Dear Dave

  Judging a book by its shopping

Dear Dave,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then again, maybe I never do.

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

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

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

Groovy, baby!

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

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad

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

  Different priorities

Dear Dave,

Good to hear the routine is settling down and you're managing to get out of the house before half past ten in the morning. Shame you need to be back by eleven in order to give Daisy her third breakfast and change her nappy... before heading back out to collect Sam from nursery... only to hurry home for an early lunch... allowing you to go out for a walk to get Daisy to have a nap... so she'll wake up in time for a change and second lunch... before you have to go out again to take Sam to swimming lessons... and then rush back to give Daisy tea promptly... in the hope she'll feel peckish again before Liz gets home ready to burst and requiring a hungry baby to prevent her from exploding in a milky fashion.

It can be quite tricky fitting everything into the day when dealing with young children. Any delays, such as an unscheduled nappy full of evil raisins or a toddler taking exception to the colour of his left trouser leg, is liable to throw things out entirely. You can find yourself needing to be back home before you've left. This isn't too handy when you really need to get to the shops because all that's in the freezer is breast milk.

Lewis didn't finish his lunch, so I've enclosed half a cheese sandwich to keep you going. (Probably best to disinfect it, or something - I think he might have sneezed on it.)

As I said in my last letter, faffing with bottles can slow things down. Not having the handy, take-anywhere baby feeding attachments is certainly a disadvantage that we housedads have compared to our female colleagues. It's one of the obvious ways that life differs in a role-reversed family. Another is that both parents get to be home for the length of maternity leave. As you know, this makes the arrival of a new child easier to cope with but can have serious financial implications. All in all, there are many pros and cons to the way we do things. Even the lack of attachments can turn into an advantage for a housedad at three in the morning. (Don't look too happy about it as you hand over a screaming baby and go back to sleep, though. When Daisy starts teething, you'll be the one blearily watching baseball on Channel 5 for half the night as she cries and tries to eat the remote control.)

Yep, there are plenty of practical issues. You were wondering, however, whether housedads have a different approach to the philosophy of bringing up children than stay-at-home mums? Do we raise children differently through a mixture of genetics and principle?

It's hard to know. Parenting is a complicated business and to pin any particular part of the process down to gender would be a wild generalisation.

Tempted as I am to make wild generalisations anyway, I just can't bring myself to do it. So much of childcare - the rough and tumble, the nurturing, the discipline - is down to role as much as gender. Plus, my sample size of housedads I'm regularly in contact with is somewhat limited to you, so that would be a move beyond generalisation to straight forward invention. The best I can do is suggest that housemums and housedads may have different priorities.

For instance, I was in much less of a hurry to get my kids using cutlery and open cups than most mums at parent and toddler. This was maybe as much to do with Fraser as to do with me. He was so good at spilling drinks when he was small, I continued giving him beakers with spouts until he was nearly four. As for food, he still won't eat anything with sauce and is only just coming round to the idea that hot food can be quite tasty. When a huge proportion of what you eat is sandwiches, fresh fruit and raw vegetables, cutlery really isn't necessary.

That said, I did have to insist on a spoon for breakfast cereal so he stopped scooping up a handful of Rice Crispies and shoving them into his mouth in a way which dropped half of them. I really don't like a crunchy kitchen floor. (He eats his Crispies dry, by the way.) Maybe mums prefer civilised children. I'm just glad when the food goes in their mouths rather than on my socks.

I've also been relatively tardy teaching the boys to pee standing up. They hardly ever need the toilet, so there's no real incentive. The time we would save each day would be more than cancelled out by the time I'd spend doing additional mopping each week. Perhaps if it wasn't my job to clean up after them, then I might feel differently. I might believe that it's some kind of male rite of passage to learn to urinate while vertical and insist that they got the hang of it. Maybe housemums are more eager than me to encourage their sons' aiming skills because they have these kinds of expectations from their partners to placate. I'm just glad when the pee goes in the toilet rather than on my socks.

As for maintaining the balance between stimulation and unstructured play, I tend to leave the kids to their own devices more often than many mums seem too. This is perhaps down to having three children close together, though. I simply wouldn't have had time to sit either of the boys down and teach them to read, for example - I was always too busy chasing after a younger child. As for Marie, she's started teaching herself and she goes around pretending to read things already. The other day, she squinted hard at the instructions on a bottle of soap and said, "It says, 'Put on your hands. Don't put it on your teeth.'" (This was surprisingly accurate.) I suppose I could teach her properly but I'm in no rush. The school can handle it. Some mums attempt to educate their kids at an early age as something to do in order to avoid being driven mad by Teletubbies themselves. I have a high tolerance for boredom, however. I can think about nothing much for hours. I'm just glad... I have clean socks.

