Dear Dave

  Greatest Hits

Dear Dave,

I was looking through some of our old correspondence and realised that there's now rather a lot of it. Here's a handful of my favourites.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Let me know if there are any others that you're particularly fond of.

Labels: favourite

 
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  Statistics

Dear Dave,

Ninety-three percent of statistics are mis-reported.

Think about it. Your average journalist is an arts graduate who hasn't studied any maths whatsoever in twenty-three and a half years. Even the four-fifths-forgotten statistics lessons they have had will have been to a very low level. The typical journalist, for instance, will only know two and a third types of average and will use the mean in eighty-nine percent of cases. Ask them to calculate the probability of three cases of a ten-thousand-to-one non-contagious illness in a village of a hundred people and they will either answer, 'Small enough to make a big headline,' or run away screaming. Neither of these is the correct answer.

The correct answer runs closer to, 'Is this the chance it will occur in a particular village chosen at random or that it will occur in some village somewhere in the United Kingdom? And besides, surely it should be the probability of three or more cases? And what are the assumptions, again? You haven't even mentioned timescales, for crying out loud!'

An article I read the other week kept going on about the effects of interest rate rises on a typical mortgage. What on earth is a 'typical' mortgage?! Was it the mean value of all mortgages they were talking about or of new mortgages? Something else reckoned that a 'typical' baby sleeps sixteen hours a day. Since I felt lucky if any of mine slept twelve hours out of twenty-four when they were small, I can only assume that some children barely open their eyes before the age of two. What?

Then there are phone-in polls. Don't get me started on those. (No, really - it won't be pretty...)

To be fair, I don't think getting mathematicians to write the newspapers would, in general, be a good idea. (Can you imagine?) But it was with some scepticism I viewed reports of recent surveys of dads. One, for instance, claimed 43% of dads surveyed had 'put their careers on hold' to spend more time with their families, passing up work worth an average of £2,800 a year. What does that really mean, though? 10% of all the dads claimed to have gone to working part-time. Surely this must account for the vast majority of the wage reduction? It's possible to conclude that over half of the dads had made no changes to their work patterns (maybe they were laid-back to start with!), one third had cut back on overtime a bit and one tenth had gone part-time (but who knows what their partners are up to?).

Does this actually tell us much?

Not really. I probably achieve equally scientific surveys by hanging around outside school at collecting time. On this basis, I'd say there are plenty of couples where both partners are heavily involved in childcare. One or both of them may be working part-time but it's just as likely they're both working strange shifts and granny is filling in the gaps in the schedule. There are housedads about but you could probably cram us all into a phone box.

Looking at parent and toddler attendance gives a different picture. Dads are rare. I am 'the man', quite often. Either the percentage of dads staying home and looking after very small children is extremely low or they're all scared. Maybe we're as endangered as pandas or female executives or crumple-horned snorkacks. Who knows? Not me.

I think all the various surveys show is that the number of housedads is on the rise but, you know, that wouldn't be hard. I don't think there will be vast numbers of us any time soon. Probably more important is that, 'on average', dads are far more involved with their kids than they were a generation ago. Scarily, this makes you and me role models for a revolution where men engage more fully with their offspring. We demonstrate that it's perfectly possible for men to look after children whatever the occasion, not just on Saturday afternoons. We can educate and encourage. We can teach other men that, 'Kids are fun once you know which way up to hold them!' (We might want to think of a better slogan that that, though...)

That may sound like a tall order but the simplest way to start is to walk along the road smiling with a stack of children in tow. If we can do it without everyone treating us like pandas, so much the better. ('Look! Look! There's one. It's a housedad! Aw, isn't he cute with all the little ones. Do you think if I poke this stick at him, he'll eat the leaves off the end?')

Probably best to the ignore the statistics and get on with it. Of course, you may be thinking that if ninety-three percent of statistics are mis-reported, what about the rest? Should we pay attention in order to learn from the other seven percent of stats we hear and read about?

I wouldn't bother, to be honest - those ones are entirely made up.

