Dear Dave

  All I can remember is Jeremy Clarkson

Dear Dave,

Sorry to hear the sleeping has gone out of the window again. I've rarely had to deal with children playing tag-team parent waking so I don't entirely know what to suggest. Daisy's so young that there probably isn't much you can do - if she wants to wake up in the middle of the night, she will. (Controlled crying is always worth a try, though). At least Sam's at an age where you can threaten him with reprisals if he doesn't ignore her and go back to sleep - I find that turning off Marie's night-light for a few minutes is usually enough to get her to settle down.

You've got my sympathy. I've had plenty of experience of sleepless children. I refer you back to the tricks I've learnt. Probably the most important is to have a DVD you want to watch in the player ready to go. That way, if worst comes to worst, you won't be stuck watching phone-in quizzes as you while away the small hours of the morning with a grumbly baby. It's worth making sure the DVD has subtitles so you can still follow what's going on above the whining and crying. Other options include web-surfing using a Wii, Teletext and MTV. Personally, I have many memories of semi-consciously watching repeats of Top Gear I'd recorded on TiVo. It was amusing and it didn't matter if I missed dialogue here and there thanks to a screaming baby or if I 'rested my eyes' for entire sections.

Actually, there are parts of Marie's early life where I remember more about three nutters destroying caravans in entertaining ways than I do about much else. Sleep deprivation addles your brain. I got to a point where I was functioning on autopilot most of the time. The boys were up from half seven in the morning until eight at night. Marie woke at eight in the morning and was up until eleven at night with only an hours nap in the middle. I stayed up until half past midnight to get some time to myself to help stave off insanity. Frequently, Marie then woke up at three for an hour or two of crying.

In retrospect, this was pretty horrendous but, at the time, I was cocooned in a hazy mist of zombie-dom. With one child at school, one at morning nursery and another needing regular feeds, bottles and nappies, my timetable was always laid out before me. It wasn't so much that we had a routine, it was more that there was only one way to fit everything that needed to be done around everything which had to be done. I could muddle though the day without much thought. I don't actually recall wandering around with my arms stretched out, muttering 'Brains... Brains....' but, then again, I don't actually recall very much at all.

I do have a very strong recollection of Richard Hammond trying to make an amphibious vehicle out of a camper van, however.

Strangely, that's more useful than you might imagine. By concentrating on that memory, I can make other recollections surface. I can bring back thoughts, feelings and experiences that would otherwise be forgotten. It doesn't just work for Top Gear, either - by thinking about a book I've read, a film I've watched or a computer game I've played, I can remember something of what life was like at the time and possibly even specific events from that period. Little else jogs my memory so well, apart from thinking back over times when I've been ill or exhausted. I can remember those occasions very clearly too.

This means that many of my most vivid memories are of multimedia delirium, where illness and entertainment have coincided.

For instance, I know I had gastric flu a couple of weeks after Final Fantasy VII came out. I clearly remember where I'd got to, how I felt and what our old lounge looked like from that combination of gaming and vomit. Going from that, I can also work out the time of year, how my job was going and any number of other little details. When I felt too ill to even play a game (which is very ill, by the way), I sent Sarah to the video store to find a film with explosions. She came back with Die Hard with a Vengeance - proof, if ever I needed it, that I married the right woman.

Similarly, the fifties version of Day of the Triffids is linked inescapably in my mind with the first week of my chickenpox eruption, the second week is brought back by thoughts of playing Fable on Xbox. Mention of the forthcoming Fable 2 just makes me feel queasy.

The Hellboy movie recalls a cough so bad that I had to chain-suck Lockets and sleep sitting upright in an armchair.

My one experience of sleeping rough is all the clearer in my mind because I bought West of Eden by Harry Harrison the next day. The memory of trying to keep warm while lying in a binbag on a hillside in Derbyshire is made sharper by the memory of reading about horny, humanoid dinosaurs while very, very tired.

Other people's recollections seem to be triggered by different things. Sarah's memory is jogged by smells. My mum's is organised around food. It's like she uses what people ate as some kind of mental hook. She'll tell me news she's read in the paper about an old school friend of mine that I don't even remember and, when I look blank, she'll say something along the lines of, 'You went round to his house once. You had chicken.' I'm not sure whether I find it more weird that she remembers what I had to eat or that she thinks I'll remember it too.

Quite what this tells us about any of the people involved, I've no idea, but I've been trying to work out how my kids best remember things.

Thinking about it, the descriptions they came up with to differentiate between the parent and toddler groups they went to when they were small are telling. Fraser referred to his as, "The pink one, the one downstairs and the one near John Lewis." It was an aspect of the location which stuck in his head. Marie talks about, "The one with Craig, the leaving one and the snack one." It's the most significant event of each one that makes hers memorable, whether it's the attention of a particular helper, the quality of the snack or me slinking off for three-quarters of an hour while someone else takes over.

Lewis' preferences are harder to remember (the irony!) because most of the time he just copied Fraser. Probably, given free rein, he described them with phrases like, "The one with jigsaws." He differentiates places by what's there because he has a good memory for what things contain. We keep trying to make a little more space for him in his bed but he always knows when something has been removed.


There's a bed under there somewhere...

Maybe there's some way I can use this knowledge to get them all to remember to wipe their feet when entering the house. If only I could work it out...

Ach, the scary thing is, even if I did work out a theory, I'd probably forget it unless I caught a cold and then watched a movie.

Ho well, maybe you can mull it over while you're watching Pirates of the Caribbean at three in the morning. Let me know if you come up with anything.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Marie has a frighteningly good memory, actually. She was watching Laura's Star on DVD the other day. She hadn't seen it for a while but she was quoting the script with ease. The film got to one bit and Marie described what was happening and followed it up by saying what was going to happen next. "And then Laura goes up to the roof and she meets a robot cat and she says, 'Hello, little cat, how are you?'"

Sarah was freaked. "How do you remember that?"

Marie just smiled. "It's a good thing to say to a robot cat if you find one on the roof."

Sarah found that kind of hard to argue with. They went back to watching the film.

Labels: children (vol.2), children (vol.3), sickness, sleep

 
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10:00 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Triumph from disaster

Dear Dave,

I can't ice cakes.

On the one hand, I'm not very good at it. On the other, I just don't care. The combination of these two factors nearly always leads to sugary catastrophe.

This doesn't matter when the cake making is merely an activity to entertain children (with the the added by-product of cake!) but, when I'm baking for a birthday party and other parents are going to see the results, it's more of an issue. The solution I use is to get my offspring to do some of the decorating, even if it's only to add a single chocolate button. That way, I can always claim loudly to have had 'help' from the kids. I go straight from hapless cake defacer to long-suffering, indulgent parent.


I had somewhat less help with these than you might imagine...

It's a step up from the usual routine of using the children as an excuse for everything from being late to the state of the house. In these cases, it could always be suggested that I just need to be a little more organised or a little less lazy. No, this is turning the situation on its head and making the disaster into a parenting badge of honour. 'Sorry we didn't get here on time. I had the kids help with the navigation and, well, would you believe it, we ended up in Peebles. They were getting quite good with their map-reading skills by the end, though. I'm thinking of starting them on their Duke of Edinburgh award...' or 'Mind where you step. Fraser's supposed to be helping me mop but he's just too tired today, the poor lamb. I thought we'd leave it till tomorrow. I would do it myself but I wouldn't want to deprive him of the sense of accomplishment and contribution...'

I wonder what other things I could claim to have got the kids to aid me with? Normally I shy away from getting them to help because it means that whatever I'm doing will take twice as long and only turn out half as good. It probably doesn't help that I'm a control freak. I like things done my way.

This is an issue, however. I need to train them. Otherwise they'll never learn how to do anything and I'll be running around after them until they're fifty and then have to watch helplessly as they attempt to look after me and get it all wrong. They'll clean the toilet with a facecloth and then iron the carpet.

I need to avoid that future but, let's face it, some help here and now wouldn't go amiss, either. Maybe the way forward is to start by getting them to help with things that are bound to end in disaster anyway. No harm done then. Once we're all used to long-winded calamities we can move on to things which I'd normally expect to pass without incident, like the washing up, a little light dusting and cleaning the fridge. By then, anything which doesn't involve us all needing a complete change of clothes will feel like success. I'll be more laid-back and they'll just be glad I'm not getting them to do my tax return or clean the wheelie-bin.

I've begun by getting some help with this letter. I asked Marie what I should write about. She said, "The boys." Smart answer - incriminating one's siblings is an important skill when you're three. This wasn't really enough to go on, though. I pressed her further. "The boys dancing," she said.

I've no idea what she was talking about. The boys haven't done any dancing recently. They do like a good ceilidh, though. It's an excuse to wear a kilt and twirl round at high speed until they feel ill. Unfortunately, someone taught them that the purpose of sporrans is to collect other people's loose change and so they have a tendency to walk up to other dancers, point at the region of their groin and demand cash. This is kind of embarrassing.

Maybe next time I should claim they're helping me with something.

Or maybe not...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS The pronunciation war continues. I overheard Marie taking my side with one of the (Scottish) helpers at parent and toddler the other day.

"I made biscuits with daddy last week," she said excitedly.

The helper duly made a show of being interested. "You made biscuits last week? That's nice."

Marie shook her head. "No, we made biscuits laa-st week."

The helper didn't get the problem and just tried to sound even more interested. "You made biscuits la-st week. What kind of -"

"No!" said Marie, jumping up and down in frustration. "We made biscuits LAA-ST week."

"Yes, I know. You made biscuits la-st week. I wanted to know what kind of -"

"No," said Marie, starting to speak loudly and slowly, clearly believing she was dealing with a particularly stupid adult. "WE MADE BISCUITS LAAAA-ST WEEK!"