So there we have it, I suspect that if there were more housedads, more children would eat with their fingers, pee sitting down and be able to work DVD players themselves. Everyone would have clean socks.

Then again, maybe that's simply me.

Do housedads raise children differently? Never mind that - I think it's probably safe to say that every parent has a different approach to bringing up children. We all have successes and make mistakes. We all screw them up in a unique and interesting fashion. There's nothing to be done about it.

Just love them, do your best and get on with the job. Some priorities may vary but those are the ones we should all have in common.

Hope you get to the shops soon.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Good news if you don't like baseball! The BBC iPlayer now works on Wii. Download the Internet Channel, surf over to the website and voila! You can watch most of the last week of BBC output in jerky, VHS-o-vision from the comfort of your armchair, even in the middle of the night. Better get in there now while you have the chance - it only works in the UK but I still hate to think of the bandwidth usage if it catches on. Can you hear that shrill, almost-silent scream? That's our little corner of the internet dying...

Labels: housedad, Wii

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

  It's the holidays? Already?

Dear Dave,

It's the school holidays. No more having to get up early to make packed lunches and to harangue children into eating their breakfasts quickly. No more clubs and classes. No more having to hang around the playground every afternoon for half an hour because the boys come out twenty minutes apart. Just a sweeping expanse of time to fill with day-trips, leisurely activities and grocery shopping. Ah, bliss...

Well, that's been the case for previous school holidays, anyway. This time round is a little different. This is the first major holiday since Marie started at nursery and so the joy of not being constrained by an external schedule is tempered by the loss of the 'free-time' I normally have each morning when all the kids are out of the house. Next week may come as something of a shock to the system.

It's probably a good opportunity to assess how I've been getting along with my list of things I wanted to achieve while home alone. Let's see...

Ah.

Yes.

Hmmm.

It's not gone so well, has it? I haven't cleaned, fixed or played anything. I've still only gone for coffee once. I went shopping for clothes but only bought a hat. I haven't made it to a Polish deli. I suppose I did find a Polish section in Tesco but that's not really the same. May I recommend Paluszki, though. They're like long, thin pretzel things. (I'd send you a photo but, now I've got them out of the cupboard to check what they're called, I'm too busy eating them...)

I haven't even managed much progress on zombie-proofing the house. I meant to go to B&Q for raw materials but, with one thing and another, it never happened. I've just settled for altering the sign in the front window so it reads, 'No hawkers, circulars, canvassers, snakes, spiders, cats, evil dwarves, brain-sucking alien invaders or living dead.' I feel this not only deals with the zombie issue but gives some added protection in case I inadvertently invite in a vampire or another ghoul turns up trying to hassle me into changing energy supplier.

Me: I'm really not interested in switching right now.
Ghoul: So you don't want to save money?
Me: Can't you read? Back to the Pit, foul fiend!

I find this usually gets them to leave...

So what have I been doing? Writing to you mainly, along with eating breakfast, catching up on the internet (it's grown a bit since I last looked), doing some chores and dusting off a couple of creative projects that have been moth-balled since 2002. I'm not achieving much more than I did before Marie started nursery but I'm freeing up time in the evening to lie around watching films with explosions while groaning slightly and eating Polish pretzels.

Never mind, maybe next term...

Now, excuse me a minute while I move these Paluszki out of reach...

That's better, they're gone now. (Munch... Munch...) Honestly. (Munch...)

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS If you're wondering about the 'creative projects', here's a little something for Easter that I've been working on.

Labels: housedad, school

  11:15 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  But he always does the cooking

Dear Dave,

Glad to hear you all survived Mother's Day for another year. Taking your mum out to a restaurant was a smart move - it will have thrown the attention off Liz. Just as Valentine's Day can be awkward for single people, Mother's Day is a bizarre emotional minefield for role-reversed parents. I remember, way back on Father's Day, I mentioned how the advertising and social expectation were geared up all wrong for housedads. Well, Mother's Day is worse for our partners.

On Mother's Day, traditional mums get thanked for all the unsung work they put into doing chores and keeping the household running. It's an opportunity for them to have a break while the rest of the family takes over for the day. Those mums with a househusband, however, get to feel guilty for not doing all the things that traditional mums are being praised for. Even the simple question, 'Is he taking a turn and making lunch for you today, then?' can seem threatening. Answering, 'Yes,' implies the mum does the cooking normally. Any other response is going to lead to confusion and an eventual admission that it's really the dad who does all the housework. Before you know it, the mum feels like it should be her that's gratefully making the lunch for a change, even though that's what Father's Day is for.

