Dear Dave

  Trying not to freak

Dear Dave,

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

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

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

Big mistake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

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

  The other thing I can't do

Dear Dave,

Marie is a girl.

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



Er...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

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

  Oh boy, that's a lot of candles

Dear Dave,

I'm getting old. I have to sit down to put on my socks, my eyebrows are becoming alarmingly bushy and I've started finding phones complicated. I'll be bald and have no teeth any day now. I'm forgetful and slightly mad already. It won't be long until the kids are the ones wheeling me around, rather than the other way about.

I don't fancy that. Knowing them, they'll leave me on a bus or something.

Marie: Where's Dad?
Fraser: Who?
Lewis: I thought you had him.
Marie: I wasn't pushing him.
Fraser: Neither was I.
Marie: It must have been you.
Fraser: It was Lewis.
Lewis: What was?
Fraser: It.
Lewis: No, it wasn't.
Fraser: Yes, it was.
Lewis: No, it wasn't.
Fraser: Yes, it...
Marie: Oh, never mind. He'll turn up. Let's go shopping...

I'll be stranded out at the airport without any cash, and phones will have evolved to a stage where I won't even be able to recognise them. I'll by forced to barter my dentures for a lift home.

No aspect of this scenario is pretty.

I found myself contemplating these things, however, thanks to the arrival of yet another birthday. I keep imagining that the next birthday will pass me by - that I won't be astonished at the way time has rattled along or be scared by another candle on the cake. I should be used to it by now. I ought to be, anyway, what with three birthdays a year and all.

Oh, yeah, sorry if that wasn't clear... I'm not talking about my own birthdays here. I can ignore them fairly easily and I lost track of my age in about 1998. If anyone asks, I'm twenty-five, OK? It's the kids' birthdays I mean. They're much harder to ignore. In fact, attempting to ignore them has a tendency to incite revolt within the household so I've given up. We have the full extravaganza, complete with cake and presents, parties and in-law visitations. Every time one of the children reaches another annual milestone, several days of excitement, disruption and sugar-fuelled mayhem ensue, making denial impossible. I simply can't avoid acknowledging that they've got another year older.

As I said, I should be used it. So why are they always such a shock? Surely, after so many, some of these birthdays should seem unremarkable?

I'd hoped that, last week, when Lewis' sixth birthday rolled round, the only trauma of any size would be organising the party. Why should knowing that he was older than five have been an issue? Six isn't a very significant age and, after all, he's the middle child. It's the ages of the eldest and youngest that really define life. Those ages determine where you can go, what you can do and how much it's likely to cost. Those are the scary ages.

Yeah, right.

Lewis was the youngest for a long time. Due to sleep deprivation from Fraser teething, I kind of blanked the pregnancy and Lewis' arrival felt almost unexpected. His existence was a constant surprise for months. He was a delightful baby and a happy little bundle in a difficult period of our lives. It seems like only yesterday that...

What am I saying? My little boy is six! Where has the time gone?

Argh! Note to self: Run around in a mad panic and then go and buy a motorbike!

I suspect this state of affairs will never change. As my own birthdays blend further into one, the kids' birthdays will continue to resolutely mark the passage of the years. Turning thirty-four myself was quickly forgotten. What's it going to be like, though, when Fraser turns thirty-four? Or Marie?

My little girl is thirty-four! Where has the time gone?

Argh! Hobble around in a confused daze and then go buy a motorised scooter with a shopping basket on the front!

Doesn't really bear thinking about. Ho well. I suppose that at least they won't be expecting me to lay on soft-play and sandwiches...

We're actually trying to encourage a move away from big parties for the boys already. It turns out that a soft-play full of a dozen almost-six-year-olds is an appreciably different experience from a soft-play full of ten almost-five-year-olds. It's noisier, rowdier and much more pointy. Trying something similar with even older children seems liable to create a Lord of the Flies incident. If I dare venture in to invigilate, they'll tie me to a scramble net and then bury me in squishy shapes. I will be forced to barter my hair for freedom. (And you thought baldness just happened...)

To avoid such a disaster, this year Fraser is going bowling with a smaller group. This will have its own challenges but I shouldn't come out of it needing to comb back my eyebrows in order to keep the top of my head warm.

Still, I wouldn't be too concerned if you're thinking of a big gathering for Sam when he turns four. Parties for children aren't the huge stress you might assume, as long as you don't hold them in your house. Your house is full of breakable things and will take hours to clear up; a party room at the soft-play (or a church hall if you're on a budget) can be blitzed clean in minutes.

Get them running about for a bit, throw in a game or two with prizes (Pass the Parcel and Musical Statues), feed them, do the cake and candles, play another game, send them home and then go and lie down in a darkened room for an hour or two. Easy.

They won't actually eat much food. Crisps, grapes, cocktail sausages and Chocolate Animals will mostly cover it. Add a few sandwiches and carrot sticks and you'll be sorted. (Don't forget to check for kids with special dietary requirements.) If you want to avoid major spills, hand out drinks in plastic bottles with sports-style caps (e.g. Fruit Shoots).

Do not let Sam open presents at the party. It will take ages and be dull. If he's anything like Fraser, the whole thing will also be accompanied by comments of, 'I've already got one of these', 'But I hate Power Rangers' and 'This is rubbish'. Best to make him wait until he gets home.

Keep party bags simple: a balloon, a snack-size chocolate bar, a small packet of sweets and a couple of little toys. Any child who isn't satisfied with that probably won't be satisfied whatever you put in, so don't worry about it. After an hour of soft-play, one of the kids at Lewis' party demanded to know where the bouncy castle was. Later, when his parents arrived, he threw a wobbly because there wasn't any swimming. There's not much to do in these situations except grin broadly and turn the music up louder to drown out the screaming.

Oh, that's right. Remember to take music. Pass the Parcel will be tricky without it... or a parcel.

OK, OK, you're not an idiot - you knew you'd need a parcel. Sorry. I'm old. Cut me some slack.

Now... Where did I leave those children?