The helper was aware by this point that something was slightly amiss but couldn't quite put her finger on it. A small child was saying something, she was repeating it back verbatim and somehow the small child was getting upset. It was a mystery and she couldn't seem to think of a way out. "You made biscuits la-st week?" she said.

Marie prepared to explode.

Luckily, it was time to go. I grabbed my daughter and ran, leaving a trail of exasperated long vowel sounds behind us. The two of them might have gone on for hours otherwise.

Labels: children (vol.2), housedad (vol.2)

 
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10:00 AM - Permanent Link - 4 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  My pet consumer

Dear Dave,

Our efforts to teach Fraser the value of money are failing miserably.

He was always pestering us for stuff, so we started giving him a pound a week pocket money. Now, if he wants something, he has to buy it himself. We thought giving him money of his own would dissuade him from demanding the first shiny thing which came to hand whenever he walked into a shop. The hope was that he would be more discerning.

The reality was that we lost a certain level of control on his purchases.

How much tack can he fill the house with before he gets the idea? We've got the dreaded Golden Coin Maker and Scooby-Doo! Cyber Chase, more pokemon cards than is sensible, various oddly shaped plastic doodads, a santa with flashing LEDs, some fluffy pencil toppers, a compass and three packets of gingernut biscuits. He won the biscuits in a tombola that he insisted on entering despite the fact there was nothing he wanted to win.

He blew four pounds on a Lazy Town sticker book at the school book fair the other day. I took exception to this for a number of reasons:

• He blew three pounds he didn't have on stickers, this time last year. He was broke but he was so desperate for this box of random stickers, he took out a loan against his future income. Then he didn't use them. They've been sitting on his bedroom table gathering dust for months... next to several hundred stickers left over from some birthday or other... only a few feet from the half-full tub of 2000 stickers Lewis got for Christmas... and under a shelf upon which rests a still sealed box of Scooby-Doo! stickers the grandparents turned up with one day.
  
  There's probably more stickers in the the kids' arts-and-crafts drawer...
  
  He doesn't need more stickers.
• The school book fair is a bit of a money-making scam. In essence, it's a bookstall that's set up at parent-teacher evenings for parents to buy their kids vaguely educational books. An outside company supplies the books but the school gets a cut of the sales or free books or something.
  
  The catch is that the teachers take the kids to look at and fondle the books during class time. Their desire for ownership is conceived without parental caveat and then fuelled by discussing with friends what they're all going to get. It's further reinforced as they spend the rest of the day trying to remember what 'their' book is called so they can place an order when they get home. It's pretty hard to exert any influence by then.
  
  I'd rather the school just asked for donations. We'd pay less, they'd get more and I'd still have shelf-space.
  
  What's next? Is the school going to sign up with Amway?
• Fraser's not actually a great fan of Lazy Town. Sure, he'll watch it and enjoy it but he'd rather watch a dozen other things. If I'd offered to buy him a book and taken him to a proper bookshop, he'd have come home with something pokemon related.
• He's supposed to be saving up for Super Paper Mario on the Wii. He'd have enough money by now if it weren't for yet more pokemon cards and for the sticker book. This is particularly galling because I want to play it.
  
  Barring the tooth fairy taking matters into her own hands and turning up with pliers, however, he's not going to be able to afford the game until Christmas i.e. the point when the boys (and myself) will be getting various other games anyway and won't have time for them all. In the meantime, Fraser gets to sit around not twiddling his thumbs because he's finished everything he can be bothered to play and spent his cash on stickers he didn't need.
• He hasn't read the books he got from the last book fair.

Maybe some of that's a little uncharitable. I chose the books last time and I did so on the basis that they looked both entertaining and educational. He really wanted the Lazy Town sticker book even then but they were out of stock when I got there. He's been wanting the book for six months - that's not just the passing whim of a magpie who's seen something shiny and suddenly must have it. It's the tenacious whim of a magpie who's seen something shiny and just will not let it go. Ever.

Still, you've got to admire his stubbornness.

I asked him twice if he really wanted it. I suggested other things he might want instead. He was adamant he wanted the sticker book. I couldn't see the point, I didn't think it was a good idea but... I let him buy it anyway.

You see, I have issues:

When I wasn't much older than him, I really wanted to get a handheld Pac-Man game. I even went to Jarrold's in Norwich with my mum to buy it. I had my birthday money ready. I'd been saving up. I was going to get it.

Except my mum asked me if I was sure so many times that she made me unsure.

I didn't get the game. Admittedly, it cost £18 twenty-five years ago, so it was pretty expensive, but I had the cash and I really wanted it. I would have played it until my thumb fell off. Then I would have turned it upside down and played it until my other thumb fell off. I would have loved and cherished that little Pac-Man machine. Instead, I got left with the lasting impression that spending money on something I wanted was somehow wrong unless (a) it was cheap or (b) my mother could see the point of it.

The upshot is that I can spend several hundred pounds on a discounted washing machine without batting an eye but I go through a lengthy internal dialogue whenever I get the urge to spend a fiver on a computer game magazine. A dialogue that my mum usually wins. I reluctantly put the magazine back on the shelf and then walk a couple of miles home in the rain.

When I arrive back at the house, dripping the contents of a small cloud onto the carpet, I justify the decision to walk by claiming that it's good exercise. If pressed, I might add that it's stressful fighting my way onto the bus with the buggy. The real reason, however, is that walking saves me the pound for the fare. If I've got the boys with me, it saves me two pounds twenty. Each way. That's worth getting a little wet for. (Although the boys may not entirely agree). Besides, my mum never catches the bus, so it must be a waste of money.

I wish I'd stuck to my guns over Pac-Man. I might have a little more perspective and a better idea of the value of money myself.

I want Fraser to be sensible with money. I want him to learn to live within his means. I want him to be able to plan prudently for the future. I want him to consider the effects his purchases have on the exploitation of the planet and of other people. I want him to understand the importance of money but not base his life upon it. I want him to be able to give money to those who need it. In short, I want him to be wise but generous. It would be nice, however, if he was also able to spend money on himself without feeling bad about it.

Most of those things I need to teach him. At least, I'll attempt to teach them to him - he won't listen but I'll have tried. The last one I need to remember not to knock out of him.

Wish me luck.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS My mum never catches the bus because she has a car and drives everywhere. I really need to get a grip.

Labels: children (vol.2), money, parenthacks

 
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9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Protective perspective

Dear Dave,

You're right. Kids make you worry. Two kids is twice the worry and you only have half as much available time to fit all the worrying in. You need to concentrate your worry on major risks.

If only I knew what those were...

I seem to spend a great deal of my time shouting warnings about imminent catastrophe:

"Don't do that!"

"Look where you're going!"

"Watch what you're doing!"

"Don't stand there!"

"Don't touch that!"

Unfortunately, my voice usually carries the same sense of urgency whether 'that' is a sweet on the ground, my PSP, a python or an electrical substation. If the kids are doing something liable to cause injury, I will often throw in "It's dangerous!" If they're doing something hugely stupid, I might even go so far as to say "It's very dangerous!"

Still doesn't really give them a particularly clear picture of risk, though.

"Stop waving your fork around. It's dangerous!" isn't much of a step up from, "Watch out! Careful with your milk!" In fact, the latter is actually likely to create more of an impression thanks to the words escaping my throat in a frantic scream as I lunge across the table to catch a teetering cup. My kids probably live more in fear of giving me extra cleaning than they do of impaling their siblings with kitchen utensils.

I guess this will make them normal, though. It's hard to realistically determine probabilities and weigh likely rewards against possible disasters. It's not really surprising the kids don't have a clue. I don't even know what the most likely calamities might be and how badly they could go. Running with scissors probably is pretty dangerous (if they have a pointed end) and so is hopping with knives but how dangerous is dancing with a spoon? What level of warning should I use? Does it depend on the size of the spoon? The style of dance? The proximity of crockery?

Or should I just let the poor kid enjoy herself for a change without me prophesying doom?

The media doesn't help. I saw an item on the main ITV evening news the other week that was all shock and horror about the dangers of hazardous drinking. A large glass of wine every night is a hazardous level of consumption! Well-to-do rich people are drinking too much! Shock! Horror! Not once was it mentioned in what way this level of drinking was hazardous, nor to how great an extent. They did, however, imply a causal relationship between having an expensive house and drinking too much. This means that it's not really the drinking that's the root cause of danger - it's buying a mansion.

As I said, the media isn't much help.

Then again, neither is personal experience much good at assessing most risks. I know from experience that if we go to the swing park there's a good chance that someone will scrape a knee but what's the chance of one of the kids getting snatched? Considering I'm not in the middle of a custody battle, vanishingly small, probably, but all I've got to go on is hearsay and media reports. And I've already established that the media isn't much help.

Nope, it's very hard to tell what's really worth worrying about. Still, in terms of the amount of thought and effort I put into preventing disaster, these are the dangers I feel most threaten my children:

10. Food. Between obesity and food poisoning, additives and E numbers, E. Coli and bird flu, there are any number of food related scares around. I'm considering moving the kids over to a diet of lime juice and crackers, just to be on the safe side.

9. Going to hospital. Hospitals are full of germs and sick people. Must avoid.

8. Dirty hands. Dirty hands are covered in germs and cause sick people. Must wash.

7. My old Xbox. The instruction manual contains only one warning about photosensitive seizures but FOUR about not dropping the thing on a small child. Do the maths.

6. Dog poo. We have some inconsiderate dog owners round our way. I spend a great deal of time telling the kids to look where they're about to put their feet. Strangely, this usually makes them look behind them. They've got used to wandering around peering over their shoulder to see if they've just stepped in doo-doo. This is not hugely safe or convenient. I see dog poo on the pavement and shout at the kids, they look behind them, step in it and then walk into a lamppost.