It is in our house, anyway. Most places, I'm guessing Father's Day isn't quite the same. You see, there's a marked difference between the sentiments surrounding Mother's Day and Father's Day. Mums get a hard-earned rest; dads get a less-than-complimentary card and some encouragement to spend the day interacting with their family. Mother's Day is to say thank you for all the work, while Father's Day is to go play football in the park. Mums are appreciated for what they do; dads are appreciated for existing.

Hardly seems fair, does it?

Mother's Day does come with more handmade gifts, though. Marie made a card at nursery, Sunday School delivered decorated crockery and Anchor Boys turned up some... well, the only way to describe them is model houses constructed out of cleaning equipment and sharp pins.

Sarah was thrilled.



Even if we had a 'normal' lifestyle it would be hard for her to know how to take being given a couple of pot scourers and a duster for Mother's Day. Since she doesn't actually do any washing up or dusting, it's particularly difficult.

While making these gifts, the Anchor Boys were asked, "What are some of the things that your mum does that you need to thank her for?"

The other children piped up with suggestions like cooking and hoovering and cleaning.

Our boys just looked confused. "Mummy never does those things. Daddy does them."

No one really paid any attention to them, however. Adults tend to suspect that my kids are mistaken when they say stuff like that. Sometimes they chuckle at the very idea, even if they know I'm a housedad. It makes me wonder how they imagine our lives operate. Do they think I expect Sarah to come home from work, make us all tea, get the children ready for bed and then scrub the toilets?

I guess so. I suppose there are plenty of families where both parents are working and the mum does come home and do those things. The hype surrounding Mother's Day actually seems to suggest that that set-up is only right and proper. Mums are heroes and saints who get us all where we need to go, on time, in clean clothes and with a healthy packed lunch. They do it out of love and duty and with only the annual promise of breakfast in bed, a handmade card and a small box of Cadbury's Milk Tray to look forward to. (Actually, there's been some inflation since our day and the handmade card and chocolates have been replaced by a massage voucher and a Nintendo DS but it's still small reward for being a supermum.)

This is all very well, but building up being taken for granted as somehow virtuous, isn't very helpful to anyone except the dads who aren't pulling their weight. It even makes life more difficult for mums who don't have a traditional role - it can make them feel inadequate for not being a domestic goddess. It certainly gets to Sarah sometimes and that's despite the fact she does the laundry and helps out a great deal with looking after the children.

I have pointed out that going to work each day and earning the money to feed, clothe and house us all is quite a big deal really but, apparently, that doesn't count. She's supposed to be taking the kids on nature walks, preparing gourmet meals, organising art projects, redecorating the lounge and removing the stain round the bath, all with a twitch of her nose.

Yep, it's not easy being a breadwinning mum. As well as having to work in a man's world, there are all kinds of societal expectations of motherhood to overcome. Sometimes it's hard to see past them:

She may not hoover, but the kids do have a lot to appreciate Sarah for (and so do I!). The truth is, though, it doesn't matter what she's contributing. She's their mum and they appreciate her anyway. Hopefully, they won't be persuaded out of that by adverts and misinformation as the years go by.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Admittedly, the kids aren't always great at expressing their appreciation. I had to remind them all to wish Sarah a happy Mother's Day this year, for instance, so I should probably put them into training for next year. That way they'll come up with suitable gifts and be more prepared for daft questions.

Never mind, at least they had the sense to give the pan scourers to me...

Labels: father's day, housedad, marriage

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

  This is normal

Dear Dave,

I guess you don't have long to go now. Another fortnight and Liz will be back at work. Your life will be a whirl of sterilising bottles and defrosting milk. You'll have to figure out how to fit all Daisy's feeds and nappy changes around ferrying Sam to nursery and clubs. It'll be a constant rush to keep up with the timetable and you'll have to do it all while suffering from broken sleep and whatever illness the kids have brought home this week. It will be long and tiring.

Enjoy it while you can.

I'm not kidding. I think I miss it a little.

Yes, yes, I know I'm mad. I've blanked the repetition, frustration, exhaustion and endless Teletubbies from my mind. There is something to be said, however, for the simplicity of survival. Eighteen months ago, my horizon was firmly fixed at getting through the day to a can of beer and some CSI. Every time I made it to the sofa, switched on the telly and cracked that ring-pull was a triumph. (Apart from the odd occasions where the can had been shaken and I got a lapful of Murphy's, obviously). No one was even sure how I managed it. Friends and family applauded me merely for keeping going.

Now things are different. The children are older. They can all sleep through the night, use a spoon, switch on the telly and go to the toilet without too much intervention. My services are becoming obsolete.

Since I no longer need to be chasing after them the whole time, there's opportunity for longer term goals. There's even some expectation I'll achieve things (both from other people and the craziness in my own head). I can start educational projects with the kids, attend to long-forgotten chores, study, work, keep fit, meet social obligations and generally look beyond bedtime. Except I can't do all those things. I don't have that much time or energy. I do have time and energy for some of them, though. This means I have to make decisions and I'm not used to those kinds of decisions any more.