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

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

  The mind control is failing

Dear Dave,

How's Sam getting on at nursery these days? Marie really enjoyed it at first. Then, after a couple of weeks, she comprehended it was every day and started complaining that she didn't want to go any more. She shuffled towards the nursery door each morning, shoulders slumped, head hung low, and complained she was tired. I showed very little sympathy. I told her to get used to it 'cos she had another fourteen and a half years of education left to go, and then I gave her a little shove to make sure she made it across the threshold.

This approach seems to have paid off, since she's now much more used to the idea. She comes out a lot less grumpy at the end of the morning. I get to hear about the snack she had and the story and sometimes a few of the things she's learned. They've been talking about health and food recently.

It's nice to listen to what she's been up to but it's a bit scary to realise that even my little girl is no longer entirely under my control. The kids are getting older. Other people teach them things without me being present. I don't get to police the flow of information to their brains and I'm constantly surprised when they tell me things which I didn't know they knew. The other day, Fraser was aware that the Himalayas are the highest mountain range in the world. I didn't tell him that. They must actually teach him stuff at school. What with all you hear about the state education system, this was more than I'd really bargained on. I was thinking of it as free childcare with some added social integration but there's definitely more to it than that. He's not yet eight but he can do simple division, recite information about Vikings and read Harry Potter books without moving his lips. I wonder what else they're teaching him? Actually, hang on a minute, he can read. He could be teaching stuff to himself!

This isn't good. He has enough opinions already. Imagine what it will be like if he has facts to back them up... I'm doomed.

Ho well. Then again, sometimes I'm surprised by what the kids don't know. Usually it's just a simple misunderstanding, like the time Marie asked, "Can I have some more juice please, Daddy?" (At least that's what I think she asked. It's possible she might have said, "I want more juice, slave!" but that's not important.)

"Sorry, Marie," I replied. "The juice has all gone, I'm afraid."

"Oh," she said. "Are you scared of the juice, Daddy?"

Other times, the misunderstanding can be much less simple:

Fraser had to read to me from a book about India for his homework. One passage was to do with fishermen who work at the shore in tiger reserves. The book said that they wear masks on the backs of their heads to scare off the tigers. Fraser read the words fluently but I was suspicious that he hadn't understood their sense when he looked at the picture of the fishermen and said, "What have they got on their heads?"

"Those are masks," I explained. "It means they can keep working without having to look over their shoulders all the time to make sure a tiger isn't creeping up on them. If a tiger sees their masks, it will think they're looking at it. That means it won't attack because it will think they'll see it coming and fight back."

Fraser was puzzled. "What if there's another tiger in front of them?"

"They really will be looking at that one," I said patiently, "so it won't attack them either."

"But what if the two tigers talk to each other?" he said, his face screwed up in confusion. "If they both say they see faces, then they'll know it's a trick."

I suddenly understood the scale of the issue I was dealing with. "Er... Tigers can't talk."

"I know," he said, to my relief. Unfortunately, he then followed that up with, "I mean in their own language."

"No - tigers can't speak at all," I said, regretting having ever let him watch The Jungle Book. "They can only growl. They can maybe tell each other to look out, or that there's food or something, by growling a bit differently, but they can't say anything more than that."

He didn't get it. "Yeah, but I mean in their own language..."

"Tigers don't have a language. Only people have languages." I was tempted to add a caveat about dolphins but decided not to confuse things further. "Animals can't have conversations."

"OK," said Fraser, although he still didn't look convinced, and we pressed on with the book.

There's so much that he knows now, I was astonished by this gaping hole in his understanding of the world. Did he find Ratatouille believable? What else has he not taken in? Are there basic safety issues that he's blissfully unaware of? Does he think the moon is made of cheese?

I'm nervous. I can't possibly 'remind' him of everything I think he should know, though. It would take too long and wouldn't help anyway. I'd be bound to assume too much. It wouldn't have crossed my mind that he thought animals could talk to each other. Who knows what else he's missed?

Then there are concepts he may never pick up. A few years back, we tried out a different translation of the Lord's Prayer at church. It didn't go down hugely well for various reasons, most notably that the new version was neither poetic nor particularly more understandable than the old version. There were those, however, who were angry that the minister was trying to 'change the words that Jesus taught us'. They just didn't seem to get that there can be more than one way to translate things and that all the ways can be equally valid. These weren't stupid people - it was just a subject of which they had little knowledge or experience.

On another occasion, Fraser came home from school having been given the task of finding out what molecules are made of. I sent him back with the answer, 'It depends how close you look,' and a basic grasp of sub-atomic physics. I got called in by the teacher to explain myself. I really thought she'd at least have heard of quarks...

I was in my teens before I worked out that those pictures of our galaxy we're so used to seeing aren't photos. I was thirty before I realised that just because psychologists have given a name to an illness doesn't mean they know how to positively identify it, what causes it or how to treat it. I still think that I graduated recently.

I guess that last one is a concept I simply don't want to learn the truth about. Marie had a similar feeling yesterday. After nursery, she saw one of her friends eating a Curly Wurly. "Anna's having a snack," she said. "It's not healthy."

I nodded. "Yep, you're right, that's not a very healthy snack."

"I'm going to have a snack after soft-play," Marie said. "It will be a healthy snack."

On past experience, this didn't seem very likely. "Really?" I said.

"Yes."

"What's your snack going to be?" I asked.

"A Milky Way!" Marie said, jumping up and down.

"That's not healthy."

She looked at me like I was on drugs. "Yes, it is."

"No," I said, "it's a chocolate bar. It's made of sugar and chocolate, just like the chocolate bar that Anna's eating."

"Oh," said Marie, deeply troubled by this revelation. It stuck in her head, though, because when soft-play was over, she perused the contents of the vending machine carefully. She spotted a Blueberry Slice in the bottom corner. "I want that. It's healthy."

"Maybe," I muttered, trying to work out what is was. It appeared to be a type of cake but it didn't have chocolate and the name implied some level of fruit content. It was almost certainly entirely made of lard and sugar apart from a small smattering of blueberry scrapings. Still, a hint of vitamins is sometimes all it takes to persuade a parent to cough up twice as much money as normal for a snack that explodes into sticky crumbs as soon as it's unwrapped.