I'm off to prepare for the paintballing tomorrow. Apparently, Scary Karen has been watching Rambo III all week as training. This could get brutal...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS I read a great book about statistics last year. It's called Freakonomics and it's by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. Did you know that there's a correlation between having a house full of books and having children who do well at school but that there isn't a correlation between reading to children every day and them doing well?

Conclusion: Books are magic! Buy books!

Kidding. It's not what you do that makes you a good parent, it's who you are. Isn't that both reassuring and frightening...

Labels: favourite, housedad, statistics

 
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  Herding housedads

Dear Dave,

I've obviously been thinking too hard about inventing new collective nouns - the boys started doing it the other day without any prompting.

They were having an argument about exactly how many cows were necessary to constitute a herd. Lewis thought any number greater than one would do. Fraser was pretty sure that more than that was required. He settled on five. They got into the kind of legalistic argument that only small children, EU regulators and medieval theologians can really get worked up over. It went on for some time. I mean, how many cows do you need for a herd? Is it the same as the number of sheep required for a flock? Maybe, but almost certainly fewer than the number of fish you need for a school. Probably more than the number of lawyers you need for an excess, though...

Eventually Fraser got distracted by a tangential thought that glittered brightly in his brain. He followed it. "Can you have a herd of anything else?" he asked. "How about chickens?"

"Er, I think that might be a flock," I said but I wasn't entirely sure. In fact, I was pretty sure that was wrong. Was it a brood? A gaggle? A peck? A Kentucky fry?

I decided to answer his first question. "You can have a herd of elephants."

"What about monkeys?" said Lewis. "Can you have a herd of monkeys?"

"Er..." I said, images becoming crossed in my head, and a herd of giant, hairy gorilla things (with trunks) stampeding across my mental savanna.

Fraser answered before I had a chance. "A banana! It should be a banana of monkeys!"

Both boys found this highly amusing. There is something about monkeys that children (and many adults) find instantly funny. The combination of monkeys and bananas somehow just adds to the hilarity. Fraser and Lewis fell about laughing. (Luckily, they didn't think of an even more hilarious pairing. If anyone had mentioned a 'fart' of monkeys, for instance, the boys would probably have wet themselves).

I started to say that a banana of monkeys sounded a bit odd but I couldn't remember what the right word was and I stopped. Why not a banana of monkeys? It's as good as anything, and they might as well give it a go - language is the ultimate democracy, after all. Get enough people to use a word and it becomes part of the language overnight; leave a word alone for fifty years and it dies.

If the kids want to try making 'banana' a collective noun, that's up to them. Doubtless some teacher will persuade them otherwise at some point, but you never know. Personally, I have at least two attempts at dictionary change on the go at the moment. The first is to make the singular of dice to be 'dice' rather than 'die'. Why? I don't know. I'd just prefer it that way. The campaign seems to be going quite well, anyway.

The other small change to the English language I'm working on is the popularisation of the word 'housedad'. (You may want to join in this one). Since this is the fiftieth letter I've sent you, it seems somehow appropriate that I should explain why I call myself a housedad rather than any of the other options.

I've always thought 'househusband' is long winded and doesn't really describe what I do. I was a househusband back in those distant days before children. I studied, I wrote, I did the hoovering and, on occasion, I sat around playing computer games and ate biscuits.

That is another life. How could I ever have been so idle, working only eight hours a day?

Nope, househusband doesn't cut it. Nor does 'stay at home parent'. My kids don't yell, 'Parent!' at three in the morning when they want some attention. (Not yet, anyway). They yell, 'Daddy!' because they know that's what's most likely to get results. Of course, they could yell, 'Mummy!' but they'd still get Daddy. In fact, they could yell anything from, 'I want my cucumber!' to 'Cheese weasel!' to 'I've eaten my pillow!' and they'd still get Daddy (as they know from experience). Actually yelling, 'Daddy!' gives them a sense of victory as soon as I enter the room - their first demand has been met, surely it's only a matter of time before they manage to pester their way to the vegetable/cheddar rodent/emergency medical procedure of their choice.

Stay at home parent is no good - I have earned the title of 'dad'.