This was brought to my attention the other morning when I heard a knock at the door. It was Mike. He was wearing his dog-collar and carrying a Bible and his ring-bound personal organiser. I wasn't expecting him, but he definitely looked like he meant business.

"I'm here for lunch," he said bluntly.

"Er... Do you have a reservation?"

"No," he said and came in anyway. "Where's Marie?"

"I'm in the lounge!" came a shrill cry from upstairs. "I'm cooking Bagpuss!"

"Mmmmm, fried cloth cat," I said, taking Mike's coat. "Are you sure you want to stay for lunch?"

"Sandwiches will be fine," he said, going through to the kitchen and taking a seat.

"Cup of tea?"

He shook his head. "I've had seven already, thank you."

"Seven!"

He sighed. "I spend much of my time visiting elderly ladies. Over-dosing on tea and biscuits is one of the hazards of the job."

"How about a beer then?"

Unusually, Mike was momentarily lost for words. This didn't appear to be an offer he'd often received in his twenty years of ministry. He pondered it for a moment. "Just a small one," he said, trying not to appear too pleased. "With my lunch."

"Right you are." I set about preparing the food.

"How are Rob and Kate and the baby?" he asked. "Have they thought of a name yet?"

"They got to the registry office in the nick of time on Friday," I said, rolling my eyes. "The poor kid almost got called '[To do]'. They settled on Luke Robert in the end."

Mike chuckled. "You've been living in Scotland for fifteen years and you still can't say Luke properly, can you?"

"Don't you start," I said, my head in a cupboard. "I think Rob chose it just for an opportunity to wind me up. Apparently, if I can pronounce the kid's name correctly five times in a row, then I get to be a godparent."

"Much luck?"

"My high score's currently two and a half. So, no. Not much."

I put some bread on the table and dumped half the contents of the fridge beside it. There was cheese and sliced meat, some salad and a tub of humous. "Help yourself," I said. Then I started cutting up some fruit for Marie.

"I'll need a knife."

"Oh, yeah." I grabbed one from the drawer, rubbed off a couple of fingerprints on my shirt and handed it over.

"Thanks." He made himself a sandwich and briefly waited for me to sit down but then realised I wasn't going to. I went to find that beer under the shelves, switched on the kettle as I went, poured a child-sized cup of milk on the way back, opened the bottle and put it in front of him. Then I went back to chopping.

Mike started eating. "How's life?" he said through a mouthful of food.

"Busy. Marie's settled at nursery but I've been spending the free-time sorting out the house and stuff. The boys have been having lots of friends round. Sarah's got extra work to do at the moment. All being well, the last of the repairs from the flood will be finished tomorrow - if the plumbers turn up, they can fix the pipe in question and they don't break anything else in the process. Once that's over, though, we're looking into getting the kitchen done, so that'll be more chaos. At some point, I'm planning to do some writing. Next month we're going to..."

Mike cut me off. "That's what you've been filling life with. It doesn't answer my question. Stop what you're doing, come over here and talk to me."

"Er..." I was almost finished getting Marie's lunch ready. I just needed to spread margarine on some crackers... I reached for the packet.

"Now."

"OK," I said, sheepishly. "Can I wash my hands and get my coffee?"

"All right."

I gave my fingers a quick rinse, dried them on my trousers, poured my drink and hurried to sit opposite Mike. I rested my elbows on the table and held the mug up with both hands, trying to look natural and relaxed rather than as if I was using it as a steaming shield to fend off any cross-examination.

"So?" said Mike.

"So?"

"So how's life?"

I shrugged and looked away, not knowing what to say. Sunlight was streaming in through the patio doors and it appeared to be an almost nice day outside for a change. Beyond our back fence, I could see Julia playing Tig with her children in the park. They were wrapped up warm against the wind but they seemed to be having fun. She still hasn't put the four of them into school yet. Maybe soon. I watched them for a bit, imagining the laughter that I couldn't hear through the double-glazing.

"I don't know," I said eventually. "It's a few years since I've really had a chance to think about it. There's been one thing after another. Well, one child after another, anyway. It's just been a case of keeping on going. I suppose life feels like an endless game of Tetris sometimes. I used to be able to clear the screen every so often and take a breather. Now it feels like I've had too many of those 'S'-shaped blocks in a row and I'm forever struggling simply to keep the last few lines from filling up. Things are getting better but I don't think I'll ever get the screen clear again."

Mike didn't say anything for a few moments as he considered this, then he changed tack. Or maybe he didn't. It's hard to tell sometimes with him. "How's Dave?" he said.