More than that, I didn't have the heart to inform her that anything which comes from a vending machine is very unlikely to be nutritious. She wouldn't have been able to cope. She wanted to be healthy but she was tired and needed a snack. Compromise was the only way forward.

While I was busy hoovering us both down after we got home, I got to thinking about Fraser again. I can't possibly teach him everything. I don't know everything myself. There are things he's not ready for yet. There are things he won't want to hear. I may even struggle to convince him that he doesn't know everything already.

All I can do is continue to help him understand the world and try to answer his questions as they arise. The next time I get into an argument with him (or anyone else for that matter), I should take a step back, however. What's the argument really about? What assumptions are we both making? Does one of us think tigers can talk to each other?

It might help life run more smoothly.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, nursery, school

  9:45 AM - Permanent Link - 3 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Nobody expects the Spanish I/O error

Dear Dave,

Some things didn't really change when I became a housedad. Bringing up kids is very like running an IT project - for some reason, I'm always behind schedule.

With IT projects, the difficulty is that there are always unexpected snags. Typical issues range from a logical inconsistency in the specification (i.e. you've been asked to do the impossible) to a discovery that the highly paid contractor brought in to handle the tough stuff was bluffing all along and has spent six months playing Minesweeper. If you're really unlucky, the project will simply open up a vortex in the very fabric of nature that sucks in time and money and dumps them out beyond the galactic rim. (That's never good).

Obviously, it's possible to figure some leeway into the production timetable but, if you don't know what the problem is going to be, it's difficult to know how much time to allow for solving it. Maybe it will only require someone nipping to Curry's for a cable. Maybe it will send the whole project back to the drawing board. Who knows? Probably best to allow twice as long as you're really hoping, though.

Of course, putting vast amounts of blank space in the schedule 'just in case' gives a bad impression, so it doesn't usually happen. Then, halfway through the project, someone leaves the team or the customer suddenly needs the product in a hurry and management has to cut corners in order to get the job done. The easiest thing to do is remove from the schedule the time and manpower set aside for contingencies. Voila! The whole project is back on track... as long as nothing goes wrong. Management may argue that this is the kind of emergency that all the padding in the schedule was for, but the truth is that these are management problems that should have had padding of their very own. In reality, what's gone is all the time required to cope when it turns out that the software you've bought in from another company doesn't do all the things the salesman said it would, doesn't work at all or has manuals that are written entirely in Danish (apart from the bits in Braille).

Somehow, management is surprised when the project over-runs...

Maybe it's an unwinnable battle. If, by some quirk of fate, a project did ever come in early, the customers would simply start trying to think of 'little' bits to add on. These would almost certainly involve starting again from scratch and the project would end up over-running anyway.

Similarly, with children, being late can be inevitable. If, on a good day, it takes ten minutes to get everyone's shoes on and get them out of the house for school, there are going to be other days where it takes twenty. Setting aside twenty minutes is asking for trouble, though. You don't want to be waiting outside the school for ten minutes in the rain. Equally, you don't want to be hanging around at home for ten minutes - the kids will complain loudly about being bored, take their shoes off again and then lose them. They will arrive very late for school, wearing their slippers. Yep, leaving too much time for a task can make you later than leaving too little. You'd be better off allowing fifteen minutes on a regular basis and simply accepting the fact that you're going to be five minutes late on any day that one of the children gets distracted and tips his milk into his ear rather than his mouth.

That said, with a little knowledge and planning, it's possible to avoid being horrendously late all the time. Bearing this in mind, here are a few tasks that I've found unexpectedly hard in the past. You've probably encountered most of them yourself already but they may not have seemed like that big a deal. Please remember, however, that the time taken to solve these issues is proportional to the square of the number of children you have. Thus, now you have two, you need to allow four times as much space in the schedule for:

• Getting them to wear appropriate clothing. I tell my kids that it’s raining and they’ll need to put their raincoats on.
  
  Without looking out a window, they say, ‘No, it’s not.’
  
  I argue for a bit, they don’t put their raincoats on and we step out of the door. They immediately start screaming that it’s raining and run around in a panic like they’re the Wicked Witch of the West and someone’s just dumped a bucket of water on them.
  
  I say, ‘It’s almost stopped. You’ll be fine.’
  
  They argue for a bit and demand their raincoats. Eventually, I give up and they go in and put their raincoats on.
  
  The rain stops, the sun comes out and they complain it’s too hot in their raincoats.
  
  They refuse to take them off.
  
  When we eventually arrive at our destination, people wonder why we’re wet, late and sweaty. I just shake my head and sigh…
• Getting them to do stuff for themselves. Marie kicks up a huge fuss about drying her own hands. She's currently lying on the hall floor yelling for help because a small part of her lower arm is still wet. She's actually holding the towel in her other hand but wants me to go through and combine the towel and arm with some gentle rubbing action. Suffice to say, she'll be yelling a while longer - probably for several minutes after the water has evaporated of its own accord.
• Getting gloves on a toddler. Their fingers go everywhere apart from the right place.
• Getting them to stop doing stuff for themselves. Of course, if we're in a big hurry and I pro-actively decide to dry Marie's hands for her, she'll absolutely insist on doing it on her own... Really... really... slowly...
• Going to the shops to buy milk. Between getting them dressed, toileted (including the washing and drying of hands) and actually persuading them to leave the house, going to buy milk can take longer to organise than a trip to Paris without children.
• Going to Paris with children. Like going to buy milk but with added luggage.
• Keeping gloves on a toddler. It doesn't matter that it's freezing and you've just spent five minutes getting the things on, the kid wants to see her fingers...
• Feeding them five portions of fruit and veg a day. It's not so much getting them to eat it, it's supplying it:
  
  
  Why I have to go to the shops so often: 5 family members x 5 portions per day x 2 days = 50 portions. We also require around 8 pints of milk and a loaf and a half of bread. Hang on a minute while I just nip to Tesco again...
• Cheering up a toddler whose hands are cold. If you can just get them to calm down for a minute, you might be able to get those gloves back on. (Briefly).
• Working out when they're ill. When my kids were small, it was easy to tell how ill they were from the number and amount of toxic substances oozing out of them. These days there's usually less to go on. They'll complain of aches and pains, cough a couple of times and then sneeze. Questioning them uncovers that they've been feeling 'not that great' for 'a bit'. Taking their temperature reveals that one ear has a mild fever and the other is dead. (Repeated attempts cause the symptoms to swap randomly between ears. Shaking the electronic thermometer produces a rattling sound).
  