'Stay at home dad' doesn't really work either, however. I know what it's like to stay at home - before children, I was not just a househusband, I was a 'stay at home husband'. It could be several days until I was forced to leave the front door in search of bread or milk. At that time, my study (translation: cupboard with a computer) didn't even have a window. I would emerge blinking onto the street and wonder at the contrast levels and high definition visuals. If I'd been playing much Resident Evil, I would scan the pavement for zombies before proceeding. I really didn't get out much.

These days, with one child at parent and toddler, one at nursery and one at school, I barely see my home. I'm forever trotting up and down the road with some subset of children in tow. And that's before taking into account clubs and classes, shopping trips and visits to the swing park. Stay at home? You've got to be joking.

Of the few remaining options, I quite like 'homedad' - it's more general than 'housedad' and suggests a happy family sitting round the kitchen table. It's cosy and it makes good sense.

Still, I don't call myself a homedad.

The thing is, English isn't about making sense. Try reading through, though, cough and bough quickly and you'll know what I'm talking about. English is crazy. Most native speakers are used to the craziness, however, and don't notice. New words need to blend. For some reason, 'homedad' just doesn't (in my part of the UK, at least). It makes people do a double-take. 'You're a what?' I find 'housedad' simply works better. It sounds close enough to 'housewife' to slip past people's internal made-up-word-detector and it's two or three sentences down the line before the alarm bells start to ring inside their heads. It's too late by then, of course - I might be a nutter but they're already having a conversation with me. All they can do is open their eyes wide and back away slowly. (Top tip: Getting a small child to hug their leg makes it much harder for them to escape).

So 'housedad' it is. It's a word that describes what I do but doesn't sound too odd. It might just catch on...

That only leaves one further decision. What should be the collective noun for us? I suppose, if it really takes five of us together to justify the use of such a word, then we probably don't need one. Or maybe an 'unlikelihood' of housedads is the way to go? Some old-fashioned individuals might suggest an 'aberration'. Maybe it would even depend what kind of day we'd all had. Perhaps a 'fulfilment'? Or, if we've been tearing out our hair, a 'baldness'?

Let's face it, though, if someone discovered five of us together in a room one day, I know exactly what we'd be. We'd be a 'surprise'. The only possible way of avoiding that would be if we had our children with us. Then...

Then we'd be a 'pride'.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: favourite, housedad

 
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  Pub

Dear Dave,

I went to the pub the other night. It felt very odd. For starters, it was only about the second time I'd been to the pub since the smoking ban came in up here so it was a novelty to be able to breathe. Just leaving the house without children was peculiar, though. Doing so at night was even more weird. I occasionally get to escape during the day at the weekend but I'm usually too tired in the evening once the kids are in bed. The world looked strange. I probably looked strange too, bounding along the pavement unencumbered by buggies or changing bags or screaming children. I seemed to bounce along as if the lead weights had been removed from my boots. It was like walking on the moon (with the added advantage of my head not exploding from lack of air pressure, fortunately).

Rob wanted to talk away from the women-folk and I thought I'd better make the effort and go and meet him. He was panicking again about the prospect of fatherhood. (Remember Rob? He used to be my minion at LBO).

He was waiting at the bar when I arrived. He bought us drinks and we settled ourselves down in a dingy corner. At least I settled myself - he downed half his pint and then sat and fidgeted. I suddenly remembered to check that the kids hadn't wandered off. Equally suddenly, I remembered I didn't have any with me. I was out in the world as a person in my own right. I wasn't obviously a dad to everyone who looked at me. This made me unexpectedly nervous. People let you off with a lot if you've got small children to protect you. They're a distraction, an excuse and a talking point. I felt exposed without any.

I covered by checking my phone to make sure I hadn't missed any messages. "How's work?" I said, which is normally a safe bet - Rob's always keen to talk through his technical difficulties.

"They cancelled the project."

"What? How are they going to manage the new accounts without the IT systems?"

"No, that's not it. They decided that giving out scratchcards rather than interest was going to get them in trouble so they've canned the accounts. We're still working on the IT."

"What?" I'd been looking forward to the scratchcards. "You're still working on the software for a product that's never going to exist?"

"Yeah. What else are we going to do? There's rumours going round about redundancies across the whole department. We're just trying to look busy."