"He's OK. He's got two kids now so he doesn't have so much time for letters but we're keeping in touch. It's quite odd thinking back to when I was in the situation he's in. Having a small baby seems like so long ago."

"It's about a year since you started writing to him, isn't it?"

"Yeah, maybe - certainly since we really got going. It's weird how much has changed. I'm getting proper sleep, Sarah's job has settled down, Fraser can almost look after himself, Lewis is at school, Marie's at nursery and we've been able to pass on all the baby stuff. I keep thinking that life will get back to normal soon. Then I realise that Marie's nearly three and a half. Even when she starts school, life won't be that different. These days, looking after them is often a case of keeping an eye on them while I get on with something else. We're already past the stage where I had to be constantly physically involved with the children just to keep them fed, clean and rested. This is normal and it's going to be the way of things for a while."

"Uh-huh," said Mike, making himself another sandwich. Then, off-hand, he added, "And how are you coping with that?"

He didn't even glance up. I'd been expecting to have to deflect his piercing gaze with my coffee. I was taken off-guard. "Er..." I said, lowering my mug in surprise. "I'm... well..."

Then he looked me in the eye. I was trapped and defenceless. There was no avoiding an honest answer.

It took me a while to think of one, though. "Things are different and I'm not used to that yet. I'm not quite sure what I am. For years, I've been able to introduce myself as a housedad and be confident that that covered everything. It doesn't any more. Then again, I'm not even close to getting my old life back. I'm somewhere in between."

"Does it matter what you are?"

I shrugged. "If you're wanting me to figure out who I am, it's going to take more than one visit and I'll be needing some of that beer."

"We can arrange that," he said, flipping open his organiser and unscrewing the lid of his fountain pen. He poised the nib over the page. "A week on Thursday, in the evening?"

"Well..."

He wrote the appointment down before I could reply. "I'll bring the beer; you provide the PlayStation. It's been a while since I got to embarrass you with a shotgun."

"Er, can I invite anyone else?" I asked, giving in.

"If you don't mind sharing your angst with them."

"I'm long past caring," I muttered.

Mike grunted. "We'll see."

Marie bounced into the room. She had a toy saucepan in her hands. A pink and white tail trailed out from under the lid. "Lunch time!" she squealed.

"It's almost ready," I said, jumping up to finish piling her plate.

Then she caught sight of the park and Julia's children. "It's Marcus! He's playing a game on the grass out the back door! Can we play, too?"

I glanced at the packet of crackers and at Mike. It wasn't really a convenient time but another twenty minutes and Julia was bound to have gone in. It would probably have started to rain as well.

"Please..." said Marie.

"It does look like fun," said Mike, leaning back in his chair. "I'll sit here and watch, though, if you don't mind."

I dithered for a few seconds. There was stuff to do and I had a guest but there was also something to be said for fresh air and exercise while we had the chance... "OK," I said at last, "we won't be long." Marie and I got our shoes and coats on. "Help yourself to crisps," I called over my shoulder as we stepped out into the sunshine.

"I was going to," said Mike, sipping his beer.

Julia waved us over cheerily and we joined in with the running about and screaming. It was cold enough to see our breath. My ears were soon ready to fall off. Still, it was fresh air and exercise...

It was also a chance to play with my little girl before either of us grow up any more.

We had fun.

Yours in a woman's world (for now),

Ed.

Labels: housedad

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

  Consider the penguins

Dear Dave,

Well, so much for my new found freedom. Just as I was getting used to a couple of hours without children every weekday morning, the February Week holiday has arrived. More than that, it turns out that the name is misleading. It's actually the February Week-and-a-bit holiday.

Ho-hum.

I was back to steering a trolley and three under-eights round the supermarket today. It wouldn't have been so bad but they've all reached an age where they're eager to help. Between one pushing, one loading and one sitting in the seat and yelling, 'Charge!' we tend to leave a trail of mangled groceries and scattered discount signs in our wake. Most other shoppers get out of our way but we occasionally scoop up random (very surprised-looking) children by mistake. We haven't knocked a granny into a chest freezer lately, though. (They're always so polite and apologetic as they lie there surrounded by frozen peas, feet and Zimmer frame sticking up in the air - it makes me feel bad.)

Oh, that reminds me. I may not have achieved much with my extra time but at least I've managed to defrost our freezer. Yep, that's right, in the three weeks Marie has attended nursery, I've successfully done all the stuff I normally do, gone for coffee once and melted some ice. Big whup. In my most recent plans for world domination, I forgot to figure in time for things, like eating breakfast and routine tidying up, which I used to do while Marie was having her own breakfast. They still need done even though she's not around. I also failed to realise that, most mornings, I used to sit about at parent and toddler, chatting and eating biscuits. It was a time of relative relaxation. Now, if I spend the mornings getting stuff done, I don't have much energy left in the evenings to do extra stuff. Drat. Looks like JK Rowling's lawyers can rest easy for another year or two. It doesn't appear I'll get around to my unofficial eighth Harry Potter novel (in which Harry deals with the trials and tribulations of being a stay at home dad) until Marie starts school. Watch out for Harry Potter and the Nappy of Disaster in early 2012!

