something closely related but even less wieldy, so all the more credit to them for dominating the world. Having to work in Fahrenheit and fathoms is clearly character building.)

I got Marie to help measure things out. Flour was OK, sugar was easy, but when it came to the butter, well... that wasn't so good. The recipe seemed to acknowledge that measuring butter in a cup wasn't the best plan, however. It happily told me that a cup of butter is equivalent to 'two sticks'. This wasn't all that helpful. I can only assume that a stick of butter is more than a twig and less than a tree but none of this really helped with the cookies. Everything became somewhat less precise at that point. It's hard to imagine anyone doing any lunar exploring using this particular system.

Apollo 13: We've fired the thrusters but we're still off target!
Mission Control: Oh shoot! We figured everything out on the basis you'd be coming back with 513 cups of moon rock. Hang on a minute while we recalculate everything.
Half an hour passes...
Apollo 13: Come on, we're heading to Mars here!
Mission Control: Yeah, yeah, we're working on it. Hey, by the way, do any of you guys know if it's three sticks of basalt per cup or four?

We got there eventually:



I think I may have used half a branch of butter rather than two sticks but the cookies were pretty tasty nonetheless. I made some with nuts and some without but all the children then point-blank refused to eat any of the nutty ones.

Shame.

Munch... Munch, munch...

Anyway, I'm sure it would have been easier if I'd grown up measuring things in cups. Just as I'm sure that my life would have been simpler if some government official in the Seventies had stubbornly decided to ignore the whingers and press on with metrication. If they'd told the European Commission to get lost and gone back to imperial that would have been fine too. Hopefully our kids will only be taught metric but I will probably never know how far it is to the end of the street or be able to estimate how many limbs a bag of Pic'n'Mix is going to cost me before I reach the checkout. ("What do you mean, 'two arms and a leg?' Hang on while I put these Strawberry Laces back...")

Yep, sometimes an easy transition isn't worth it. A clean break is what's needed.

I like to give my children fair warning of where we're going and what we're doing but I've let them wheedle 'another five minutes' or 'one last extra, extra shot' out of me a few too many times. They've come to expect it. Getting them to appreciate that we really have to leave right now is very difficult and tends to involve me having to shout. I've started being much firmer. There's still some shouting involved at present but, if they can learn that when it's time to go, it's time to go, life will be less difficult in the long run. There'll be fewer tears and we'll get soaked less often. Hey, you never know, there may even be more cookies...

Oh, no, my mistake, I've eaten them all. Mmmmmm...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: science

  9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 4 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  The other thing I can't do

Dear Dave,

Marie is a girl.

Obviously, I've been aware of this for a while. From the moment she was born, I was prepared for her to be a little different from the boys. I expected that perhaps she might be more creative or chatty or, let's face it, awkward, and, indeed, she is all these things. I've done my best to treat her the same as the boys but it's happened anyway. What I wasn't expecting was the way she's turned out to be such a... well, such a girl. She covets pink clothes and sparkly jewellery. She names her toys and knows when they're sad. She carries a handbag, likes her nails painted and enters into a rapturous trance when eating chocolate. It's scary.

Mention going shopping to the boys and they instantly complain and grab hold of furniture to avoid being dragged out of the house. Mention a trip to the shops - any shops - to Marie and she bounces up and down in excitement.

If we do make it to a store, the boys fight each other, grab stuff off shelves and then hand it to me, loudly proclaiming, "I want that. Can you pay for it?"

Marie, meanwhile, fondles merchandise lovingly and says, "I really like this sparkly, pink thing. It's really lovely. Best-daddy-in-the-world-ever, please could you buy it for me? I would really like that. It would make me happy." She even pulls her face into a forlorn pout.

She doesn't always get her way but her success rate is pretty high - much higher than the boys. I need to work on hardening my heart before she's a teenager or I'm going to be in real trouble.

For now, I'm trying to fill a different gap in my parenting skills:



Hopefully I'll get the hang of it eventually. At least I'm good at coordinating her wardrobe:



Er...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

  9:00 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post