  Since I've now spent nearly eight years clearing up toxic substances despite having had various strains of plague myself, I'm low on sympathy for minor cases of the snuffles. Still, I don't want them going rapidly downhill the second they leave the house. I can do without being summoned to school halfway through the morning to explain why I sent in my highly contagious child. (Teachers are scary).
  
  Coming to a decision always takes forever.
• Explaining the difference between live-action TV drama, cartoons, documentary footage, the news, CGI and real life. As for theatre, well: 'Yes, those are real people pretending to be the real people who normally pretend to be the pretend people in Lazy Town but if that one falls off the ladder it will really hurt. And, yes, it is just a story, but vegetables really are good for you.'
• Avoiding drowning in Fimbles. Soft toys. Everywhere. Stuck now. Can't... make... it... to... the... door...
• Being understanding. This takes a surprising amount of effort. What I really want to say is, 'I told you you'd get cold hands.'

There we go. Hopefully, with this knowledge, you should be able to leave enough time (but not too much) to achieve most goals. I wouldn't count on it, though. The kids are bound to find some new way to slow you down.

At least you can take consolation from the fact that you're not in charge of the software for the government's ID card scheme. I hear that's created a vortex that's spitting stuff out. They're having to deal with giant space spiders, unicorns and sudden downpours of odd socks.

Whatever happens, we're never going to be as late as them.

Probably.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, corporate madness, IT, sickness

  10:30 AM - Permanent Link - 6 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Being there

Dear Dave,

I'm sorry to hear that Sam has lost his cuddly green cat called Blue Rabbit. Have you checked inside his wellies, behind the sofa and under his mattress? How about coat pockets and the freezer? (Yeah, sorry, I know you're an old hand at this and you've probably searched everywhere twice but sometimes it's easy to overlook the obvious places).

Before Christmas, Marie lost a pink hat by posting it through the gap between the back and hood of her buggy. She thought it had landed safely in the shopping net underneath but, in fact, she'd cunningly dropped it on the pavement behind us. The next day, when we discovered it missing, we went searching but it had vanished. She was distraught. She wanted us to go door-to-door asking for it. Eventually, I had to tell her that it had 'gone to live on a farm' and it was happy gambolling through the fields. "No, it's not," she whimpered. "It's crying because it's lost me."

What can you do?

I hate not being able to fix things. It's particularly frustrating when children go out of their way to create insoluble problems. The other day, Marie burst into tears because I'd brought her raincoat rather than her umbrella when I collected her from nursery. We got soaked as she shuffled slowly and miserably home. All the way, she whined that she wanted her umbrella. Since the umbrella was at home and that's where we were going, I'm not sure exactly what she wanted me to do. She was just determined to be annoyed.

Usually in these situations, she gets a handful of Extra Strong Mints to cheer her up. She loves having 'a fiery mouth', apparently. Unfortunately, the day before, she'd got a public health DVD from nursery detailing how to brush teeth and trying to persuade us to avoid sugary snacks. She'd insisted on watching it half a dozen times. It made her feel hungry and me feel guilty. Now, when she's not whining about me having brought the wrong waterproof equipment, she's whining because I won't give her Extra Strong Mints in case her teeth fall out.

Still, for a while, it was nice being able to put almost anything right with a touch of minty freshness.

Dental hygiene aside, though, it wouldn't have lasted anyway. The boys have already encountered emotional issues that are much harder to deal with than by just fobbing them off with sweets. For instance, when Lewis was only four, he was inconsolable for weeks after he learnt his best friend was going to a different school.

Fraser gets upset if particular kids won't play with him at school. He comes out of the gate at the end of the day and wants me to talk to their parents. I have to explain that adults can't force other children to be friends with him. He doesn't really seem to understand, though:

Years ago, when he was in nursery, I asked him who his friends were and he laughed and said, "We're all friends in nursery. That's the rule." I kept trying to find out who he was particularly friendly with but he just kept saying, "We're all friends in nursery," in a Stepford kind of way. All the kids had obviously had this drummed into them. It's a nice idea but, you and I both know, it's really just institutional short-hand for, 'We will peacefully tolerate each other's presence and not whack each other senseless with Duplo.' Fraser took it rather more literally, however, and hasn't quite recovered.

I try suggesting other children in his class he could play with but they won't do. He wants everyone to be friends with him but reserves the right to be selective about returning the affection. (Which, I guess, is normal - it's just a shame for everybody involved). My instant desire is to fix things for 'my little boy' and to make it all go away. That's not possible, though, and maybe it's not even a good idea. Coping with loss and disappointment is an important skill he should learn. I can help by acknowledging the hurt and giving him sympathy but there's no point pretending that everything's OK and it doesn't matter really. He needs to know that it's all right to be sad sometimes.

Admittedly, sometimes he needs to get a grip - in my book, it's not acceptable to burst into tears because you got the wrong type of bedtime hug nor to kick your brother in frustration because he doesn't want to play the same game as you. These situations require patience, respect and negotiation rather than emotional outbursts. Still, there are occasions when he has a right to feel genuinely upset and I shouldn't expect him to just shrug it off. Being rejected isn't fun.

All I can do is let him know we love him no matter what he does or achieves, and encourage him to explore and control his emotions. Giving him something to look forward to doesn't do any harm either. A Pokemon card battle is a great healer.

Good luck finding a replacement for that cat/rabbit. Will Sam be happy with a brand new one or will he insist on it looking, feeling and smelling the same? Hopefully he'll just accept your explanation that you've 'given it a wash'. If not, at least you can vent your parental frustration by giving the flipping thing a good battering with a shovel.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Don't forget to pour some milk on it and leave it in the sun for three days before wiping it on the nose of a passing dog. That should get the scent and texture just about perfect...

Labels: children, depression, parenthacks

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

  That would be an ecumenical question...