I nodded. It occurred to me, however, that if I was in charge, people who managed to look busy despite clearly having no useful work to achieve would be the first to find their names mysteriously removed from the organisation chart.

We stared at our pints for a bit. "How's the leak?" Rob asked eventually.

"Put it this way," I sighed, "whenever I go into the cupboard under the stairs now, I take a snorkel and harpoon-gun with me just in case. We've had four different plumbers out to look at it. Mario and Luigi checked the pipes, Mario2 checked the drains and Mario's Friend checked the guttering. Fraser's list of amusing names is getting desperate already but none of them can figure out where the water's coming from. We're talking major work to repair all the damage as well." Rob muttered condolences but he was obviously still caught up in his own problems. "How's Kate doing?" I asked.

"Fine, I think. It's hard to tell - she's just knackered the whole time. She comes home from work and goes to bed. Then she wakes up in the middle of the night and eats sausages."

"I take it she's not veggie any more, then?"

Rob ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. "She reckons vegetables have started looking at her funny. You know, like a nutter on a bus. She's avoiding them in case they try anything. Broccoli - she's sure the broccoli is out to get her. She knows it's planning something."

"O... K... She should get over that in a few weeks, though. Have you thought any more about getting married?"

"To the woman who's thinking about taking out a restraining order against cabbages?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of to the woman you love and who is carrying your child but that too. Hormones and lack of sleep are going to drive you both crazy at various points over the next year or three so you're just going to have to get on and make plans anyway. Is she going to go back to work after her maternity leave runs out? If she is, is it going to be full-time or part-time? And what about you?"

"Me?" He was starting to squeak.

"She's a solicitor. She earns a good wage working with people in a job she enjoys. You work in a cubicle and spend half your time emailing me funny stories you found on the internet while you were bored. Which of you would cope better staying home? If there are redundancies going round anyway, you could go voluntarily and escape with a load of free cash."

"And become a deviant like you?"

"I usually refer to myself as a housedad, but yeah. You asked me about it the other day; you must be thinking about it."

"That was the day after I found out," he said, chewing his nails. "I was panicking. I didn't know what I was saying. I don't even know how to change a nappy."

"Neither did I before Fraser was born. You get plenty of practice pretty quick, believe me. Imagine it as a computer game. You gradually gain experience by doing things such as fighting your way through the baby department at John Lewis, braving the terrors of parent and toddler and experimenting with stain removers. You also get to solve puzzles such as which pram to buy and how to get porridge out of your watch."

This analogy seemed to be going down well, so I continued with a small genre switch. "Every so often your pokemon level-up, too. They start off with the ability to eat, sleep and expel bodily waste. As time passes, they learn new skills, allowing them to smile, walk, jump, talk and embarrass you in public. Then they evolve into bigger monsters that take more persuading to do what they're told and require totally different discipline techniques."

I was on a roll. "Eventually you're a level sixty wizard with a highly trained menagerie capable of doing all the chores around the house and then going out into the world and bringing back treasure to support you in your old age. An old age in which you get to laugh evilly for no apparent reason while being wheeled round by devoted slaves." I stared wistfully into the distance.

"I don't know," said Rob. "Don't take it personally or anything but aren't women just better at looking after kids? You know, multi-tasking and all that."

"A man can prepare a meal in between doing the washing up while entertaining a baby at the same time as supervising a game of Snakes and Ladders. That's all multi-tasking is. A woman feels superior because she can do all these things and hold a conversation without being distracted. They're really doing the same number of things, though."

"No, they're not. She's talking as well."

"Yes, but the man's thinking about sex. It's the same number of things."

"OK," said Rob, "so if it's that simple, why aren't there more housedads around? How come you and that Dave bloke you write to are the only ones I've heard of?"

"Well, there are lots of reasons." I scratched my head. "I don't know. Some people find the whole concept odd. In lots of couples, both partners have to work. Then again, some men feel it's their duty to be out there winning the bread or don't want to have to go cap in hand to their partner if they want to buy a gadget. There are all kinds of reasons. The hours are long as well and I only get about five days holiday a year."

Rob shrugged. "That's not so bad. I get twenty-two."

