Dear Dave

  Keeping warm (even at church)

Dear Dave,

Small children are like insulation.

Not that I'm suggesting you try lining the loft with them. Well, probably not anyway. (They'd complain too much to make it worth it.) Then again, I do know from experience that strapping one to your front will make you very warm, very quickly. They also have a tendency to lie around in awkward places such as doorways - despite being irritating and potentially dangerous, this does have its advantages in terms of draft exclusion.

I'm really talking about the way they offer shielding from public embarrassment. If you have small children with you, you can get away with almost anything. Wearing a pink, woolly hat and using a Power Puff Girls umbrella? Check. Discussing the contents of nappies with complete strangers? Check. Singing 137 out-of-tune verses of The Wheels on the Bus on the bus? Check. Skipping down the street? Check. Leaving a puddle of pee in the middle of a shop? Check.

Honestly, the world is your oyster. Should anyone challenge you, all that's necessary is to look sheepish and wave a small child in their face. They'll shake their head with a mixture of understanding and pity and then let you on your way. It's like having a reusable Get out of The Ladies Toilets Jail Free card.

Make the most of it while you can. My kids are older now and not quite as cute as they used to be. Marie can still smile sweetly to extricate us from the worst disasters but people are starting to catch on. Lewis and Fraser, meanwhile, have gone from protective assets to social liabilities. They look old enough to have developed some concept of tact but they've really only got to the point where they're loud and understandable when they say something inappropriate. You know, like, 'This is boring,' during the minute's silence at church on Remembrance Sunday.

Yep, gone are the days when all we had to put a brave face on during the service was Lewis' gurgly breast-feeding or a hasty retreat to the changing facilities after one of Fraser's explosive bowel movements. Now we have to persuade the kids to leave the detailed discussion of Hindu festivals they've been studying at school until later.

This was particularly important the other day, when we were helping our minister, Mike, lead the worship. Despite plenty of rehearsals, there really was no telling what the three of them might say or do.

When it came down to it, however, the boys curled up on a pew and pretended to be invisible so we wouldn't force them to get up in front of everyone and do anything. This was slightly disappointing but markedly better than them getting to the front and launching into the alternative version of Jingle Bells. (The one involving Batman's poor personal hygiene that we sang when we were at primary school.) I reassured them that they didn't have to take part if they didn't want to and left them in the duck-and-cover position. Sarah took the chance to coach Marie on her prayer one last time. I went to make some frantic final preparations for my childrens' talk.

When Mike came to check on me later, I was still in the gents with a foot pump.

"Five minutes until the organist launches into the first song, whether we're there or not. If no one's keeping an eye on her, it'll be something from Evita. We need to go. You ready?"

"Almost. I think there's only one more." I jammed my beach ball further into sink. "Pass me some of that tape."

Mike looked at me with professional concern. "Should I ask?"

"Probably best not to," I said, craning my head round, looking for a tell-tale trail of bubbles in the water.

Mike's pretty good with the kids but many other people I've heard give a childrens' talk haven't been so great. Normal practice seems to be to concentrate on a visual aid, such as a ration book, ThighMaster, Rubik's Cube or rotary telephone. Most of the talk is spent explaining about this object the kids have never seen before, then the last minute or so is taken up by drawing an analogy as to how the thing is exactly like God.

I've always been a little suspect of this approach but having children of my own has only made me more wary. It's much better to tell kids straight rather than dressing it up with metaphors and finger puppets. Keep it short and simple. They may not agree with you but at least they'll have taken in what you were trying to say. Leave the finger puppetry for the adults - it'll keep them focused while you tell them something they've heard a dozen times before but using an analogy that will hopefully finally make them understand it.

That's all very well in theory, of course. Unfortunately, having the courage to break with tradition is something else entirely. Not to mention that, what with the kids being ill, I'd left things to the last moment. My goal for my talk had shifted away from entertaining enlightenment and was heading more in the direction of survival.

I took comfort in the fact that I'd at least chosen a visual aid that the children could recognise.

"Yes!" I spotted the leak, grabbed a towel, wiped the ball dry and applied the tape. Then I set to work with the foot pump.

Mike shook his head. "Just look me in the eye and promise you're going to do better than the student we had over the summer."

"What? The one with the arc welder?"

"That's him."

"Oh, yeah, I certainly hope so." I finished inflating and we hurried out into the corridor. "I'll definitely leave fewer scorch marks on the choir."

Mike appeared less than reassured. "So how is a leaky beach ball like...?"

"I told you not to ask."

"Fine," he said. "I'll ask something else. Have you taken the time to figure out where you're going with your life yet?"

"You're asking me that now?"

"Are you ever less pre-occupied?"