Dear Dave,

When this housedad existence is over, all the kids are grown up and I no longer have any purpose in life, I'll probably have to find a job or something. By that point, of course, I will be a withered husk of my former self with out-dated qualifications and atrophied skills. On paper, my employability will be severely compromised. I'm not too worried, though. If I can blag my way to an interview, then I should be fine. I'll have had years of practice answering unexpected and awkward questions in high pressure situations. Nothing will phase me. After all, what could compete with being asked (loudly) on the bus, 'Why is that man so fat?' or being interrogated in the playground as to how exactly the baby-seeds get from the daddy to the mummy? In comparison, sitting in an office and having to answer some nonsense about what I can contribute should be a breeze. I'm reasonably confident of talking my way into senior management within a couple of weeks. That, or PR rep for British Nuclear Fuels, anyway.

Yep, I have to deal with difficult questions all the time. Lewis has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, no desire to think things through for himself and a complete lack of tact. Fraser is becoming intrigued by the mechanical details of baby production. Marie, meanwhile, has taken an interest in theology.

Fraser was the same at her age, asking all kinds of questions like 'Where is God?', 'What's he made of?' and 'Will I get to play computer games in heaven?' We were impressed until we realised that he was timing these questions at twenty-eight minutes past seven in the evening and his main aim was to avoid going to bed. This was still impressive in its own way but nowhere near as gratifying. Marie, however, seems to be looking more for a good doctrinal debate. She's equally uninterested in what we have to tell her but is keen to share her own theories with us.

Recently, she's been wandering around with a pink, sparkly teddy bear. "This is my toy Jesus," she says, holding it out in front of her and then letting go. "She likes being dropped."

Strangely, she doesn't get to take this particular bear to church.


The Messiah (as imagined by a three-year-old girl).

Then she picks up the bear again and says, "The real Jesus is inside." It's hard to disagree, since, technically, God is everywhere.

Well almost everywhere, apparently:

Sarah is taking the boys to Aberdeen for the weekend soon. Marie isn't too thrilled at the prospect of staying home with me. She demonstrated this to Sarah the other day. "God is here! He's in our house!" Marie shouted excitedly. Then her eyes narrowed and she muttered, "When you go to Aberdeen, he won't be there. He's going to stay here with me."

Does this say more about her understanding of God, I wonder, or about her knowledge of Aberdeen?

Hmmm... That's maybe one question I won't answer...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, christianity

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

  Some things are hard to grow out of

Dear Dave,

There are at least two sides to every story. I'm sure you'll become steadily more aware of this as your children get older. Conversations in your household will frequently run along the following lines:

Daisy: Sam pulled my hair!

Sam: She bit me.

Daisy: He hit me first.

Sam: She grabbed the car from me.

Daisy: It's my car!

Sam: I was playing with it first.

Daisy: I said I was going to play with it first.

Sam: I was playing with it before lunch.

Daisy: So it is my turn!

Sam: I hadn't finished my turn.

Daisy: It was your turn yesterday.

Sam: I didn't want to play with it yesterday.

Daisy: So? It was still your turn.

Sam: But you were playing with it.

Daisy: So?

Sam: So it was your turn yesterday.

Daisy: No, it wasn't it.

Sam: Yes, it was.

Daisy: No, it...

And so it will go on. Luckily, in this situation, the solution is a pretty easy call. Both children have started out by shopping each other for a couple of rule violations and then continued by shouting angrily at everyone - they both get sent to their rooms while you get a few minutes peace to sit and read the paper. Who gets to play with the car once the time-out is over is less clear but it's really up to personal parenting preference. You could toss a coin, work out a sharing timetable, give the thing to the most penitent-seeming child or just make it mysteriously vanish for a couple of days. Another option is to try distracting the kids from the whole issue with a fun and exciting activity. It's probably not worth the effort, though. As soon as the activity is done, they'll start arguing about the car again. You might as well address the issue straight off.

Yep, in the above scenario, it's almost impossible to get to the bottom of things. There is no root cause to the conflict except, maybe, Daisy's conception. These are just the kind of spats you have to deal with if you have more than one child.

There are some cases, however, where one side of a story is vastly more illuminating than the other:

Sam (rushing into the room): Dad! Dad! Daisy sat on my head!

You: Really? Where was your head when she sat on it?

Sam: Hiding under her favourite cushion.

You: Uh-huh...

Actually, let's face it, most stories are pretty open and shut, but your children will try hard to convince you otherwise. More often than not, however, one of them will have 'forgotten' some salient fact, such as a threat to eat the other's nose, the lobbing of a cuddly toy into a ceiling fan or the incriminating sock they're holding that is not their own. It's usually not too hard getting an approximation of the truth fairly quickly. Sometimes, though, particularly if only one child was present at the incident, it can take a fair amount of probing to find out what happened. For instance, things didn't entirely add up when Fraser fell down the stairs recently:

There was a huge thud and a small scream and I ran to investigate. Thankfully, since our stairs are carpeted and divided into flights of only six steps, he was more scared than hurt. I untangled him and checked him for injuries. He had a couple of bruises. I gave him a cuddle and some sympathy but I was a little suspicious. It was at least the fourth time that Fraser has fallen down the stairs. Given that Marie and Lewis have only managed it once between them, there's the possibility that he's not always being entirely careful. On this particular occasion, taking into account that my Nintendo DS was lying open beside him when I arrived on the scene, there was the distinct possibility that he'd been being positively careless.

Playing videogames while using stairs is never liable to go well for long.

"Were you holding onto the rail?" I asked.

"Yes," said Fraser mournfully.

"Why did you have the DS open? You know you're not supposed to go up and down stairs with it open."

Fraser went on the defensive. "I hadn't started going down. I was just about to close it."

"You hadn't started going down but you were holding onto the rail?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"I was on the top step and I slipped."

My suspicions were confirmed but I decided not to press things further. He had just fallen down the stairs, after all. I couldn't help myself from a little bit of telling off, though, to make up for the scare he'd given me. "OK, well maybe if you'd closed it before you got to the stairs, you might have been able to concentrate on not falling."

Fraser's concerns were elsewhere, however. "Is the DS broken?" he said anxiously.