As far as the holiday goes, it's been fairly quiet. The kids have had a couple of friends round but, in general, they've been glad of some rest. The boys have been honing their hand-eye-Mario coordination and Marie has glued lots of pink, sparkly bits and bobs to some coloured paper.

The other day, though, we went to the zoo with Steve and his kids. He's been doing a lot better recently. He seems to have come to terms with being a housedad. I'm sure that if a vaguely decent management position came up, he'd have the kids into daycare faster than a toddler-powered trolley into a precarious display of eggs, but he's giving it his best shot for the time being.

He's not entirely adjusted yet, however.

"Here's our timetable," he said once we'd arrived, and he handed me a print out. It was colour-coded to correspond with stickers he'd stuck to the map. "We're two and a half minutes behind already. We should be at the flamingos by now. Let's go."

I wasn't prepared for such unfortunate levels of organisation. "Shouldn't we check to see if any of the kids need the toilet first?" I muttered.

"There's a scheduled rest-break at eleven. Toilet and snacks then. Come on."

He was already striding up the steep hill on which Edinburgh Zoo is placed, with Josquin in the buggy and Ophelia skipping along beside him. I hurried after as best I could. The boys were still feeling queasy from the bus journey and were making a big fuss about holding paper bags just under their chins as they walked. Marie wanted to go to the gift shop and buy a live penguin. I had to drag them all along.

We were having the expedition because Deborah wanted Steve away from their flat for the day so she could get a stack of business calls done. I don't think she quite trusts him to manage out and about for that length of time on his own yet, so she roped me in. Our destination was selected on the basis that there were some hands-on exhibits taking place - spider fondling and snake cuddling, that kind of thing. If I'd known this, I might not have agreed. I hate spiders and snakes.

Helpfully, Steve tried to convince me otherwise.

"They won't hurt you," he said when we reached the door of the building housing all things that slither or scuttle. "Snakes aren't even slimy, you know. Come on, man."

"I have phobias," I said. "I could go in there but it wouldn't be fun."

He laughed. "Confront your fears."

"I go outside all the time. Doesn't stop me feeling a bit agoraphobic on days when the sky is clear and there's a light wind, though."

"Like today?"

"I... er..." I looked up into the cloudless blue and felt a tingle down the back of my neck and a familiar feeling of foreboding. I shivered. "I tell you what," I said, "Fraser's not too keen and Josquin's too young to care. How about I take them to the monkey house and we wait for the rest of you there? It's always nice and cosy."

"It's not very well lit," Steve chuckled. "There might be all kinds of snakes and spiders hiding in the darkness."

I rolled my eyes. "Cheers for that," I said and hurried off to find somewhere that had a low ceiling and was inhabited by creatures with more than no legs but less than eight of them. I was very relieved when I finally wheeled Josquin into the dim, musty, tropical confines of the monkey house. A wide selection of primates were visible playing behind the glass panels which let us see into the indoor sections of their enclosures. Fraser was vaguely interested to see them and even Josquin pointed. It's one of my favourite parts of the zoo.

I'd have been better off going to see the spiders, though.

In his excitement at seeing a macaque eat a grape, Josquin brought forward the scheduled rest-break and created a nappy so disastrous that even Harry Potter would struggle to overcome it. Being out of practice, I made something of a hash of things. I wasn't helped by having to change him on a bench in the gloom while watched by a family of chimpanzees.

As I was bent over my grim task, I heard the sound of something venomous approaching from behind me.

"Now, children," said a cold, female voice, "can anyone tell me where these particular creatures are from?"

This time the tingle of fear wasn't in my neck. I huddled down lower and hoped Fraser was adequately entertained elsewhere. I was fairly sure she'd never met him, so he wouldn't attract her attention on his own, but, if he rushed over and started talking to me loudly... I fixed myself on dealing with the nappy and concentrated on not looking round. On the one hand, I couldn't believe my misfortune in choosing the same day as her to go to the zoo. On the other, I cursed myself for failing to realise that she would never pass up the prospect of educational workshops complete with added arachnids.

I felt the air chill behind me as she passed by and I held my breath. Since I'd already been holding my breath for some time to avoid the smell from Josquin, I came close to passing out. I was terrified that the unduly loud beating of my heart would give me away.

Luckily, at that point, one of her grandchildren broke ranks at the sight of a lemur and ran off for a closer look. She was forced to follow, threatening all kinds of chastisements as she went. I chanced looking up.