5. Coffee. It's hot and spillable which is a dangerous combination. Luckily, it's usually gone cold by the time I get a chance to drink it.

4. Traffic. The boys have got the hang of the 'Stop' part of 'Stop, Look & Listen' but haven't yet realised that the other two are quite tricky if they're talking at me. A couple of days ago, while we were already halfway across a road, I told them to stop wittering about Mario and look for cars. Unfortunately, this just led to even worse distraction. Fraser promptly shouted, "Look! There's a car," and pointed at a car that was not only in the wrong direction but also on a different road. Handy.

3. Each other. When the boys were younger, I turned round from the washing up to find Fraser stabbing Lewis in the head with a fork as they sat quietly eating their tea.

2. Themselves. On closer examination, the number of triple puncture wounds suggested that Lewis had been letting him do this for a while.

1. Zombies. I watched 28 Weeks Later recently. Since then, most of my spare brainpower at any given moment has been devoted to locating emergency exits and suitable materials for barricades in case of the unexpected arrival of a horde of the living dead. It may not be a very likely threat but its consequences would be catastrophic. Best to be prepared.

That's the list. Essentially, if I gave each of the kids an eating utensil and a turkey sandwich while I was drinking coffee and we all followed a dog along beside a busy road on the way to the hospital, that's the most dangerous situation imaginable. Unless it started raining Xboxes... or zombies.

I suppose I could always take comfort in the fact that we all had clean hands.

Right, I'm off to purchase emergency plastic bags, a chainsaw, some bear-traps and a shotgun in preparation for the inevitable undead apocalypse. Got to keep the kids safe, after all. And it beats worrying about which secondary school would be best...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2), statistics

 
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9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 5 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Special talents

Dear Dave,

There's some really scary stuff on TV these days. The news presents us with a hundred disasters from around the world which we can't fix, and blinds us to the difference we can make in our families and communities. Soap operas blur the boundary of fiction and reality by telling the stories of 'normal' people whose 'normal' lives involve rather a lot of lying, cheating and murder. And then there's the episode of Bob the Builder where Dizzy gets carried away and they all drown slowly in a vast pit of wet cement.

Actually, no, I just imagined that last one. ('Can we fix it? Yes we... glurk...')

I didn't imagine an episode of Clifford's Puppy Days I saw recently, though. The little red dog and his animal friends were organising some kind of party. (You can probably tell I was watching every detail intently). Each of them found a job to do that suited their special talent. For instance, the bird could fly up and hang the ceiling decorations. Clifford went around giving assistance but got a bit upset because he couldn't work out what his special talent was. He kept being reassured that he had one - he just had to discover it. In the end, everyone agreed that Clifford's talent was helping people. After all, everyone has something special they're good at.

Really?

Maybe all that was meant was that no one's rubbish at everything. It didn't come across that way, however. The implication was that everyone has a unique gift that marks them out. There's an episode of Tweenies that has an identical plot and message. (Jake's special talent turns out to be that he's the best at being an audience!)

As I see it, though, special talents aren't usually things that can just be discovered. Sure, everyone is better at some things than others, but to turn something that we're good at into something we have a real talent for takes work and dedication. I know a kid who wants to be a professional footballer. He's always been good at football but honing his talent involves training four days a week plus regular matches and he's been doing this for years.

He's ten.

That's a lot of commitment with no guarantees at the end.

Suggesting that we all, by rights, have something we're great at undervalues effort and is bound to lead to disappointment. We are not all born equal - unique and equally deserving of love, but not equal. We have different natural abilities and different opportunities. If we teach our children to derive their self-worth from what they are capable of doing compared to others, it's unlikely they will have a clear picture of themselves. It is up to them, with our help and encouragement, to make the most of their own circumstances but, even then, putting in effort doesn't necessarily lead to success.

Failure happens. I know I don't have to look far to see that. As a housedad, the day can bring all kinds of possibilities:

• A glorious visit to the swing park packed with fun and giggles.
• A roundabout disaster resulting in vomit and tears, followed by a walk home in the rain without waterproofs.
• Shouting and frustration.
• Cuddles and stories.
• Neverending Teletubbies and Play-Doh soiled socks.
• Homemade biscuits and sandcastles.
• Dozing beneath a blanket on the sofa with a sick child under my arm.

Some days go better than others for us all but our children are no less special on the difficult days and neither are we. Love them, cherish them and look after them. Their special talent is being them. Help them to make the most of it.

Oh, and tell them not to listen to Clifford. He and his friends have a special talent for talking nonsense. They've been practicing for years.

* * *

Moments from the last week when each of my children were themselves and made me smile:

• At school, Fraser had to pretend to be a Viking setting off to settle in a distant land and write about his experiences. As far as provisions were concerned he wrote the following:
  
  'I packed plenty of vegetables like sweetcorn and carrots but not potatoes because they're undiscovered yet.'


• Lewis appeared to be having a disagreement with his swimming instructor and I went over to intervene. He was wearing armbands made of green foam and she wanted him to put on orange ones. She explained to me that the orange ones were much less bouyant and he didn't need the green ones anymore. I explained that Lewis really, really likes green.
  
  Somehow I had to persuade him to swap. "Put the orange ones on instead, Lewis."
  
  He wasn't having any of it. "I want to wear the green ones."
  
  "The orange ones will help you learn to swim better," I coaxed.
  
  "Why?"
  
  The obvious answer was 'because they'll make you sink'. Luckily, I have a fair amount of experience with this whole dad thing now and I chose my words carefully. "Because they're made of different stuff."
  
  "Oh, OK," he said and swapped them over excitedly.
  
  The mind of a five-year-old is a truly peculiar place.


• I was hurrying Marie up to her bath and she screamed and shouted, "You don't chase me! You don't chase me!"
  
  "OK," I said, trying to quell her panic. "I won't chase you."
  
  "Good," she said. "We just be friends, OK?"
  
  "All right," I said, nodding.
  
  Then, suddenly all smiles, she reached out and led me hand-in-hand up the stairs, laughing to herself. It was unexpected and lovely.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2), depression, housedad (vol.2), TV

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

  Catching up

Dear Dave,

You're right, I haven't really told you what happened in the end about all the repairs from the flood damage. I was waiting until the tradesmen were finished. They've been almost finished for a month now, however.

All they have to do is make the towel rail in the bathroom work again, except they've had to 'order a part over the internet from a foreign gas supplier'. I should really phone them and chase it up but, after months of chaos, it's nice not having tradesmen in the house. Also, although it's getting pretty chilly stepping out of the shower in the morning, I'm nervous of what else they might break in trying to fix the problem. There's something to be said for quitting while you're not too far behind.

Our insurers cheered us up the other day, however. Seemingly unaware that we're already their customers, they sent us some junk mail encouraging us to sign up with them. Their big selling point was that their call-centre staff are polite, professional and always phone back when they say they will.

How we laughed...

At least the decorating is done and, after much effort, most of our furniture and stuff is back where it should be. My safe place is reinstated, the replacement Xbox 360 is set up and I managed to trade-in my temporary one for pretty much what I paid for it. Result. Thanks to all the sorting out, I haven't had much time to actually spend in the safe place, but it's good to know it's there.

On another happy note, the mice have mysteriously gone away. No more have leapt at me out of household appliances. One day they were high-diving down the stairs and hiding amongst shoes, the next day they had vanished. There was that dopey one I caught a week later but, since then, I haven't spotted any evidence of them. Not a sign. Maybe they were coming in from next door and the repairs there blocked up the access hole. Or maybe, as soon as I'd closed down the toaster buffet, they simply had no reason to come to our house.

The second explanation begs the question of how often they'd been snacking in the crumb tray before I caught one in the act.

Excuse me a moment whilst I go scrub the worktops with bleach one last time...

Anyway, we bought a new toaster and we're going through twice as much sliced bread as normal thanks to the novelty value of being able to slightly char it again. I keep a lid on the toaster when we're not using it, though.

Marie went with Sarah on the shopping trip to buy the toaster and was very excited when they got back. "We bought a toaster!" she shrieked, showing me the box. "This one didn't have mice in." She seemed to believe that the other ones in the shop came with the mice presupplied. I didn't correct her. After all, I'm now a man who keeps a lid on his toaster and views open toasters with paranoid suspicion. Who am I to judge what's crazy?

Speaking of paranoia, I did find a mouse dropping in the middle of the lounge carpet a couple of days ago. I assume it came out from under the TV cabinet when I was faffing with wires to try and fix our wireless router (oh, the irony) but it did cause me to panic at the prospect that there had been some fresh scouting by the rodents. Our stricter than normal hygiene rules will remain for a while longer yet. I suspect they will continue to be ignored, though:

Marie and I were sitting upstairs in the lounge the other evening and she suddenly went, 'A crumb!" and picked something off her sleeve. It had been a little while since tea and I didn't get a good look at whatever it was so I was going to tell her not to eat it. But, of course, I was too late. She popped it in her mouth and smiled happily. I shrugged. What can you do? I was going to give her a lecture but then I looked down and noticed a crumb on my own shirt. Without thinking, I picked it up, popped it in my mouth and smiled happily. I think it was toast but I didn't really take a good look at it. You know, it had been a while since tea, and I was feeling a little hungry, and it was probably toast and...

I decided to hold off on the lecture. I felt I'd lost the moral high ground.

There's only so much conflict that I can take, anyway. Earlier in the day she'd asked to watch some Winnie the Pooh. Now, we have Bob the Builder, Tweenies, Teletubbies, Bagpuss, most of Pixar's ouput, Tom & Jerry, Numberjacks, Scooby-Doo, Fimbles, Thomas the Tank-Engine, Barney, Shrek, the adventures of various Disney princesses, Mr Men and goodness knows what else but we don't have any Winnie the Pooh.

"We don't have any Winnie the Pooh," I said. "What do you want to watch instead."