"I think it's still working."

"What about the pen?" Fraser asked. "Did you find the pen?"

I was confused. "Isn't the pen in the holder?"

"I had it in my hand."

"So you had the DS in one hand, the pen in your other hand AND you were holding onto the rail?"

"Er..." said Fraser, obviously attempting to concoct a viable explanation for a temporary third hand. He stalled with, "But I wasn't going down the stairs."

Fortunately for him, I was just glad he was OK. "Uh-huh," I said and went to get us both some chocolate.

Doubtless, if I'd continued questioning him, he would have argued at length how he really had been being careful. He'd probably even have convinced himself. As it was, we both knew he'd broken a rule or two, and he had some aches and pains to remind him to be a little more sensible in future. It had taken a while to get there but the conclusions weren't really in doubt. As I said, open and shut.

Of course, I'm not saying it's a good idea to leap to conclusions. (You don't want to end up starring in your own personal sitcom). Always check the facts and consider different possibilities. It's just that children can spin a very complicated defence from an indefensible position. At best, this confuses the issue. ('I wasn't talking loudly while you were on the phone... I was singing!') At worst, it will incriminate them in several other cases of rule-breaking. ('I didn't throw the remote at Marie. I was juggling it with some knives but Fraser moved his leg that I was standing on and made me drop them all. It's his fault!).

Sometimes it's fairer to give them a short hearing than a long one.

This can feel wrong, though. We're used to balanced arguments. Debates, talk shows, news items and magazine articles are often set up so that both sides get equal time. In reality, both sides may not deserve equal time.

I got to thinking about this after receiving an invitation to an online discussion over the pros and cons of child vaccinations. A wealth of information was promised, along with input from experts on both sides of the debate. I just sighed. There is no debate. Vaccinations save countless lives and take a great deal of worry out of parenting. Horrible diseases have been eradicated; others have been held at bay. Vaccinating everyone who's old enough doesn't just protect those who have been vaccinated, it prevents the disease in question from spreading and infecting those who are too young or too sick to be vaccinated themselves. Vaccinations are fantastic.

You wouldn't know that from watching the news, however. Some shows have to pad out their time with endless discussion and controversy. Others feel the need to be impartial and give the same air-time to different points of view. Admittedly, we don't want the media to tell us how to think but a fair presentation of the facts doesn't necessarily lead to a balanced debate. Sometimes, giving equal time and weight to both sides of an argument isn't impartiality, it's bias towards nonsense.

I actually danced around the room when a recent Teletext article dismissed any link between the MMR jab and autism as discredited in a very off-hand way. Sanity at last.

The world is full of people constructing convoluted arguments and emotional appeals to further their point of view. Before long, your house will be full of little people doing the same. On occasion, you may want to treat the children like adults and hear them out. Most of the time, however, you'd be better taking it all as training to view adults like children - children who've got bigger and who are still determined to prove that it wasn't their fault they fell down the stairs while playing videogames.

Many things makes a lot more sense that way.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, statistics

  10:00 AM - Permanent Link - 6 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Punishment and bribery

Dear Dave,

Yep, I quite understand. They really do drive you spare sometimes, don't they? You'd think a three-year-old would listen to basic instructions like, 'Don't poke yourself in the eye.' At the very least, you'd expect them to avoid the stabbing pain and temporary blindness after, say, the fourth or fifth occasion. But, hey, where would the fun be in that?

I've no idea how you can get Sam to stop. You could always try encouraging him to keep doing it, I suppose. ('Both fingers next time, son!') A bit of reverse psychology - that might do the trick. (I wouldn't try it with other parents around, though).

Children can be awkward like that. For instance, only yesterday, Lewis started playing a cheap, handheld Tetris game and Marie tried to grab it from him. She'd been fiddling with it a few minutes earlier and felt it was hers, despite the fact she'd been happily doing something else for a while. I told her it was Lewis' turn and she erupted in tears and whining. She continued trying to wrestle it from him. I told her that she could have a turn when Lewis was finished. She cried all the louder. "I don't want a turn when it's my turn!" she bawled. And, sure enough, she kept grabbing at the game until Lewis stopped playing and I handed it to her. Then she refused to touch it.

As I said, awkward.

I'm actually in something of a parenting quandary myself. I'm really not sure how to proceed. Marie keeps wetting her pants. Not usually enough to cause a disaster but enough to require clean underwear and sometimes a fresh set of trousers. If anything, the problem's getting worse as time goes on. The threat (and frequent reality) of having her bedtime toys confiscated has helped but she really could do better since she can easily hold it in for four or six hours at a time. Unfortunately, she's just a little too confident and is prone to leaving things too late. I keep trying to persuade her to use the facilities more often but she ignores suggestions and kicks up a fuss at direct orders. Then, five minutes later, she wets her pants.

Frustratingly, it's not that she's incapable; it's that she's just not putting the effort in. Sometimes she'd rather just do something else than visit the bathroom. This being the case, I'm considering whether to make going to the toilet more exciting. I'm sure a reward scheme would work wonders - she'd go nuts over a pink chart with sparkly stars. I'm somewhat reluctant, though. Having a first child like Fraser has always dissuaded me from these kinds of things. Even at nursery, he knew how to work the system:

The kids at nursery go outside to play in two shifts. When it's time to head out, the helpers ask the kids who wants go to the playground in the first group. Unsurprisingly, most of them usually volunteer to go straight away - small children will plump for the bird in the hand almost every time. Pretty quickly, however, Fraser started actively asking to be in the later group. This was unheard of. The teacher felt the need to question him further. He pointed out that the second group returns after tidy-up time in the classroom and that that meant less work for him. The teacher was so impressed with his mental reasoning, she let him go out with the second group.

The following day, however, he wasn't so lucky...

Marie is bright enough to try a similar scam but she's also creative enough to get away with it for longer. She'd claim that she wanted to go out in the second group 'so the crocodiles didn't sit on her toes'. And there's just no arguing with that. The prospect of stickers would have Marie on the toilet every five minutes claiming that her tummy was full of cats, or some such excuse. The entire bathroom wall would rapidly disappear under sparkly stars.