"Ah... No, I don't think you're entirely understanding me here. You get a hundred and thirty-five days holiday a year."

"Don't be daft."

"I'm not being daft. What do you think I do with the kids on bank holidays and weekends? Put them into storage?"

His eyes widened. "Oh..."

"And I don't get sick days, either," I added. "If you became a housedad, there'd be no more rugby-related viruses forcing you to take long weekends in Dublin in order to recuperate."

"Hey! I went into work when I really had the flu to make up for that."

"I always have to go into work if I have the flu. Did I tell you about the time me and the boys managed to throw up twenty-five times between us in the space of eighteen hours?"

"You're not really selling this."

"True. I'm just giving you something to think about. You're going to do fine as a dad and you could be a great housedad..." I coughed. "...given a bit of training. I'm not going to tell you it's a sunshine world of domestic bliss and biscuits, though. It's low-stress, fun and rewarding but requires plenty of hard work, patience, diplomacy and organisational ability. A strong stomach is also handy."

"Yeah." Rob nodded but his eyes were starting to glaze over with information overload.

I changed the subject. "Played anything good recently?"

"MotorStorm rocks," he said, looking a little embarrassed.

"You bought a PS3?" I said, slightly too loudly.

"Yeah. I was walking home past GAME the other day and it just kind of happened. I needed something to take my mind off things. My credit card's smarting, what with the HDTV as well. Looks ace, though."

"Tell me you got a spare controller."

"It was part of the bundle."

"Then what the flip are we doing here?" I said, finishing off my pint. "Get your coat - you've pulled."

We headed out the door for a night of excellent but foolishly expensive gaming. As we left, however, Rob looked at me sideways, a thought coming back to him. "You actually think of them as pokemon, don't you?" he said.

"Maybe," I said. "Certainly, when people ask Marie her name, she says, 'Pikachu'."

Rob laughed. "I think I'll call mine Squirtle." He laughed again. This time, however, there was just the faintest hint of a cackle...

I wonder what I've started now.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Do your kids have any unlikely pet names?

Labels: blokesnight, children, favourite, housedad

 
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1:28 PM - Permanent Link - 1 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Teletubbies save the world

Dear Dave,

I'm sorry to hear that the teletubbies are destroying your sanity. I remember when Fraser was young and I happily got to watch re-runs of ER all day mixed in with Working Lunch and an occasional documentary about Alexander the Great or quantum mechanics. Then he got a bit older and emergency chest surgery ceased to be suitable background noise for playtime. Not long after that, he realised that I had Dipsy and co. held captive within black rectangles of plastic and could make them perform at any time simply by feeding them to the video machine. Overnight I went from learning about the fundamental properties of matter to watching a teddy-bear tap-dance. On loop.

When we were children, television didn't start until nine in the morning, there were only three channels and kids' TV was restricted to lunchtime, teatime and Saturday mornings. This was obviously to the benefit of parents, giving them peace to get meals ready during the week and to pretend to be sleeping at the weekend. Now television never stops, there are dozens of channels and kids' TV is only ever moments away.

That's not to say that my children watch more television than I did as a child, it's just most of what I watched ranged from desperate, e.g. the testcard, to astonishingly inappropriate, e.g. an Open University lecture on human biology. The problem isn't too much TV, it's that control has been given to the child. By the power of CBeebies, there's no reason for them to put up with boring adult telly. By the power of rewind, there's no reason for them to stay glued to the set and not go disturbing 'sleeping' adults.

Deprived of both sex and TV, adults are bound to go slightly crazy. Add to this being constantly bombarded with The Fimbles, Tweenies and Fireman Sam, and hallucinations are almost a given. I've found myself imagining episodes of CSI: Balamory ("We made casts of the tyre impressions on Archie's head and I have to say it's not looking good for you, Penny."), Dr Who in Toy Town ("They've exterminated Big Ears!") and Jack Bauer the Builder ("Tell me where the hammer is, Spud. Tell me now and I won't have to hurt you..."). Then there's the episode of Come Outside where Auntie Mabel, the middle-aged spinster, does a musical number about sewage. (No, hang on, that really happened).

Maybe I should just throw the TV out the window like Super~Mum says...