"I want watch Winnie the Pooh instead," she said excitedly.

"We don't have any. You can't watch something we haven't got. You'll have to watch something else. How about Tweenies? Do you want to watch Tweenies?"

She pulled a face. "No! I don't want watch Tweenies."

"How about Bob?" I suggested. "Would you like to watch Bob the Builder?"

"No. I not like that."

"OK. How about...?" I made various suggestions. She refused all of them. Things went on like this for some time.

"How about Little Mermaid?" I asked finally, approaching the end of my tether.

"No," she said emphatically

I gave up. "OK. Tell me what you want to watch then."

"I want to watch..." She paused, knowing I might not take kindly to her asking for Winnie the Pooh again. Then she had an idea. "I want watch something we don't have."

I wasn't fooled. This was obviously just a way of informing me she wanted the bear of very little brain without actually saying the name. "How's that going to work?" I snapped. "Tell me something that we have that you want to watch."

It was too late.

"I want watch something we don't have," she said again but she now seemed quite taken by the concept. At that point, I knew that even if I suddenly found some Winnie the Pooh, it would no longer suffice. I was sure that the moment I produced 'something that we didn't have', it would become something else - it would become 'something we hadn't had until recently'. That wasn't going to cut it. She had her heart set on a logical impossibility. She wanted to not have her cake and eat it.

So, of course, she got nothing. She got to sit and glumly stare at a blank screen for an hour, every so often whining miserably, "I want something we don't have."

It wasn't much fun for anyone but eventually she said, "I want Party Rings now. They make me happy." I gave her the biscuits and, sure enough, she was happy again.

If only that worked on adults...

Hang on, maybe it does work. Things aren't so bad now but there's no harm in doing a little experimentation in preparation for the next time the house falls apart. Excuse me while I head over to the biscuit tin to conduct some research...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2), flood, mice

 
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  Keeping them in the dark

Dear Dave,

What do you do when you don't want Sam to know what you're talking about?

It's difficult for Sarah and myself to hold a conversation without a child in the vicinity and, now they're all old enough to understand what we're saying, this is becoming more of an issue. Admittedly, it seems they don't normally listen to a word I say but it's impossible to be sure. Fraser had speech difficulties when he was small and we thought it might have something to do with his hearing but then I ran some tests where I went out of his line-of-sight and whispered the word 'biscuit'. I was trying to find out how far away I had to be before he failed to come running, looking for a custard cream. I tried the other side of the room, I tried down the hall and I tried up the stairs but none of them was far enough. Then I went outside, muttered the magic word and got trampled by a mob composed of every kid in the neighbourhood.

I gave up. Children can listen perfectly well when it suits them. The question is how to avoid them gaining powerful information when it doesn't suit me. I don't necessarily want my kids knowing the details of our finances or what I need from the chemist.

I'm aware that some households spell words but I'm just no good at that. I can't do it. It was bad enough when Fraser was learning to read and he'd suddenly ask me something like, "What does 'p-h-o-t-o' spell?". He usually had to repeat himself a couple of times before my brain could picture the word and read it. It was just hopeless. Trying to have an adult discussion would be painful (and make me look like a total idiot). Before long, Fraser's going to be far better at it than me, anyway.

Similarly, I can't lip read to save my life, so mouthing words is useless. ('I'm sorry? What was that? You want some elephant juice!?') Charades attracts too much attention and has limitations. (Have you tried miming 'levitation', for instance?) Using a foreign language is out because I don't know any. Well, not really. All that I can remember of my GCSE German is, 'Mein Schnurrbart brennt,' and 'Ich bin ein Kuhlschrank.' Neither of these phrases is much use. I can think of few situations where I might need to secretly inform Sarah that my moustache was burning or that I was, in fact, a fridge.

Nope, we're left with two choices - being obscure or using very long words.

Again, obscurity loses me pretty quickly. For instance, if Sarah were to say, "Remember that thing we were talking about yesterday where the man might need to bring transport?" I'd just look blank. She'd need to give me quite a few hints before I understood. Even then, I wouldn't be entirely sure.

I'd need to check, just to be certain. "Oh, right! Do you mean the big skip we've ordered for all the kids' old toys?"

Kind of defeats the purpose, really.

That only leaves convoluted verbal exchanges using lexicographic ingenuity and artful confabulation. It's eminently possible to partake of some protracted deliberation with one's spouse by employing a succession of expanded utterances engineered to confound and discombobulate the juvenile contingent of one's household.

Well, it's working for now, anyway. There's a chance it may backfire, though.

We may effect a phenomenal increase in their linguistic capabilities that causes their vocabularies to outstrip those of their contemporaries and renders them incapable of conversing in anything other than a convoluted, antiquated and nigh-on incomprehensible fashion.

This is unlikely to help them make friends.

Maybe we should just accept the inevitable and move on to text messaging at the dinner table. Goodness knows, it won't be long before the kids start doing it so we don't know what schemes they're hatching...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Sarah bought a set of thirteen jelly moulds the other day. There's one for each letter of 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'. I'm wondering what else I could spell in wobbly letters. All I can come up with is 'TIP A BAD HARPY DAY' or 'B HAPPY, BATH A HAIRY HIPPY'. Obviously, either of these would form a talking point as the centre-piece of the buffet at the next family gathering but I'm sure there must be something better. Any suggestions? (Keep it clean. Also, using any of the moulds more than twice seems like too much effort).

Labels: children (vol.2)

 
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  Raising townies

Dear Dave,

I come from a very long line of farmers. There's an absolute stack of them (probably literally) buried in the same churchyard in Norfolk. Half of them even have the same name as me. This is a bit freaky when randomly glancing at gravestones, to be honest, but it means that agriculture and husbandry should flow powerfully within my veins.

As if.

I'm slightly agoraphobic, I can't keep the worms in our worm-bin alive and I look at pot-plants and they die. Truth be told, farming was never really my career of choice. It's very fortunate that I'm the second son so I got to run away to the city.

Growing up on a farm, however, I did feel somewhat inadequate as a child because I really didn't know very much about the countryside. I struggled to tell a thrush from a starling or a birch from an oak. It didn't help that the Swallows and Amazons adventure books I was given to read presented this as some kind of moral failure. It turns out, though, that my kids make me look like a born naturalist. Witness the conversation I had with Lewis recently:

"Daddy? What kind of bird is that?" he asked, as we sat in the park.

I glanced where he was pointing. "It's a raven," I said.

"No, it's not." He seemed to think I was pulling his leg. "It's a blackbird."

"Technically, you're right, it is a black bird, but it's not a blackbird."

"Why not?"

"It's a raven."

"No," he said, realising I wasn't joking but now certain I was just plain stupid. "It's a bird and it's black."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it a blackbird," I said. "Ravens are birds that are black."

"Then what are blackbirds?"

"They're... er... different birds that are black."

"Like that one?" he said, pointing again.

I sighed. "No, that's another raven."

"But why isn't it a blackbird?"

Normal logic wasn't working for me, so I decided to stretch the boundaries. "It's not a raven for the same reason you're not a zebra."

Oddly, this appeared to satisfy him. "Oh, OK," he said and went back to wittering endlessly about Wario. I just shook my head in despair.

I acknowledge that, in my childhood, I didn't know much about the countryside but I like to think I had more of a clue than that. At least I knew where milk came from. (The big vat in the shed across the cattle yard). Scarily, though, this chat was an improvement on the one I had last year with both the boys:

"What is bacon made from?" I asked them.

"Don't be silly," said Lewis, "it's not made of anything." Fraser nodded.

"It's meat. It comes from an animal," I said. This was obviously news to them but I ploughed on anyway. "What kind of animal do you think it comes from?

They shrugged.

"Pigs," I said. "Bacon comes from pigs. How about ham?"

"Cows?" said Fraser, uncertainly.

"Good guess but ham comes from pigs too. Beef comes from cows." Things weren't going as well as I'd hoped. I decided to give them an easy one. "How about chicken? What kind of creature does chicken come from?"

They both looked entirely blank.

"Think about it..." I said.

They continued to look blank. There was a slight sound of whirring cogs and the whiff of burning rubber. Still blank. The answer was apparently beyond them.

"Chicken comes from chickens," I said, giving up.

I wasn't entirely expecting them to argue. "Don't be silly," said Lewis. "You can't eat chickens. They're covered in feathers."

Quite what the other passengers on the train were thinking by then, I can only imagine, but, at that point, I had to admit to myself that my children are townies. They'll grow up to hang around on street corners complaining there is nothing to do. They won't appreciate how lucky they are to be able to go to the shops, or the cinema, or a friend's house, without a forty minute car journey. They'll believe foxes are cuddly and bread grows on trees. I can see it now.

Half of me wants run out and buy a book so I can teach them to tell a chaffinch from a rhododendron. That way I could overcome some of my childhood angst through them. Happily, however, the other half of me just can't be bothered. It's probably for the best.

Now I wonder where they think apples come from (other than the supermarket, obviously). Maybe I should go and experiment some more...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Just as my children are destined never to be farmers, I had to warn Fraser to never become a soldier the other day. I was examining his hair for lice as he had a bath (there are some going round school) and he just would not move to the side of the tub when I told him. He kept moving to the end. Then, later, when I wanted him to move to the end, he moved to the side. I kept explaining what I meant. I kept pointing. He slid himself all over the place and then had a lie down, all the time justifying how he was following my instructions really.

"Whatever you do, don't join the army," I said, irritably, my back getting sore from all the bending over. "They'll shoot you."

"Why?"

"They'll tell you to do something but you'll do something entirely different and then argue with them. You get shot in the army for doing that."

He wasn't convinced. "What? If you ever don't do what you're told?"