"Well, I'm normally less nervous."

"Which isn't the same."

"No, but..."

And then we were through the door and into the church. The organist scowled and the intro to Don't Cry for Me Argentina morphed awkwardly into the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. There was nothing left to do but get on with the service...

In the end, things went reasonably well. Lewis kept quiet, Fraser decided he would read one of the readings after all and people laughed in the right places when Sarah and I did a sketch about Mary and Joseph. Marie's prayer was a hit. It included saying thank you for the usual suspects, such as friends, family, the rain which helps the flowers grow and all the animals. For some reason, slugs and snails got a special mention, though, and bedtime toys. Everyone was so delighted by this, it helped me get away with a slightly incoherent talk about beach balls.

Mike has already signed us up to help out again in the new year. I'm just hoping I still have some insulation left by then...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, christianity, church

 
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  A sort of Easter story

Dear Dave,

Long ago and far away, a housedad named Ed took his three children on an outing. It was a holiday, the weather was nice and there was a story-teller in town - it seemed like the perfect excuse to get out of the house before everyone killed each other. They had a packed lunch with them and sat on a travel rug on a grassy hillside waiting for the show to begin. For the sake of argument, let's call the children Fraser, Lewis and Marie.

And, to be quite honest, there was a fair amount of argument to be had.

"I want a cheese sandwich," said Marie.

"You don't like bread," said Ed.

The little girl was not put off by this. "The boys have cheese sandwiches."

"Yes, but I didn't make you one because you don't like bread. I brought you crackers."

"I don't want crackers."

"Then what are you going to eat?" asked Ed as calmly as he could manage, showing her what was in the bag of food. "Grapes, apple, a banana?"

"Spaghetti!"

"We're on a hill," sighed Ed. "I didn't bring any pasta with me. Or a stove, for that matter. You'll have to eat something else."

Marie thought about this for a moment. "Can I have a cheese sandwich?"

"But you don't like bread," said Ed, beginning to lose it.

"Yes, I do."

"Two days ago you told me you hate bread and it's yucky."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you... Oh, never mind, have my sandwich."

"Yeuch!" said Marie, taking one look at the sandwich Ed was offering her and then burying her head in her hands. "It's got salad in!"

"I can take the salad out."

One eye peeked from between Marie's fingers. "No. It's touched the cheese. I don't want it."

"Well..." began Ed but Fraser interrupted.

"Where are the crisps?" he said, hunting through the bag of food.

"I didn't bring crisps," said Ed.

"Aw... Why not?"

"Because I already had the fruit, sandwiches, water, juice, wipes, raincoats and goodness knows what else to carry, not to mention the large, cuddly dolphin Marie insisted we bring. Besides, we'll be home in a couple of hours. You can have crisps then."

Fraser looked ready to argue some more but Lewis dived in first. "I've finished my food. Can I have dessert?"

"You've already had dessert," said Ed.

Lewis seemed genuinely confused. "No, I haven't."

"You all had your desserts on the way because you complained you were hungry, despite only just having had breakfast."

"But those were snacks."

Ed shook his head. "They were the chocolate bars I packed for dessert."

"They were snacks - we had them at snack time. We normally have a snack at school. Why didn't you pack dessert?"

"I did," said Ed, taking a deep breath. "I didn't pack snacks."

"But we had snacks..."

Flinging up his hands to ward off what was liable to be an extended display of twisted logic, Ed admitted defeat. "OK, OK, stop! You can have a mint. That's all I've got."

Lewis nodded eagerly and Ed fished around in his back pocket for the battered packet. Scraping the fluff off, he handed Lewis a mint.

As the kids turned to squabbling amongst themselves over the colour of grass, Ed ate his own sandwiches and looked round the hillside. Several mums had brought their kids along and were feeding them spaghetti in vegetable sauce from Tupperware containers. The mums themselves were eating carrot sticks. One or two smiled; the rest ignored him.

Ed was glad that at least it wasn't raining.

Then the story-teller arrived at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by security, and there was a sudden rush to get down there for the show. By the time Ed had convinced his children to get off the travel rug so he could pack it up, they were last. A crush of adults had already formed round the story-teller and none of the children present could get close. The mums were complaining loudly to two of the security men.

"Get back! No shoving!" said one of the bouncers.

"We just want the little ones to be able to hear," said a mum. "They won't be any trouble."

Ed found this last statement somewhat unlikely given that her toddlers were both gnawing on his legs. Nonetheless, it was possible the mum was in denial rather than blatantly lying.

The bouncer waved her away. "You can't come through."

"Don't be ridiculous. Let the children get to the front."

"They'll get in the way and make too much noise," said the bouncer, standing firm. "This is for grown ups."