Eleanor was disappearing into the murky distance, unfolding her portable naughty step as she went.

I breathed a sigh of relief and finished dealing with Josquin, getting him back in the buggy just in time for Steve's arrival.

The chimpanzees clapped.

"Daddy! Daddy! There were spiders!" shrieked Marie when she saw me. "Big spiders with hair and legs and eyes and they walked around like this!" She did a little dance that quickly began to attract adoring glances from other visitors. I'd suddenly become very conspicuous.

"Let's go and have that snack and you can tell me all about it," I said, ushering everyone towards the door.

Steve began wandering off to look at the monkeys. "It would be more efficient for us to re-arrange the schedule and..."

"It's eleven," I hissed. "Ice cream. Now."

"In February?"

"I..." Ice cream was the only thing I could think of that the kids would find more enticing than staring at monkeys but I didn't have time to go into that just then. "She's coming this way! Move. Move!"

I shoved Steve and the kids outside and hurried them round the corner to the cafe.

"Eleanor was in there," I explained when we were safely settled at a table with the kids busy defrosting frozen milk over their clothes.

"Who?" said Steve.

"I must have told you about her. She's the mum of one of my neighbours and I call her the GrandParent of Doom. We really, really don't want to run into her. Seriously, she's like Darth Vader in tweed and she's got it in for me."

He nodded but he was obviously just humouring me. Having escaped both The Twister Incident and The Parent and Toddler Night Out, he didn't know what she was capable of. I tried to fill him in on the details but we were both a bit distracted cleaning our children. Afterwards, we set off for another look at the monkeys. I was confident she'd have moved on by then, so it was the place she was least likely to be. I began to calm down but I spent the rest of the day glancing over my shoulder and, a couple of times, we had to take a sharp turn when I heard her approaching.

The problem came after lunch, when it was time for the penguin parade. Every day, the penguins get the opportunity to leave their enclosure and go for a short, circular walk on the path round the grassy area outside. If none of them are interested, then it doesn't happen, but there's usually a few. Just about all the visitors in the zoo turn up to watch.

Eleanor was bound to be there.

I'd already promised the kids that we'd go - it was one of the things that had persuaded them to put up with the expedition in the first place. This made avoiding her much more difficult. Of course, there was a chance she wouldn't notice us in the crowds (particularly as she was unlikely to recognise Fraser and Lewis) but I wasn't feeling lucky. We needed disguises. I contemplated plucking a llama and making us all false moustaches. It wasn't much of a plan, though. Fortuitously, as we got to the pool, I saw exactly what I was looking for in the window of a little shop full of penguin merchandise. They had a selection of cheap, waterproof hooded ponchos. These were black and white with orange visors. I quickly kitted out my family.

"It's not raining," complained Fraser as I put one over his head.

"It's to make the penguins feel safe," I countered.

"Why isn't anyone else wearing them?" said Lewis as we took up position by the parade route.

"They must be here to scare the penguins," I said, scanning the area behind us for hostiles. I was looking entirely the wrong way, however, and was taken by surprise when Marie squealed.

"Look! It's Darth Granny!" she cried.

I whipped round, only to discover I was facing my nemesis directly across the narrow path. I suddenly felt very conscious that I was dressed as a penguin. Eleanor fixed me with an icy glare. I pulled all my little penguins in close to me for safety.

"Oh, hi, Eleanor," I said. I wasn't sure how much of the previous conversation she'd heard. I was hopeful she hadn't picked up on the whole Sith Lord reference, though.

"I know her," said Fraser. "Is she the GPD?"

"Good afternoon," said Eleanor stiffly. "What, exactly, is the GPD?"

"GrandParent of Doom, of course," Lewis chimed in helpfully.

Sometimes children are paying more attention than they let on...

"This is Eleanor," I said to Fraser. "She's the gran of Marcus and the others." Eleanor's four young grandchildren waved back politely but they knew something was up and were noticeably edging away from her.

"I suppose this is one of your housedad friends?" said Eleanor, indicating Steve with tight-lipped distaste.

"Er..." I said. It was a tricky question. Technically, Steve is my currently-out-of-paid-employment acquaintance who's filling time by taking care of his kids. Under the circumstances, 'housedad friend' was close enough, however. "Yes?" I ventured.

"Can he not get a job either?"

"Er..." It was another tricky question. I could have defended myself easily enough because I know full well that I have a job already - a job I've chosen, I'm good at and I'm happy with. Steve was more of an issue. Everything I'd normally say in such situations was bound to only make him feel worse. "We came to see the snakes," I said.

"They went 'Hisssssss'!" said Marie, spitting all over Josquin who was in the buggy in front of her. Josquin burst into tears. Steve unstrapped him and picked him up, only to discover that his nappy had leaked copiously. It just added to the whole air of tongue-tied, poncho-wearing incompetence we were generating.