"Well, OK, it depends exactly what you do and I don't know they actually shoot people on their own side any more but they used to. Whatever they do now is probably still pretty bad. Certainly, if they tell you to go and fight someone and you don't, then you'll be in big trouble."

He looked horrified. "But the person might be a good person."

"Uh-huh. This is what I'm saying Fraser, this is what I'm saying..."

Labels: children (vol.2), town

 
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  When years turn into decades

Dear Dave,

OK, Sony are getting really desperate to sell me a PlayStation 3 now. They know I'm absolutely their target demographic and they're trying their hardest. A price cut on my birthday, though? That's below the belt. Pretty soon they're going to start ringing me up at three in the morning to find out why I haven't bought one yet. Unfortunately for them, after three children, I've already been driven mad. A little bit of sleep deprivation isn't going to make me mistake GAME for the trouser department of John Lewis next time I head to the shops. (Well, not again, anyway). Still, a price cut... on my birthday... Can't say I'm not tempted.

Yep, the birthday season remains upon us. Marie had hers, then Sarah and now it's my turn. (Thanks for the parcel of pig entrails and the CD of train noises, by the way. I'm sending you some out-of-date yogurt and a dead squirrel for Christmas).


Nobody escapes the birthday hat...

I have reached another milestone. I have indisputably moved from my early-thirties to my mid-thirties. I have also, it seems, reached an age where mere years are no longer long enough to efficiently mark the passage of time - I'm beginning to work in chunks of decade.

I guess it's a logical progression. When each of the kids was born, I spent the first day counting their age in hours. Then, for the next fortnight, I counted their age in days and, after that, it was weeks and even half weeks until they were two or three months. Months turned into years around about the time they reached two but they were seldom just two, they were two-and-a-quarter or two-and-a-half or 'nearly three'. I still do this kind of thing with Fraser's age sometimes and he's nearly seven-and-a-half. (See what I mean). I imagine it will peter out once they're nine or ten. Then it will be simple, whole-numbers of years for evermore as far as I'm concerned. No more faffing about. In later life, Marie will introduce her fiance and the first thing out of my mouth will probably be something like, 'She's thirty-seven. We thought she was never going to move out.'

It's just payback, really. I've lost track of the occasions on which my children have told random strangers in a lift or on the bus how old I am. I'm looking forward to following Fraser around on a Saturday night when he's a teenager and telling all the bar staff exactly how old he is while I sup happily on my own beer.

Yep, there will come a time when I find the kids' ages nice and simple but I suspect that's when they will start to get a bit cagey about the whole thing. From my own experience, just because my parents have been happy to blurt out my age to all and sundry for years, doesn't mean I always have. There was a brief period in adolescence where I tried to pretend I was older than I was and then, after a relatively brief period of youthful maturity, I passed twenty-seven or twenty-eight and things began to get vague. I wasn't twenty-nine, I was 'in my late-twenties'. I'm guessing that, once I'm much past forty, things will start moving in decades. It's only when I'm up to around ninety-six and going for a high score that I'll start telling people my age again. ("I'll be a hundred and eight this October. It's all down to fresh air, hard work and marmalade. 'Course the key thing is where to put the marmalade but I'm not telling you my secret, laddie.")

Oh, what the heck, I'll come clean. I'm thirty-four.

I haven't had an urge to buy a motorbike yet. Three years ago, I did purchase a whole stack of games with little plastic figures on eBay, though. It was down to a desire to regain my lost teenage years by rediscovering the hobby which helped lose them in the first place. I only managed to paint a couple of ratmen, however, before Marie's insatiable desire to stay awake became apparent and my amount of free time plummeted. One day...

This time, obviously, the thing to buy myself to keep the gaping void of middle-age at bay is a PlayStation 3 but, also obviously, I still don't need one and they're still too expensive. Even the price cut won't work. My local independent games retailer actually had an equally good deal in the window a couple of weeks ago. I very nearly bought one. Sure, I can play all the games I want to play on my Xbox 360 but a PS3 was tempting as a Blu-Ray player (you know, just in case our old telly mysteriously breaks and we have to get a sparkling new HD one) and there are bound to be some decent PS3-exclusive games soon.

As I said, I almost bought one but then I went into town and looked in the big retailers. I ended up in the basement of HMV. There was plenty of shelfspace for the 360 and all the Wiis were sold out again but the PS3 was shunted to the back, next to where the room had been divided off with opaque plastic sheeting, presumably to allow some remodelling to be done. There was a vast PS3 display stuck up the corner, complete with HD telly and comfy seats but no one was paying the blindest bit of notice apart from two men in suits who were eyeing the situation with exasperation. They looked important and I quickly recognised them from one of my previous letters. Pretending to browse magazines, I listened in on their conversation.

Sony Europe Exec: The free games and extra controller don't seem to be working.

Sony Marketing Bod (watching a tumbleweed roll past): The games are getting pretty cheap second-hand now and maybe we shouldn't have let on we've got new controllers with added rumble coming out after Christmas.

Exec: Pah! Who cares about rumble anyway? That's so last-generation.

Bod: Yeah, but only until after Christmas. Then it's the next big thing again.

Exec: It is?

Bod: That's what you said last week.

Exec: Right, yes, of course. I've been saying all kinds of things
lately; I'm beginning to lose track. Have I changed my mind on the importance of backwards compatibility yet?

Bod: No... I... Er, what do you mean 'yet'?

Exec: What? Did I say that out loud? Oh, sorry. I was busy thinking we should make the console more affordable.

Bod: A second price cut in just over six months? That's insane. We'll annoy our loyal customers who bought one at the initial price and make everyone else think we're desperate and... (He trails off as an HMV employee emerges through the plastic sheeting, accompanied by a few flurries of snow. There is a brief glimpse beyond. No building work is visible but the icy expanse of Narnia stretches away into the distance, trees and hills covered in more snow. Except they aren't hills. They're huge piles of PS3s. Mr Tumnus' hooves poke out from under the nearest one).

Exec: It's not a price cut and neither was the previous price cut. If you remember, we merely added value to the package by including extra content and, as you've already made clear, the worth of that extra content has been slowly decreasing over time. This has, in effect, meant the price of the console itself has been steadily rising for the last few months. How many other consoles can claim that? Even the Wii hasn't got more expensive and look how popular that is. I think the time has come, however, to reverse the trend, throw down the gauntlet to our competitors and make a minor adjustment to the RRP.

Bod (recovering as the plastic falls back into place): What level of 'adjustment' were you thinking?

Exec: £125.

Bod: What!? After six months! The early adopters will lynch us. And it's not even economically viable anyway.

Exec: We'll bring in a new model that's cheaper to produce.

Bod: How's it suddenly going to be cheaper to produce?

Exec: We'll leave bits out. We could start with the glove compartment and a couple of the coin holders.

Bod: You mean the multi-card reader bay and the USB slots.

Exec: Ah, same difference, it's not like anyone is using them. How about a third of the hard-drive and backwards compatibility as well? The ability to play PS2 games isn't so important now there'll be sixty-five games out for the PS3 by Christmas.

Bod (looking at his feet): Yeah, but one of those is Pirates of the Caribbean and another is Untold Legends.

Exec: The important thing here is choice, not quality.

Bod (his voice rising as he suddenly realises that the floor is made of PS3s): OK, OK, so we sell this 40GB model for £300. What about the current 60GB model?

Exec: Let's say £350 with a couple of games.

Bod: Only £50 more for two games and extra features? That means the new model will look both over-priced and under-equipped. Meanwhile, the price cut will look confused and panicked rather than dramatic and attractive.

Exec: But don't you see? It's not a price cut. If we cease production of the 60GB model, it's a specification downgrade coupled with a stock clearance. There's nothing desperate or confused about it. The product is £125 cheaper and the price hasn't been cut at all.

Bod: I, er... I'm not sure... That's not offering quality or choice. I... Hang on. You just changed your mind on the importance of backwards compatibility.

Exec: Took you a moment to notice, didn't it?

Bod: Very smooth. This might work. Still doesn't have rumble, though. (They start to leave).

Exec: That's such last-generation technology.

Bod: Until after Christmas.

Exec: Yes, yes, of course, after Christmas... but we'll have the 120GB Freeview model with built-in camera and etch-a-sketch to worry about then.

Bod: What?

Exec: Oh, don't worry. (He puts his arm around the other man's shoulders as they disappear behind the curtain). I've been assured that that one will definitely be able to make toast...

After that, I gazed at the display a little longer but I wasn't exactly reassured about spending all my pocket money for the year on what's still very much an extravagance. Fortunately, this meant my resolve was already reinforced when the official announcement came out. I will just have to come to terms with my encroaching decrepitude without retail therapy. I will continue to resist.

What to do to celebrate my birthday, though? A meal? Some cake? Or a session juggling hammers next to the telly?

Hmm... Maybe I should give my credit card to the children to look after for the rest of the day...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2), computer games, corporate madness, PS3

 
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10:30 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Moving on

Dear Dave,

How's the family? Is Liz recovered? Is Daisy feeding OK? How are you coping with a newborn around the house again?

My memories of babies are becoming increasingly hazy. I have vague recollections of poor sleep, of struggling to find time for a shower and of excessive numbers of nappies. I do, however, quite clearly remember having to wipe Marie's poo off the walls in the middle of the night but I don't think that was actually a very common occurrence. You know, not like being spectacularly vomited on by Lewis - that happened all the time.

There was a lot of sitting up through the night watching repeats of Top Gear, plenty of colds, a fair amount of pureed carrot and a great deal of laundry. There were also snuggles, smiles, tickles and dancing. Ah, those were the days... The days when merely pulling a funny face brought laughter and appreciation and it didn't take hours of Pokemon card manipulation to evoke a sullen grunt of thanks.

Before you ask, I don't want to come and babysit for the weekend to help recall what it's really like. I've done my time. Good luck with yours.