At that, Ed felt the need to chip in. "That's not what it said on the advertising."

"Quite right." The story-teller parted the crowd with a stern look and a wave of his hand. As he walked forward, he almost glowed with life and power. "The kingdom of God belongs to people like them. Let them through." Then he motioned the bouncers aside, smiled and beckoned the children forward. Half of them didn't notice and needed a parental shove to get moving because they were too busy hitting each other over the head with sticks.

Fraser brought up the rear and one of the bouncers moved to block his path. Ed raised an eyebrow.

"He's a bit on the large side," said the bouncer.

"Look," said Ed. "It's been a long day and it's only lunch-time. Start quibbling and I'm going to try passing you through the eye of a needle, and see how far you get, OK?"

The bouncer stepped aside.

The children seated themselves at the front and Ed went a short distance up the hill so he could see what was going on. Once the hubbub had died down, the story-teller began. "Anyone who doesn't accept the kingdom of God like a little child won't get in..."

The story-teller stopped as Marie raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"Does it have cheese sandwiches?" she asked excitedly.

The story-teller winked. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it does."

"Yeh!" she said and settled down happily, ready to listen to everything the story-teller had to say...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, christianity

 
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  Thoughts for Good Friday

I saw the universe in a cup of coffee, reflected light twinkling in the swirling black. I wondered at the vastness of creation and the care with which it was made.

I felt warm and comforted.

I saw beauty in a cherry tree, a canopy of blossom rippling in the breeze. I marvelled at the complexity of life and smiled at the sunshine on my face.

I felt warm and comforted.

I saw your glory in a stormy sky, power and provision swirling together in the wind and rain. I looked out my window and knew the safety of your protection.

I felt warm and comforted.

But it could not last...

I was in a forest, rough bark scraping at my fingers as I fought my way through the clinging darkness. I stumbled into a clearing and peered up to find the heavens wide and still, a thousand stars staring down at me from a void which went on forever.

And I was cold and terrified.

Then I remembered the tears you shed at the death of a friend.
I remembered the uncertainty which gripped you as you waited to be betrayed.
And I remembered the hard wood onto which you were nailed.

I remembered the coffee and the cherry tree and the rain against my window.
I remembered all that I am and all that I have been.

And I was still cold and frightened...
But I knew that I was not alone.

Labels: christianity, depression

 
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  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 (vol.3), christianity

 
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  Hopes and fears

Dear Dave,

Merry Christmas! Well, almost... Christmas seems to have been going on for three weeks already this year. The kids are exhausted from a constant stream of parties and relatives and Santas. I'm somewhat confused the actual day hasn't quite arrived yet.

That said, I'm putting off wrapping a big pile of presents by writing to you.

Still, I'm looking forward to singing plenty of carols in the next couple of days. There's the Christmas Eve Christingle service tomorrow. (Forget offering hope, love and forgiveness - the Christingle is where we entice families with young children into the building with promises of oranges and sweets.) Then, of course, there'll be more carols on Christmas Day. I like them because most of them have decent tunes that even tone deaf people like me can just about manage to belt out.

We got a bit of a taster at church today with Oh, little town of Bethlehem:

Oh, little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The ever-lasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

It's probably my favourite carol. ...The hopes and fears of all the years... That line always stirs up emotions and usually makes me think about God becoming human to show us how to live, to fix our relationship with him and to give us a glimpse of the world beyond.

Today, however, my mind turned elsewhere.

Spare a thought for Joseph.

He'd had to live through months of gossip, thanks to the wedding date and due date not entirely adding up. That had been followed by a lengthy trek with a heavily pregnant wife in order to register for a census which was almost certainly merely an excuse to stiff him with a hefty tax bill. Then he'd failed in his first task as a dad - finding somewhere decent for his child to be born. (This isn't normally the first task, but he'd missed out on the usual one and that was a whole different issue entirely...)

So he finds himself in the stable, surrounded by animals. He's finally managed to get the rowdy shepherds out the door, along with all the townsfolk made curious by the talk of angels and saviours. Mary is passed out from exhaustion in the corner. He wouldn't mind joining her. He wouldn't mind just going and lying down beside her and giving her a cuddle.

If only the little Lord Jesus would flipping lay down his sweet head.

No crying he makes? Yeah, right. Newborn babies are usually pretty frustrated and irritated. This one has recently gone from holding the whole world in his hands to not being able to find his own thumb without sticking it in his eye. That's one very frustrated and irritated baby.

Chances of a silent night: slim.

So Joseph sits there, bleary-eyed, rocking the baby in his arms and finally has the opportunity to wonder what he's got himself into. He suddenly realises he's a dad. Never mind the dreams and prophecies, he has a tiny life to take care of. A son! A son to teach and love, to provide for and protect. Terror and pride mix together at the prospect.