No, actually that's a little drastic. TV gives kids some of their social identity. I know this because I spent a year in the States as a teenager. There were many occasions when I felt far away from home but the one that sticks in my head was sitting around in History class discussing shows we'd loved as kids. I'd never seen Sesame Street and never cared about Mickey Mouse. They'd never heard of Mr Benn. They were all able to share together and forget their differences. It was as if they were four again. I, however, was more different than before. There was a new cultural barrier between us.

On the flipside, it turned out that the cutest girl in class had spent a few of her younger years in Britain. We paired off and reminisced about the episode of Bagpuss with the chocolate biscuit machine. We bonded. Shared memories of kids' TV brought friendship and snogging. Kids' TV is good.

Thanks to this experience, I believe that the Teletubbies are in fact the best hope we have for world peace. I know you hate them now but Sam will soon find something else to be fixated on. You will move on to Tikkabilla. The Teletubbies, however, will continue to be shown all over the world. By adding localised film-clips they can infiltrate any nation. There are so many episodes that they will pad out daytime telly forever. No child will entirely escape. Eventually these children, our children, will grow up and be in charge.

I imagine a point in the future when the world is edging towards war and the General Assembly of the United Nations meets for one last attempt to avert disaster. No common ground can be found, however. Voices rise. Fingers move edgily towards buttons. Suddenly Nicole Kidman realises the only way to save the day. She races up to the control booth and switches on BBC7. CBeebies radio blares out over the public address system.

"Who spilled the tubby custard?" says a well-spoken, male voice and hundreds of interpreters babble out translations.

There is a pause. Then, as one, the ambassadors of the world respond in their native tongues but there is no need to translate. Creed and colour no longer matter. For once, each person understands their brothers and sisters around them with perfect clarity. United, the people of Earth cry out, "It was Po! Po spilled the tubby custard."

Then they give each other a big hug.

From that single moment of shared identity will come new hope. Everybody will have their turn to wear the skirt and there will be tubby toast for everyone...

Or maybe I'm being too much of an optimist. Feel free to fall back on Plan B:


There was the sound of an approaching scooter and Ed waited patiently for his next victim. The Teletubby infestation would soon be dealt with...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, favourite, TV

 
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1:10 AM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Big Friendly Daddy

Dear Dave,

You're right - you do wonder what they're going to remember.

You slave away day after day. You get them out of bed, dress them, feed them, keep them entertained, undress them and then get them back into bed again. You wash up, wipe down and hoover around. You play games, run about and get head-butted in the privates. You pour your very life and soul into keeping them happy and turning them out right. It's hard work... You kind of want them to remember something of that. If nothing else, it should count in your favour when they're choosing your nursing home.

Sadly, however, Sam's memory of early childhood will probably be so hazy that he will believe that he was raised by Bob the Builder and a crack band of Teletubbies. Your years of sacrifice will be forgotten as he smiles wistfully at happy memories of talking machines, Tubby custard and enormous rabbits. He will build a shrine to Laa-Laa and you will spend your twilight years in a coalshed in King's Lynn.

I'm sorry to say that your future is bleak. I think mine might be worse, though. Not only am I going to be there in that shed with you, my kids will skimp on the extras. You at least will get food and a blanket, I will get to starve in my underpants. Every so often a little goblin will come round and poke me with a stick.

I mean, Marie's two-and-a-half and she already thinks I'm an imbecile. Today I was talking to her about how we'd been on a bus at the weekend. "No, Daddy," she replied. "We go IN bus." It was a hard one to argue and doing so only made me appear more of an idiot.

I then got a further insight into how she views me. She insisted she wanted to watch something she referred to as Me & You. She started hunting through the stack of DVDs but couldn't find it. "We watch Me & You!" she shouted desperately. I had no idea what she was talking about so I tried asking lots of questions about the programme - what happens, who's in it, that kind of thing. "We.. watch... Me... &... You!" she replied slower and more loudly, as if speaking to a foreigner she perceived as slightly dim. This went on for awhile.