That said, it is strange not having an under-three in the house any more. Marie's birthday was last week and we can finally leave toys that are labelled 'Not suitable for children under 36 months' lying around. Or, to be more precise, we can leave them lying around without feeling guilty. We've been up to our necks in marbles and Power Rangers for a while now.


Nobody escapes the birthday hat...

Yeah, it's odd, we don't have any children who could even remotely be called babies. An era has passed (barring sanity-shattering accidents, of course). Marie only stopped wearing nappies in April but they already seem like a distant memory. Things are moving on. In some ways it's sad but it's actually quite exciting (and a lot less tiring). I have a little girl now!

On her birthday, I received a glimpse of what I'm in for. She was given a Disney Fairies treasure box at her party and all her little girl friends gathered round the glittering pinkness of it to gaze in awe. Then, after the party, she came home and made this picture:



I don't know whether to stick it to the wall or to hit it with a big stick before it starts to assimilate me.

It's not all going to be pink fluffiness, of course. She started having tantrums at fifteen months but they stopped around last Christmas and we thought we were done. Yeah, right. They're back and now she can argue as well as cry. Yesterday, she came inside after having been playing with dirt, declared that she didn't like soap and kicked up a huge fuss. Later, she sat down for tea and whinged that she didn't like food. True enough, she barely ate anything but then she wouldn't leave the table for me to clear up. I asked her nicely to move, I threatened her with being hoovered and I suggested toys she might want to find. She wasn't having any of it.

"Just go away and play, Marie," I eventually snapped.

"I not like going away and play," she whined and then burst into tears. "I stay here," she wailed.

I picked her up and gave her a big hug. "It's OK, dear," I reassured her. "You don't have to play and have fun, if you don't want to."

"Thanks," she said, wiping her tears. "I don't like fun."

Today, she didn't like milk. If she decides tomorrow that she doesn't like biscuits then I know I'm really in trouble.

What next? Barbie? My Little Pony? A pink, fluffy motorbike? Who knows? The housedad adventure continues...

All the best with getting some sleep.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2), housedad (vol.2)

 
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  It's a girl!

Dear Dave,

Congratulations on the birth of Daisy Elizabeth Jane! About time too, I must say. Sounds like it was all a bit of a rush in the end, though. When I told you to head out to the shops and buy all your Christmas presents while you still had the chance, I meant for you to do it before the contractions had started.

I guess Sam won't forget his first visit to Santa's grotto.

Ho well, it's over now and I'm glad to hear you're home already, safe from overly warm maternity wards and traumatised elves. You should expect a succession of little, pink, knitted cardigans to start dropping onto your doormat any day. If you're really lucky, they'll be in padded envelopes that won't fit through the letterbox, forcing you to go answer the door when the postie buzzes at seven in the morning. Fortunately, most of this knitwear will be lovely; unfortunately, some will appear to have been measured for a pot-bellied orangutan by a colour-blind lunatic. The latter will be the ones that Sam will want Daisy to wear. Enjoy.

Oh, yeah, how's Sam coping with having a sibling? Is he proud to be a big brother or is he eyeing his new nemesis warily? With any luck, it's all fine, but I wouldn't worry if he views Daisy as his arch-enemy - Fraser and Lewis hardly got off to the best start:

Fraser was about twenty-two months when Lewis was born but couldn't say a word. Being our eldest, we didn't really know what to expect from him in terms of his ability to understand us. Since he couldn't speak, we didn't think he was able to take much in. As a result, we didn't greatly discuss the impending arrival with him. His little brother came as a bit of a shock.

Everything was going along happily as normal and then he found himself unexpectedly being carted off to a friend's house for the day, abandoned and mysteriously collected by gran. The day after that, he woke up and came through to mummy and daddys' room and there was something lying in the funny swinging basket at the end of the bed. Fraser looked at the 'something' apprehensively. The funny swinging basket had been there for weeks and had remained empty. Suddenly it contained a squishy pink thing. What could it be? Fraser slapped it in an experimental kind of way. The pink thing moved. Fraser jumped out of his skin. They both started to cry. And a life-long relationship was begun...

With hindsight, I think we could have been a little more upfront with Fraser. It turned out he could understand a heck of a lot. He wasn't talking for a number of reasons:

1. He was late in developing the physical ability.
2. It was too much like effort.
3. Pointing at things and grunting was working very well for him.

Some mild speech therapy and a large amount of competition sorted him out.

Marie's integration into the family went more smoothly. Fraser still hadn't quite got over the fact that he didn't have my undivided attention, so one more rival didn't make much difference. Lewis, meanwhile, was two and a half, had a pretty good idea what was going on and was already fairly used to being neglected left to his own devices for significant stretches of time.

As a result, the boys happily ignored Marie for about a year until the point she could stand up and get in the way of the telly. Before that, they tripped over her, dropped things on her and only really took notice of her when they thought she was about to try and eat their stuff. Fraser would frequently complain about the smell but I eventually convinced him it wasn't usually Marie's fault - Lewis either had a minor milk intolerance as a small child or he just really, really liked farting.

Anyway, hopefully Sam will cope OK. My boys now consider themselves equals and stick up for each other when they're out and about (even if they're always arguing at home). Lewis and Marie are partners in crime. They all seem to have at least some sense of being on the same team. It's nice to think they're looking after each other. When they've finally worked me to death and scavenged the last of the loot from my withered corpse, they'll know to stick together to survive. (Of course, if they decide, sooner than that, that I'm on the other team and join forces against me, I may be in trouble. I'm pretty sure they're big enough already for two of them to grab my arms and the other to make off with my wallet before I have a chance to break free).

If Sam and Daisy do find themselves as arch-enemies for a while, however, I'm sure they'll get over it eventually. Just think, in another fifteen years, they'll be setting each other up on dates with their classmates.

Now that's something to start worrying about...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: birth, children (vol.2)

 
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  Death to Santa

Dear Dave,

Merry Christmas!

I know it's a little early but I thought I'd better get in there quick before you go to the shopping centre, stumble into a brightly decorated fir tree which wasn't there last week and Santa sets his elves on you. Also, since Squiggly still hasn't shown up, you might want to rush out and buy all your gifts now while you have the chance. The first three months of having two children will disappear in the blink of an eye and a mountain of laundry. Or, in other words, if Squiggly is born today, you'll wake up tomorrow to find it's the day after Boxing Day.

Sam will be annoyed you forgot to get him anything.

What are your plans for this Christmas, by the way? Now Sam's three, he'll have much more of a clue what's going on. You'll be able to get him properly wound up with anticipation and excitement. You'll also have to decide what you're doing about the fat, cheery bloke in the red suit.

The one advantage of Marie not having got a place at nursery yet is that, at least this year, we won't be the deviant parents who 'don't do Santa'. Oddly, not wanting to lie to our children about flying reindeer and chimney-based parcel delivery systems, tends to mark us out as dangerously eccentric. Santa is apparently part of the 'magic' of Christmas and, as it happens, a very useful mind control device. ('Be good, children... or Santa won't bring you any presents. Remember, he's watching you all the time. His elves are everywhere... Yes, even there...')

Quite what the parents from different cultural and religious heritages make of it all, I've no idea. Though I presume they get away much more easily with not joining in. It's a strange quirk of the multi-cultural society. Everyone's worried about contradicting Muslims and Hindus but I'm pretty sure they'd be quite up for some spirited religious debate on the nature of God. We could totally disagree and no one would take offense. After all, only by discussion, can any of us get closer to the truth.

If, however, I were to loudly say, 'But Santa doesn't exist,' as the kids were coming out, I'd get stoned by all the agnostics. (Well, glared at, anyway).

It's a shame that the real Christmas story has become so devoid of awe and wonder that the whole Santa thing has had to be built up to add 'magic' to the day. It's not even like the kids are that fussed - a stack of presents is a stack of presents and they're full of anticipation no matter how it's due to appear.

We'd rather not bother with all the Santa subterfuge, thank you very much, but it's an uphill struggle some of the time. When Lewis was three and a half, nursery went into Santa in such a big way, he simply would not believe that the whole thing was just pretend. We tried being subtle about it so he wouldn't go blurting out the truth to all his friends and make us plenty of enemies but, in the end, we had to tell him point-blank over and over and he still wasn't having any of it:

I was woken at quarter past two on Christmas morning by the sound of crying. Although we don't go in for the whole charade, we do still leave out stockings for the kids. Lewis had got up and opened his. Except he'd totally failed to see the stocking at the end of his own bed and had taken the one from beside the cot on the other side of the room. He was sitting on the stairs, bawling his eyes out. As I approached, he held up a pair of pink baby slippers and wailed, 'Santa brought me the wrong presents!' He was heart-broken until I pointed out that it just might be possible he'd opened Marie's stocking by mistake. Somehow, the thought had never crossed his mind. (Perhaps the fact that it was quarter past two in the morning had something to do with it...) I calmed him down and watched him open his actual stocking and then we both went back to bed. It was the start of a very long day.

(This was, in fact, only the second worst Christmas stocking disaster I've ever had. When I was nineteen, home for the holidays and fairly certain I shouldn't expect sleigh-bells, Santa tried to kill me. He lay a stocking directly across the threshold of my bedroom door. I went to the toilet in the middle of the night, tripped over the flipping thing and nearly went head-first down the stairs. I was not impressed. I was even less impressed when, on further investigation, I discovered the stocking contained a tangerine, a bag of nuts and a car cleaning kit. I didn't even have a car. Though, now I think about it, my parents had a car that I borrowed a lot. Hmmm...)

Yeah, it's impossible to avoid Santa entirely but Sarah and I want the kids to trust us. Lying through our teeth about rotund pensioners sneaking into the house in the dead of night to put satsumas in their socks doesn't really seem to be the way to go about that. Call us eccentric, but there you go.