...The hopes and fears of all the years...

At that moment, he feels the truth of those words more than anyone.

Then he discovers his sleeve is warm and wet. He sighs and starts hunting around for a few more swaddling clothes. It's going to be a long night...

Best wishes to all your family. Have a great Christmas. I'd better go wrap those presents.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Did you ever read the somewhat unorthodox nativity play I sent? If you haven't, then I can't think of a better time.

Labels: christianity, christmas

 
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  Death to Santa

Dear Dave,

Merry Christmas!

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

Sam will be annoyed you forgot to get him anything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now go tell Squiggly to hurry up.

Yours in a winter wonderland,

Ed.

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

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

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

 
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  A new dawn

Dear Dave,

Happy Easter!

I had planned on writing about this being a special Easter for me. Things have been going pretty well lately. I've had several months of decent sleep. This correspondence has given me a bit of purpose outside of direct parental action. The days are getting longer. An end to seven years of nappies looks like a possibility. Sunday is here. The stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. Death is defeated. God is with us! It all feels like a new beginning...

That's what I'd been planning to write, anyway. Then I caught a stinking cold, the kids caught it too, the potty-training led to a household sock shortage and I felt so tired that I dozed off in a softplay. I leant against a foam shape and rested my eyes for a moment. The next I knew, I was dreaming of a nightmare world of primary colours where small children roam free and there is an ever-present danger of drowning in a pit full of plastic balls. I awoke to a reality that was very similar except a five-year-old that I had never seen before was barking at me in a Germanic language and prodding me with an enormous padded snail. For one hazy, flu-filled moment I thought I had fallen into a psychology experiment, a foreign arts film or, worst-case scenario, a painting by Edvard Munch. It wasn't good. I rounded up my children and headed home.

Since then, I've been muddling along as best I can until I'm well, looking to just get through each day without my daughter leaking too much.

Marie gives me various indicators that everything is not going entirely to plan:

• She points out the obvious. "Your socks wet, Daddy!"
• She exclaims, "Pee!" as if wondering where it came from and what it's doing in her socks.
• She lets out an, "Oh, no," giving the impression she's forgotten to pay her Visa bill this month. Or remembered that she has no clean socks left.
• She mutters, "I go to toilet. I not go in shower." This thought is, of course, akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has urinated (in its socks).
• She smiles to herself and then wiggles her bottom as if settling down into a nice warm cushion. Mmmmmm. Squishy... (Doesn't require fresh socks, at least).
• She points at the pee streaming out her shoes.

It's a long time since a toxic spill around the house was a disaster or even particularly unpleasant but cleaning it up is an effort I could do without when I'm ill. Quite often when I tell people that I'm a housedad they ask me something along the lines of, "So you enjoy that then?" There's pressure to justify my existence by saying, "Yes, it's fantastic. It's a fulfilling roller-coaster ride of discovery, challenge, fun and hugs. I'd recommend it to anyone." To say anything else might be to confirm their suspicion that a stay at home dad is against all the laws of God and man. To suggest that children can be ungrateful, hard work and irritating can cause shock and outrage. The truth is, though, that there are days in any job when things could be better. Being ill, dealing with ill children through the night and then trying to hold it all together during the day isn't challenging - it's exhausting.

This time, the trauma should be over quickly, however. A day or two, and we'll all be well. Another week or so and Marie will have the idea. Then the changing unit can go and there'll be room for me to have a desk again - somewhere for me to sneak off to in order to write, surf and play Half-Life. Hurrah!

There have been times in the past few years, though, when it has seemed like the cloud would never pass. It was like the despair of a perpetual Good Friday. I went months at a time without a proper night of sleep. I had to cope with a wife with post-natal depression. I had to deal with depression myself. I couldn't see an end to it. Only trusting to God that there would be an end, kept me getting out of bed.

Being a housedad is fantastic. It is a fulfilling roller-coaster ride of discovery, challenge, fun and hugs. But I'd never recommend it to everyone. Being a dad, never mind a housedad, can be tough. We have to be prepared to admit that, talk to those around us and get support when we need it. Just knowing we're not alone can be a great help. Take care of yourself, OK?

All things considered and fleeting set-backs aside, this is still a special Easter for me. The issues I face as a parent may well become more difficult as the kids get older but a lot of the hard graft is past. (Oh, goodness, decent sleep makes so much difference!) I'll get more and more time and space to myself. I'll have some energy to spare. I might even have dry socks. Wouldn't that be great?

All the best to the family. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you.
This Easter and always...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children (vol.1), christianity, depression, housedad (vol.1)

 
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