There's also the fear that she might suddenly declare that she had exactly the right number of stickers and decide to never go to the toilet again. You and I know that she'd be as successful as King Canute ordering back the sea but that wouldn't stop her. I also suspect that she would somehow arrange to make sure that I was the one who got my feet wet.

No, if this is going to work, I need to think it through carefully and maybe be a little more creative myself:

Let's see... I suppose, my main experience of this kind of 'Have a gold star!' reward scheme is Gamer Points on Xbox 360. It's certainly made me aware of some of the pitfalls of the system.

Each game on 360 awards Gamer Points for completing achievements within the game. Every gamer has a cumulative Gamer Score from all the games they've played. There's no purpose to this score apart from bragging rights and a warm glow of satisfaction but, done well, the points are quite addictive. Too many game developers get it dead wrong, though.

Most games hand out points for finishing levels. This is a waste of time since, if the game's good, I'm going to make steady progress through it anyway. If the game's dull, I'm not going to persevere just for a few points.

Some games, however, only award points for stupefyingly idiotic obsessiveness. Kill 100 times as many enemies as you really need to, find every single one of the 593 hidden tokens or complete the whole game without using any of the cool weapons that make the thing fun in the first place. The tasks are too much effort to even contemplate.

Other games reward trying different tactics. This is a good idea but is often poorly implemented. Frequently, points are given for doing something once and then again for doing it fifty times. Once isn't enough to explore the possibilities, however, and fifty times feels like an imposition. That said, this set up is still infinitely better than the games that keep what you need to achieve secret. That doesn't encourage anything but irritation.

There are a handful of games, though, that I've got more enjoyment and value out of simply because the lure of a few Gamer Points drew me along paths I wouldn't normally have considered or directed me towards new skills and understanding. This was accomplished by pitching the reward at the correct level for the amount of work involved and making sure some part of the reward was given at regular intervals. I need to do something similar when dealing with Marie.

I need a well-defined reward scheme to encourage a sustainable amount of effort on a moderately frequent basis. If the scheme could avoid filling up the house with sticker charts or the girl with chocolate buttons, that would be a bonus.

Also, it would be preferable if the whole endeavour involved a minimum of effort on my part.

Hmmm.... Tricky.

Wait a minute, maybe I can reward her with stuff we'd be doing anyway. You know, something along the lines of, 'Keep your pants dry until after lunch, and we'll do some painting.' That's not asking very much for very long and gives her the incentive of getting to do an activity she loves.

Ideally, we'd be doing exciting activities every afternoon as it is, but she's not to know that. It's all a question of spin. Rather than waiting until she has an accident and denying her her normal privileges, it's a case of promising those privileges ahead of time as an incentive against accidents. The results of an accident are the same (i.e. loss of privileges) but hopefully both the experience and outcome will be more positive. And with no extra work for me. Hooray!

Well...

I guess that's assuming I normally get round to organising those exciting activities every afternoon, rather than surfing the net while she takes forever to eat her lunch. Which, let's face it, may not entirely be the case. Still, I really would like her to gain full mastery of her bladder. Half a day without another accident would probably be worth the trouble of getting the painting stuff out or of heading to the swing park. It would be a well-defined, adequate reward for the amount of effort involved. I should really sit down and plan some other exciting activities to keep the momentum going. Maybe if I can think of enough then...

Hang on, there's something not quite right here. I suddenly have this strange feeling I'm being manipulated. It's almost as if...

Nah. I'm imagining it. She's only three. She couldn't possibly have planned this.

Nope.

No way.

Definitely not.

...

...

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm in thrall to a diminutive pink princess.

Then again, if she keeps her pants dry, it will all be worth it. Gah! She's a cunning one, that one. I'll just go get the painting stuff out now...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children

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

  Two types of children

Dear Dave,

Thanks for asking how my attempts at consistency in childcare are progressing. Unfortunately, things could be going better. I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of children:

1. Those who don't do what they're told:


2. Those who do:



Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS It's going to be a busy couple of weeks so I can't guarantee regular correspondence. I'll see what I can do, though. If you don't hear from me, don't worry, I'll be drinking beer, playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and eating mince pies...

Labels: children

  11:00 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Aiming for consistency

Dear Dave,

I normally have to tell the kids to do something three times before they even acknowledge I've spoken. The next time they'll argue. The time after that they'll do something very similar to what I asked but different in some vital respect.

For instance, the other day, I was endlessly telling Marie to pay attention as she scooted along the pavement ahead of me. She just wouldn't, though. She kept veering all over the place as one thing after another went by and distracted her. "Look where you're going!" I shouted finally.

"I am!" she shouted back. She even looked right round over her shoulder to make sure I heard.

Strangely, she seemed surprised when, a moment later, she found herself sprawled on her back in a tree planter. A giant, bright blue tree planter that was visible from the other end of the street. She lay there, forlornly waggling her arms and legs, and said, "Daddy! I fell off my scooter!"

"Really?" I said, pulling her out. "Were you looking where you were going?"

"Yes!"

"Even when you were looking at me?"

She put on her sad face, where her top lip disappears behind her lower one, and she mournfully shook her head.

"That was silly," I said.

She nodded. "I'll look where I'm going tomorrow."

"How about right now?" I asked.

She just grinned and scooted off again. Grr...

Ho, well, it's not like the first occasion one of the kids hasn't paid attention to me. They're used to it; I'm used it; we get by. Until I'm ill, of course, or tired or fed up. Then I want them to listen to me first time and they're just not used to that. Unfortunately, rather than acknowledging how patient I am with them normally and giving me a little understanding, they burst into tears or go off on a huge strop. This is maddening but children are like that and there's no real hope they'll grow out of it - adults are like that, too:

Back in the day, when I worked for LBO, everyone in the company was sent on a Customer Focus course. Most of it was totally obvious - things like smile, sound happy, do what you'll say you'll do, and don't have too much to drink on a Friday lunchtime and then go back to the office and delete accounts at random.