Just something to think about. Then again, your eyes probably glazed over at the first mention of Christmas. I know it's months to go yet but spare a thought for all the shop assistants who'll be subjected to a looped CD of festive hits from now until New Year. Be gentle with them.

Oh, and another sign Christmas is fast approaching? The auditions for nativity plays are already in full swing. I'm pushing for our church to put on something slightly different this year but I'm told it doesn't have enough cute angels in it. (We have the costumes, you see). Ho, well.

Now go tell Squiggly to hurry up.

Yours in a winter wonderland,

Ed.

PS Microsoft returned my Xbox 360 the other day. Well, actually, they sent me a brand new one - which was a bonus. Unfortunately, I've had to dismantle my safe place again because the tradesmen reckoned it was possible they might turn up to fix the water damage this week.

I now have two 360s but nowhere to play them. Irritating.

Labels: children (vol.2), christianity, christmas

 
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  I'm sure my underwear is around here somewhere

Dear Dave,

Glad to hear you've finally started getting stuff out the loft. Hey, no rush - it's not like the baby's due today or anything...

Have you remembered everything? I was trying to think of what you'll need but the whole experience of dealing with a newborn is beginning to blur. Let's see: pram, carseat, biohazard suit, cottonwool, baby bath, crib (good luck putting that back together again, by the way), more cottonwool, baby clothes, steriliser, industrial-sized tin of coffee, yet more cottonwool, playpen, little blankets, even more cottonwool than that, mittens, buckets, large vat of disinfectant... The list goes on. There's probably a stack of stuff I've forgotten. (Did I mention cottonwool?) I have the full list here, somewhere, but I think I'm too scared of flashbacks to take a proper look.

I saw a small baby at parent and toddler the other day being wrapped up for going outside and it took me back. It was sunny but the kid was being kitted out with a padded coat, mittens and the cutest little pink hat ever. I'd forgotten about the little hats. It was so sweet.

Then again, I was a good ten feet from the little slug and reasonably safe from any stray bodily fluids. At that range, there wasn't even an odour. Just the thought of going back to nappies and middle-of-the-night feeds and regularly wearing banana porridge makes me feel... tired. In some ways, another child or two would be nice, but I just don't have the mental or physical energy for it. I'm looking forward to the point where I can sit reading a book while the kids run around outside entertaining themselves. (Well, I can dream. At the very least, it will be nice to interact with Fraser without having to constantly deal with/fight off a toddler). Relatively soon, Marie will start nursery and I'll have a couple of hours a day to myself. Some semblance of freedom approaches. I'll be able to...

Oh, hang on... Maybe you're not really the one I should be telling this too.

Yes, erm, stuff. I was talking about stuff. Our house is still a tip at the moment because of the repair work that's going on. We've had to empty out a couple of rooms and stash the contents in other parts of the house. Actually, 'stash' is a little optimistic. All the cupboards were already full beforehand. The beds are jacked up so we can fit more stuff underneath. Even the loft is full. We would have piled all the refugee stuff in the middle of the lounge carpet but what would we have done with the the big pile of stuff which normally lives in the middle of the lounge carpet?

We're having to pick our way through teetering stacks of printers and books and towels just to find clean clothes. I've given the kids each a hat with a flag on the top so I don't lose them amidst the clutter. It's kind of like living in the version of the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts where everybody hides junk. You just never know what you'll find if you go poking around. What will it be? The other shoe you're looking for? Fresh underwear? One end of a cable which could be attached to almost anything? Lord Lucan? Or Scabbers the rat?

It's always worth keeping something blunt and heavy handy just in case.

This chaos is a bit of a shame because I had been hoping we'd reached the high-tide mark of stuff a few months ago. Marie is at the stage where we don't need much of the specialised baby equipment any more and she has even out-grown plenty of toys. We've finally been able to off-load boxes and boxes of baby gear. Before, whenever one child was done with something, we had to put it in storage for the next one. More often than not, we just left the thing out - the minimal time before we needed it again meant it wasn't worth searching for a space in the loft. Meanwhile, as Fraser got older, we had to buy more stuff. Pokemon got mixed in with shape-sorters; a beanbag got plopped beside the bouncy chair. Cupboards overflowed, the carpet disappeared and I had to build a bigger shed. We began to sink beneath a sea of toddler artwork and strange constructions made from cereal cartons and yogurt pots.

I remember, when Fraser was on the way, being offered all kinds of useful second-hand items by various total strangers. At first, I tended to find their generosity heart-warming. Then I'd become disturbed by their manic insistence that I take some bulky item of well-worn and smelly baby paraphernalia. By the time they'd dragged me into their home and started piling my arms with junk, I was usually pretty scared. Fortunately, it was always fairly easy to sneak away as they ran round the house opening drawers and tipping the contents into black bin-liners for me.

Now I'm one of those people.

We packaged up lots of baby stuff recently, hired a van and drove it to relatives. With hindsight, maybe we should have asked if they wanted it before popping round while they were on holiday and dumping it all in their front room. But, hey, at least we watered their plants - they can't complain too much. We were just desperate to clear some space in our house.

The initial results were disappointing. There was still no room in our cupboards - it was merely possible to open them without being deluged in bibs and mitts and babygros. We had to do a second trip. Sarah's cousin was apparently very surprised when he got back from Tenerife, opened his garage door and nearly drowned in babywear.

We had slightly more space after that, though. We even revealed patches of floor that I'd forgotten we had.

When Fraser was small, I used to pack away his toys neatly at night, sorting them into the correct boxes and tubs. When Lewis was young, I got the boys to help me tidy the stuff into a corner and I checked that favourite toys still had all their pieces. When Marie was tiny, I bought a spade and just shoveled the stuff into the corner. Once she was a little older and never went to sleep, I even gave up on that. I simply cleared narrow paths between the door, the sofa and the telly and left the rest to geology. Over time, erosion and sedimentation from a steady flow of children caused interesting toy formations to take shape. The Teletubbies fossilised.

It was nice to finally clear some of the stuff out and have a little room to breathe again. Maybe soon, things will be that way again. The decorators are supposed to be coming this week and, once they're finished, we can set the house to rights. We could even take the opportunity to sift some of our belongings and fill a few bags for the charity shop. More likely, we'll just bung everything back where it came from as quickly as possible and leave the sifting until next decade but it's worth a thought. You never know, we might have the time, energy and inclination all at once...

That's still something to look forward to, however - we can't do much until the house is fixed. In the meantime, I'm reduced to smuggling small piles of toddler artwork out of the house in my trousers while whistling the theme tune to The Great Escape. If I can dispose of enough without the kids catching me and throwing a tantrum, I should have tunnelled my way to the biscuit tin in another couple of days.

It better not be empty.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Good luck. Hope it all goes relatively smoothly. Don't forget to pack your sandwiches.

Labels: children (vol.2), flood, stuff

 
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  Naming children

Dear Dave,

You'd better hurry up and think of some names. You don't want Squiggly to become the permanent way of referring to your second child. That would be quite embarrassing for everyone concerned. Maybe not as embarrassing as some of the alternatives but not really a name you want to be shouting loudly in the swing park, nonetheless.

I have discovered a list of all the first names given to children in Scotland last year. Granted, some of them are Gaelic (mostly the ones with far too many consonants) and some are ethnic (mostly the ones with far too many vowels), but there are still plenty of 'interesting' choices in there. What are some parents thinking?

I can see the advantages of giving a child a name that is fairly rare. Having two children with the same name in a class at school is pretty confusing. Lewis was even best friends with another Lewis for a while which led to lots of awkward 'my Lewis'/'your Lewis' conversations with the other Lewis' mum. That's worth avoiding.

You don't want to have something so unusual that people just go, 'Pardon?' when you say the kid's name, though. Aardvark, Zephyr and Asphyxia are simply not great choices. Fun as it might be inventing a new name, chances are that it will not be nearly as much fun to live with. If you want something a little different, go for a name that's slightly out of fashion or from another culture instead. Check the lists, however. You might think a name's not that common but it might just be that everyone with that name is under the age of three and none of them happen to go to the same parent and toddler groups as you. I've never met an Alfie but there were over 3000 born in the UK in 2006. Maybe they're all in London. Or maybe there will be five in Sam's nursery class. Watch out - they're coming to get you.

Don't make a common name unique by changing the spelling. Avoid Kaytee, Sera, Bobb and Androo. Just imagine the problems Squiggly will have giving her details over the phone in later life. ('Yes, Rachel - with a 'y', two 'l's and a silent 'q'.')

Make sure you're happy with the shortened form of any name you choose as well. For instance, if you call the kid Alexander, you'd better be OK with Alex, Xander, Sandy, Alec, Al, Lex and goodness knows what else. Upon reaching puberty, the kid will almost certainly adopt whichever version you like least and then go and mooch around on street corners while wearing a black hoodie. Other grubby teenagers will approach you looking for Big X. Be polite.

Also watch out for unfortunate initials that spell rude or embarrassing words. Give Squiggly a middle name starting with 'J' just to be on the safe side.

Avoid embarrassing middle names that you think no one will ever find out about. You might have sentimental reasons for it, but Squiggly won't thank you when his worst enemy discovers that his middle name is Petunia, Babylon5 or Bowser.

Oh, and if you're thinking of having any more children, don't use up all your best names at once. We gave Lewis and Fraser two middle names each and ran out. If Marie had been a boy, I don't know what we'd have called her. Chewbacca, maybe. Or Bubbles. We were really stuck.

Good luck with choosing. I remember Fraser's name didn't seem real for a couple of weeks after he was born. It felt like an incredible responsibility deciding someone's name. Perhaps it was our first understanding of the power we would have in shaping him as a person and in controlling his life. We could have called him Bermuda Archibald Teacake and I don't think anyone would have been able to stop us. (Apparently, in the UK, the registrar can only complain if a name is offensive. Offensive to whom, is somewhat unclear, but feel free to experiment).