Eventually I discovered an animated version of Roald Dahl's The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) that had fallen behind the sofa and Marie jumped up and down. "You and me!" she cried. Everything became slightly clearer and I was less than happy. You see, the cover art has a picture of the BFG holding a little girl in the palm of his hand. Obviously Marie associated herself with the girl, so there weren't many options as to how she pictured me. I am apparently an old, balding giant with poor dress-sense, a bulbous nose, ears the size of radar dishes, bushy eyebrows, nasal hair and dodgy teeth.

I paused for a moment and decided that there must be more to it than that. After all, my teeth are fine. I decided it must be something the giant does in the film that made her think of me. This, however, didn't help matters much. The giant kidnaps the girl, feeds her horrible food, inadvertently covers her in slime and nearly gets her eaten.

He also farts a lot.

Then he sings about it.

You're wondering what our kids will remember. Well, I'm hoping she forgets that.

Of course, I could have it all wrong. The film does pick up later on. The BFG takes the girl to see the queen, they have some fun and the bad giants get put in the zoo. There are some scary moments but it all works out in the end.

Maybe Marie just sees me as a big friendly giant who scoops her up and carries her off to have an adventure. That would be nice. When I'm old and my teeth have gone dodgy, she might even look at them and have a vague recollection of bushy eyebrows, flapping ears and strong arms carrying her along. Maybe then she'll smile and maybe, just maybe, I'll get that blanket after all.

I don't think there's any avoiding the coalshed, though. (Sorry).

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, favourite

 
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  What do you mean we're out of wipes?

Dear Dave,

We had a family day on Saturday.

Yes, that's right, that's one of those occasions where we drag the kids kicking and screaming away from the TV and computer and force them to have an exciting trip to somewhere cold and wet. This lasts from the moment they've finished their breakfasts until a time well after they were supposed to be in bed and long since they have ceased to be civil. The trauma helps us bond together as a unit and is a good excuse to drink a bottle of wine when it's all over.

On this particular occasion there was a deal where we could buy a special train ticket to Glasgow and then go to lots of attractions for free once we got there. Being cheapskates, this appealed to us and we set off early in order to visit as many places - and thus save as much money - as we possibly could. Of course some of the most expensive things in life are free, and our pockets were steadily drained of cash by cafeterias and giftshops thoughout the day. Still, we saw plenty of things we would never have got round to otherwise.

We ended up at the Science Centre. (The home of Nina and the Neurons, CBeebies fans!)
This is a fantastic place full of hands-on experiments and exhibits but our first concern was grabbing lunch. It was pretty decent. Marie refused everything apart from milk and Hula Hoops but the rest of us tucked in. As usual, though, the boys finished their food before drinking their drinks - their vast, brimming cups of chocolate milk. There are only so many times I can say, "Drink your drinks before they get spilled," without giving up in despair, however. That's something I need to work on. Quite how Fraser managed to launch his beverage container a foot into the air while still creating enough rotational motion to splatter all of us is a mystery.

After we'd cleaned up the mess, I went and got Fraser another chocolate milk and I picked up some fruit for later. He gulped it down and we headed to the vast hall full of wonders. Sarah let the younger kids press buttons until they were bored and then pointed them in the direction of something else. I vainly attempted to explain to Fraser the polarity of magnets, the fundamentals of flight and the propagation of sound. He ignored me, pressed buttons until he was bored and then ran off to find something else. I gave up. I taught him to do a Towers of Hanoi puzzle, added a couple of extra rings made from a key fob and a wrist strap, and sat down for a long rest. A very long rest.

Later we went to the giftshop. It was crammed with brightly-coloured exciting looking things packed full of educational potential. I quickly tried to hide my wallet in my sock but Fraser was too fast. He grabbed a pack of plastic bobbly things.

"Can I get this?"

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"How much does it cost?

"Five pounds."

"That's a little expensive for something when you don't even know what it is."

"How about this then?" he said, grabbing a smaller pack of different plastic bobbly things.

"What's that?"

"I don't know."

"How much is it?"

"One pound and fifty pence."

"OK," I sighed. "I guess that's more reasonable. Go and give the money to the man at the till." He went off happily just as Lewis approached, a board game clutched to his chest. From somewhere else in the shop I heard the familiar voice of a little girl scream, "You don't touch it! Pink dinosaur mine!" I sighed again.