There were a few interesting points, though. One of them was that giving a customer better service than they might normally expect is liable to ultimately backfire. This sounds crazy but it's true. Imagine you take your car in for its regular service. It's a slow day at the garage so they decide to give it valet treatment, at no extra charge, to say thank you for your custom. Chances are, you'd be pretty pleased to have all the crushed breadsticks, raisins and footprints removed from the backseat. All well and good... until next time. You take your car in for a service, get it back and the fingerfood debris it still welded to the upholstery. You're secretly disappointed. You haven't been promised any cleaning and you haven't paid for it but, you know, it would have been nice. This sticks in your mind. The following year, you hunt around and discover that a garage on the other side of town will clean your car as part of its service and it's only a little more expensive than your normal garage. You go there. Essentially, the first place has lost your custom thanks to going the extra mile.

All this was brought to mind recently because I seem to be dogged currently by companies desperate to annoy me by doing me a 'favour'. (Stand back, I'm about to rant...)

First off, as always, is Nintendo Europe. Their PR has been a bit shonky for a long time but has improved dramatically of late, no doubt thanks to the marketing department getting a share of the huge mountain of cash from DS and Wii sales. Their loyalty scheme has been infuriating me for years, though. With every Nintendo game I buy, I get a scratchcard which reveals a code which I can enter online to receive 250 star points. I can then trade these star points for gifts. Unfortunately, these gifts consist mainly of PC screensavers and mobile phone ringtones. Occasionally, an actual physical game is offered for something in the region of FIVE THOUSAND STARS. These games are usually rubbish and always run out of stock immediately. What's the point? As a family, we've collected 12,000 stars over the course of five years and haven't traded a single one in yet. Every so often, I go to Nintendo's website in the hope that there'll be something good but there never is.

What makes it particularly galling, however, is that about three years ago, they ran an entirely separate promotion where purchasing a single game from an approved list was rewarded with a special Legend of Zelda collector's disc with no end of decent stuff on it. I bought something for thirty quid and got an extra freebie worth about twenty. With the whole stars thing, I've spent... hang on, let me get a calculator... er, divide by 250, multiply by... yeah, er... Right, I've spent... !!!!!!!!!!!

That includes lots of Christmas and birthday presents (both the boys' and mine) but... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For that level of expenditure and all the faffing with scratchcards and codes, I expect more from a reward scheme than ringtones. Nintendo could argue that they're under no obligation to give me anything and I should be pleased with whatever free stuff I get but, well, that would just annoy me even further which, you have to imagine, isn't the purpose of their PR department.

Then again...

A year ago, they promised to make the reward scheme good. They promised that it would be possible to trade star points for Wii points which can be used to buy downloads of old games on the Wii. (Normally you have to buy Wii points with good, old-fashioned cash).

That was a year ago.

There's a possibility that it might actually become reality this week but, even after all this wait, there's still no hint of conversion rates or anything. Who knows what I might be entitled to? Their previous generosity has made me hopeful. It has made me think that Nintendo loves me.

Unfortunately, they probably don't really.

My 12,000 stars will, in all likelihood, only get me half way to a copy of Frogger. Even if I get quite a lot more, however, I'm still liable to feel disappointed.

Moving on... In the past, LOVEFiLM have offered a free extra rental to say sorry for all kinds of things, from system hiccups, to seasonal delays, to postal strikes. This was very pleasant, particularly as many of the problems have been totally outside their control. I didn't get anything after the last strike, though. Also, they included a free sample of Nivea handcream with one of my discs recently, which meant it didn't fit through the letterbox and I had to go to the sorting office to collect it. I only got a fairly minimal apology when I emailed them. Again, I'm disappointed.

Meanwhile, GameStation has introduced a loyalty card. There are instant prizes available when I buy something, but each transaction also gives me an entry in the monthly lottery. The first month, the grand prize was an Xbox 360 Elite. That would be worth winning. Last month, the grand prize was a lifesize promotional mannequin of Mark Ecko. What on Earth would I do with that? How would I get it home on the bus? Where would I put it? Would anyone be prepared to pay the postage if I eBayed it?

I'd have to turn it into a coat stand or stick it outside and hang birdfeeders from it.

And, forever more, I would look at it and be annoyed that it wasn't an Xbox 360 Elite.

I had to actively avoid GameStation in November just to make sure I didn't win. Not the greatest loyalty scheme ever. I wonder what tat they'll be trying to clear out of the stock room this month?

OK, rant over. I had a point about children I was trying to make. Or was it adults? Maybe it was both. Er...

Anyway, it was about consistency. Nintendo, LOVEFiLM and GameStation are generally pretty excellent but they've just got a slagging, while the hopeless, bumbling company that handles my house insurance has escaped unscathed. This is because my insurance company have long since stopped disappointing me. Frankly, I'm delighted when they get anything right. The other three, however, normally manage a level of customer service that I can only dream of providing in my daily interaction with the kids. Do I remember that? Do I heck. I'm irritated the moment their standards slip.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to encourage mediocrity here. Good service is important - I would happily point people towards LOVEFiLM but I wouldn't recommend my insurers to anyone. It's just worth bearing in mind that consistently decent service is often better than OK service that is occasionally excellent. People like consistency.

Kids like consistency. How many tantrums do I cause by poorly managing the kids' expectations? Some days I have plenty of energy and feel generous, other days I'm tired and feel... somewhat less than generous. Often, I think of these as good and bad days. I hate flying off the handle when I'd normally give them another couple of chances. Really, however, I store up just as much trouble for myself by letting them off the hook when I've laid down an ultimatum. A few 'good' days in a row and the kids start to think I'll put up with anything.

There are times when I need the kids to listen to me urgently, however - such as when they're crossing the road or, for example, when one of them's about to scoot into a giant, blue tree planter. They have no way of knowing which those times are and which times it doesn't matter so much if it takes six attempts for them to engage their ears.

I need to be more consistent with both my firmness and my patience.

Getting them to respond appropriately first time, every time, is a bit much to hope for, though. I should probably aim for third time. It's not excellent but it's decent. It's also sustainable. Hopefully, it'll lead to less arguing and fewer tantrums (both from the children and from me).

Might even keep Marie out of the compost in future. You never know...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, corporate madness

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

  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, sickness, sleep

  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, housedad

  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, money, parenthacks

  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, statistics

  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 hundr