Luckily, we resisted everything outlandish and Fraser suits him well enough now.

Phew...

It was almost as much stress as choosing his first hairstyle.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.2)

 
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9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 8 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Sugar and spice

Dear Dave,

Yep, might be a girl. In only a couple of weeks you could have a daughter. The three years of on-the-job training in childcare you got from looking after Sam will be out the window as you struggle to cope with an entirely different species of offspring. All your old tricks for entertaining, feeding, pacifying and cajoling will fail to work. For instance, while Sam fell asleep on your chest as you watched repeats of Top Gear, Squiggly will insist on being rocked gently while listening to Take That's Greatest Hits. On the plus side, however, the makeshift restraining harness you fitted to the changing unit for Sam will be strangely unnecessary - Squiggly will let you change her nappy without trying to gouge out your eyes and then kick poo in your face.

Well, you can always hope...

It might not turn out exactly that way but who knows? Whatever happens, Squiggly will be a whole different bundle of joy from Sam, whether she's a girl or not.

It's just that, if she is a girl, people will ascribe almost every difference in behaviour to their gender. They will probably tell you that girls are much more demanding than boys for all manner of reasons involving being precocious and awkward. Don't be disheartened, however. Bear in mind that these are the same people who told you last time round that boys are more demanding than girls because they're always running around causing trouble and getting into everything. Just nod and smile.

The truth is, all children are different. As a baby, Marie didn't eat, didn't sleep, had screaming fits and was forever ill. She was certainly more awkward than either of the boys but, to be honest, Fraser wasn't much better. In terms of temperament, those two are most similar. Lewis was a really easy baby, however. We thought it was because he was our second child and we'd learnt our lessons from Fraser and we knew what we were doing.

But we were wrong.

We used the same tactics with Marie and none of them worked. Lewis was just a really contented baby who liked to eat and sleep, was able to amuse himself and didn't appear to notice his teeth coming in. He even tans well. (The other two burst into flame in direct sunlight). We didn't know how lucky we'd been until Marie arrived and developed a fondness for waking up at three in the morning to grumble loudly for a couple of hours. I kind of assume 2006 happened, but I don't really remember it.

Was Marie's aversion to sleep because she's a girl? I doubt it. It's not like she was sitting around all day demurely and not getting enough exercise. Fraser chewed everything, Lewis heaped anything he could find into piles but Marie was the baby who wouldn't stay still. She could climb before she could walk. When the boys finally managed to haul themselves up onto the sofa, they sprawled out and watched TV. Marie just used it as a staging post on her ascent of the sideboard.

'Boys are more active' - yeah, right...

Obviously, I don't have a very large sample to base my observations on. Maybe some traits are more likely in girls rather than boys. I don't know. The thing is, though, you can't count on them. Every child has their own personality and needs - it's a case of getting to know them and nurturing them.

Speaking of nurturing, there's the gnarly question of whether to treat girls differently from boys. Will Squiggly get dolls or Duplo for Christmas? That kind of thing.

You think you won't treat them differently but the truth is probably that you just won't notice you're treating them differently. She'll have the opportunity to take up ballet and dress-making, if she wants, but you won't stand in her way if she decides to go for rugby and car maintenance. You'll even encourage her. There'll be no treating her differently 'because she's a girl'.

But what if Sam wants to take up ballet and dress-making?

You may be man enough to let him but don't tell me you won't be uneasy. You will hope it's just a passing phase. You will take him to Six Nations matches and buy him a set of wrenches.

Nope, you will treat them differently and there are some things you won't be able to avoid. If Squiggly is a girl, then the colour pink will enter your life in a big way.

Babies look alike. Guessing the gender of a baby in a white babygro is next to impossible. They're all bald and wrinkly. Colours vary but that doesn't help much. If she isn't dressed in pink, then people will assume she's a boy. I don't know why - they just will. Admittedly, they may do this anyway but, if she's covered head-to-toe in neon candyfloss, at least you'll have an excuse to roll your eyes a bit. You could try other colours like purple or lilac but you might as well accept your fate and embrace the pink. The fluffy, day-glo pile of baby gifts you receive will look like someone's disemboweled a bus load of cuddly toys with a highlighter pen, whatever.

We did our best with Marie but one of her first sentences was still, 'I like pink.' If she could have added 'actually' on the end, I'm sure she would have done.

Long hair is also fairly essential for little girls. Again, for reasons of recognition. Welcome to the world of hairclips and headbands and small, tangled children running away screaming as you approach with a hairbrush. ('It sore! It sore! I want mummy do it!')

What else? Well, girls get to trade on being cute. Marie managed to blag some pink Post-its off my optician the other day just by simpering. The boys would have needed to be charming as well.

Obviously, potty training is a little different with a girl (but not that much).

Longer term, I guess there will be other issues but there's no point worrying about them yet - there'll be plenty of time for that when Squiggly's a teenager. (Shudder). It's never too early to start planning how to embarrass her in front of her first boyfriend, though, or to jot down a few notes for a wedding speech...

Honestly, you'll be fine.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.


A selection of Marie's clothes. Soon all this pink could be yours, Dave. (Literally. I'm going to pack it in a box and send it to you before it contaminates the rest of the house).

Labels: children (vol.2)

 
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11:30 AM - Permanent Link - 1 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  One-dimensional eating habits

Dear Dave,

Thanks for the sympathy over all the things that aren't going entirely to plan just now. I know you have enough on your own plate to worry about at the moment. (Have you decided on any names!?) Sorry to hear Sam's acting up and refusing to eat anything which isn't long and thin. This does give you plenty of scope for nutrition, however - breadsticks, Cheestrings, carrots, chocolate fingers, crayons... There's a fairly long list of readily available foodstuffs and plenty of other things aren't too hard to cut into linear snacks. Obviously, you're going to be struggling with items like baked beans and peas and cake but I'm sure there must be ways round it. Mashing them up and squishing them together might work. Maybe not all at once but, you know, depends how much time you have...

Marie had a phase where she'd only eat doughnut-shaped food. This was much more awkward to accommodate. For a while she was made of Cheerios, Hula Hoops and Party Rings.

I should maybe just have given her the doughnuts and called her Homer.

Her Simpson-esque traits became even more apparent the other evening at the point I was getting her ready for bed. She was just annoyed and acting up about everything and I asked her if she was tired.

"No," she said, fighting her pyjamas as I tried to get them on her.

I wrestled one arm into her top. "Do you want to go to bed?"

"No!" she said, taking it off again.

"Are you sure?" I said, forcing the garment back over her head. "I think you need to lie down and get some sleep."

"NO!" she screamed and started to cry. She obviously and desperately needed some sleep but wasn't having any of it.

I was exasperated, frustrated and tired. I made the mistake of being sarcastic with a two-year-old. "What do you want to do then? Stay up all night and drink beer?"

She stopped. She looked at me. She jumped up and down excitedly. "Yes!"

"Er... I didn't really..."

"I not go to bed," she yelled, her body quivering with anticipation at the prospect of a six-pack, a sofa and a marathon of late night cable TV. "I not sleep. I drink beer!"

At which point Fraser and Lewis appeared from nowhere. "How come Marie's getting beer?" said Fraser.

"We want beer, too," said Lewis.

"Yes, can we have beer?" said Fraser.

Marie started running backwards and forwards, the length of the landing. "Want beeeeeeeeeeer! Want beeeeeeeeeer!" Then the boys joined in.

Needless to say, they didn't get any. But, by the time I'd finally got the whinging chancers off to bed, I did have a peculiar craving for a can of Tennents. Funny, that...

Anyway, as you've probably realised, I'm just avoiding talking about the stress in hand.

The mouse situation, at least, seems to be a little more under control now. I haven't actually seen any sign of one for a few days so it's possible they've gone away. Of course, I thought that with the ants, and you'll remember how that turned out. There's every chance that I've just managed to kill the stupid ones and that I'm using natural selection to breed a race of super rodents who will be able to avoid traps, open tins and steal the fridge. At the point they work out how to sell my stuff on ebay, I'm moving house.

The plumbing saga continues. Apparently out pipework is quite 'unusual'. (Translation: It was designed and implemented by a gibbon). The heating is now 88% fixed. Making it 100% fixed, however, may involve demolishing the bathroom.

As for Sarah... Well, things didn't go so well on Friday. LBO are laying people off left, right and centre. Branches are closing, work is being out-sourced, the final salary pension scheme is no more, services are facing the axe and the directors' bonuses have been linked to how much money they can lop off the operating budget. Not good.

Steve's still sitting pretty, as he predicted. Rob's department is gone but he's been shifted elsewhere. Technically, in terms of leadership and responsibility, it's a promotion. In terms of his annual salary, he's even had a pay rise. He was pretty pleased about that until I pointed out that the changes they've made to his holidays and working week mean his hourly rate has gone down. He's been sulking ever since.

Sarah has been made provisionally redundant. This means she has a couple of weeks to prepare and then she has to argue her case to be kept on with a special committee set up to give the impression that there has been some consultation with staff over all of this. It's already being called The Inquisition. Handily, each person will be interrogated by their manager and their manager's manager - i.e. the people instrumental in picking them for the chop in the first place. There will be an 'independent' member of senior management there from another division as well but I don't imagine that will be much comfort in most cases. Sarah's going to have to pull something pretty impressive out of the bag to make Steve and Scott perform a U-turn. (I'm thinking a bazooka would do it).

Ach, well, it isn't the first occasion something like this has happened and almost certainly won't be the last. We're coping as best we can. At least she isn't on maternity leave this time.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Mmmmmmm... Doughnuts...

Labels: children (vol.2), corporate madness, discrimination, flood, mice

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