We left as closing approached and caught the open-top tour bus (another part of the deal) for a scenic trip back to the station. We all piled upstairs and sat along the back. The boys were starting to wilt and I gave them the fruit to keep them going. This was a mistake. After they'd already gorged themselves, I bit into an apple and discovered it was quite sour. There was nothing wrong with it as such, it was just not very sweet in a way that suggested it might take some concentrated digestion. I suspected it was not really the thing to give two boys prone to travel sickness while they sat on a bus twisting and juddering its way through the Glasgow traffic.

"Are you feeling OK, Fraser?" I asked nervously.

"Yeah," he replied. "Why?"

"No reason," I said. "How about...?" I began turning to Lewis but I was already too late.

Everything happened at once.

My younger son leant over the back railing and spewed mightily, somewhat to the surprise of the cyclist directly behind us. I called down an apology but I had more immediate concerns: the sight and smell of Lewis' titanic chunder had started Fraser gagging. I grabbed the plastic bag containing our souvenirs, emptied it in Sarah's lap and then held it under Fraser's chin. I was barely in time to catch the geyser of chocolate milk which erupted from his mouth and just kept coming. There was so much, and it was under such high pressure, I expected it to spray out his ears at any moment. Then, finally, the seismic activity eased and I sighed in relief - I had caught every drop. I held the bag aloft in triumph.

Unfortunately, it had a hole in the bottom.

I stared at the hole, my eyes wide in horror, and time slowed. The trinkets falling at Sarah's feet hung in the air, I could hear my own heartbeat and I suddenly noticed the warm, damp feeling around my knees. Reality spun round my outstretched arm...

...then snapped back into place. I dumped the bag on the floor and hunted for the wipes. The previous chocolate milk incident had seriously depleted our supplies and a couple of nappy changes had left us very short indeed. We had one left. One wipe to last us nearly two hours. One wipe to see us through over three hundred and fifty child-minutes. That's not a lot of back up. I decided to save it in case of a real disaster and cleaned up as best I could with my scarf. By the time we reached our stop, Fraser and I looked nearly presentable.

We were left with that age-old dilemma of whether to leave the leaking bag of sick on the top deck of the bus or to carry it the full length of the bus, down the stairs and out the door, leaking a trail of sick behind us. Tricky. In the end, I put the bag inside my woolly hat and made a break for it. I hurtled to the door, leapt onto the pavement and barged my way to the nearest bin, the crowd parting before me like the Red Sea before Moses. (Though I doubt he yelled "Let me through! I have a hat full of sick!" to get the job done).

I was tempted to dump the hat with its contents but instead stowed it with my scarf in the net carrier under the buggy, as far from anything else as I could manage.

We cleaned up a bit more in the station and headed home. We'd had a pretty good day, even if some of us did smell faintly of curdled chocolate milk. Marie fell asleep on the way and the boys played with their new toys. I spent most of the journey rescuing multi-coloured bits of plastic from obscure crevices of ScotRail seating. Some of these little gaps were unpleasantly sticky but I did score a two pound coin, a return journey from Falkirk and a Lego Darth Vader complete with light-sabre. Result!

It was extremely chilly when we got back to Edinburgh and by the time we had walked half way home I was freezing. I peered under the buggy in an effort to see if my hat and scarf had gone crusty yet. Sarah rubbed her hands against the cold. "Don't even think about it," she said without even looking at me. Marie was snuggled cosily under a blanket so I stole her pink, fluffy pixie hat and jammed it down on my head. It's possible I may have looked like a lunatic but it's only a real lunatic who walks around with cold ears when they have other options.

It was late. We got home and bundled the kids into bed before putting on a load of washing and settling down in our pyjamas with a bottle of wine and the TiVo remote.

"You did well today," said Sarah as we cuddled up on the sofa.

"You did too."

"Want to go to Dundee next week? I got this leaflet in the Science Centre about... What?"

"More wine..." I muttered. "More wine..."

"Never mind." She kissed me and then poured me another glass. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Good idea," I said and reached for the remote. "Now which is it going to be - Vegas, New York or Miami?"

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, favourite, science, sickness

 
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