Eleanor was unwilling to hide her contempt. "I pity your poor wives and children."

"Er..." I said again. Then the penguins arrived, flanked by their keepers. The ungainly birds waddled past, squawking. Cameras flashed, children shouted and the crowds pressed in around us. I concentrated on keeping hold of my kids in the crush. When the mayhem was over, Eleanor had gone, her humiliation of us complete.

I was seething. Any number of things I wanted to say to her sprang to mind. Few of them were civil.

Then I took a deep breath and tried to let it go. Realistically, I don't care what she thinks about me. It's not like I'm a big fan of her grandparenting (or even parenting) style.

The encounter had been unpleasant but we'd all survived and it meant the GPD probably wouldn't bother us again for the rest of the day. It was time to relax, take some photos, break out some more snacks and then press on up to the safari area.

By the time I'd helped the kids off with their disguises, I was feeling much better. If I could whistle, I would have whistled.

Then I noticed that Steve wasn't around. I was worried he'd taken Eleanor's words personally and gone off somewhere in a funk. Who knew what he might be up to? I started to look for him but then Fraser and Lewis helped by running off in all directions to search and I had to concentrate on not losing them. This slowed me down. I was just at the point of becoming concerned and phoning Steve's mobile when I eventually found him and his children watching the penguins on the other side of the pool. It turned out he'd been off fumigating Josquin and the buggy. He did look pretty glum, though.

"Sorry about that," I said. "I told you she's not hugely keen on me. Still, could have been worse - at least none of us ended up breast-feeding in a box this time."

He shrugged and grunted.

"Look," I continued, "don't let anything she said get to you. She has very strong opinions about raising children and thinks everyone else should go along with them, no matter how inappropriate it is for their situation. We don't fit in with the way she sees the world and she can't deal with it. She doesn't even want to. Just ignore her."

"But she's right," he said, struggling to keep it together. "This isn't normal. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't do this. I'm a man. I can't even put a nappy on right."

I shook my head. "I put on that nappy, remember? Maybe I messed up; maybe it was one of those things - I don't know. You dealt with it well, though. You had spare clothes, wipes and nappies and you just got on with it. A woman couldn't have done better and I've seen plenty do worse."

"But I shouldn't be here. She's right. I should be at work, providing for my family."

"What? Because the guys at the golf club say you should?"

He looked a little embarrassed. "How did you know?"

"Because I've met some of them and they're rather opinionated, too, if I recall. They see the world a certain way. If you can't look at things differently, then you're going to go crazy. You need to change your perspective."

Sudden fear gripped him. "You're not going to tell me about God, are you?"

"Er, no," I said, "I can, er, do that if you want but I... I was actually going to tell you about penguins."

This cheered him up and confused him in equal measure. "Pardon?"

"If you want to understand about perspective, you need to know about penguins. See!" I pointed over to where a particularly rotund penguin was clumsily waddling down to the water. "Penguins are funny birds with an awkward walk. They can't even fly. A bird that can't fly - what's the point of that?" At the last minute, the fat penguin slipped and did an enormous belly-flop. "Yep, the way we see them, they're comical and a source of slapstick. I doubt they'd agree, though. They probably think of themselves as ninja fighter-pilots. That one's The Red Baron to his friends."

"But they can't fly," said Steve.

I snorted. "Of course they can. You just need to see life from a penguin point of view. Follow me."

With the children close behind, I led him round and down to the enormous observation window in the side of the penguin pool. Initially, there was little to see but soon the The Red Baron came into sight and dived towards us, then fluidly banked and swooped upwards again, effortlessly gliding away. He was quickly joined by a couple of buddies, the three of them swirling around each other in an unbelievable acrobatic display. They were simply flying through the water.

"Don't be put off because other people can't see or appreciate what you're doing," I said. "You may not have some of the opportunities you want at the moment but you've got others. You can spend time with your children, for a start. Make the most of it."

We stood there for a while and watched the swimming some more. Steve appeared deep in thought. When he didn't say anything for nearly five minutes I started becoming concerned again. Had my analogy crashed his brain? I considered telling him about God after all. Then, finally, he said, "Isn't it the male penguins that look after the young?"

"They certainly take their turn," I replied.

He thought about this a little more, then said, "Glad I don't have to waddle around with an egg on my feet."

"Amen to that," I nodded.

After that, he seemed a great deal happier and fished out his schedule. It was time for us to move on. We headed further up the hill to see the zebras and kangaroos and big cats. Marie pointed excitedly at every sparrow we passed. The boys, however, were beginning to lose it. They took a quick glance at everything and then went back to bickering with each other. They barely grunted at the sight of a tiger.

Then, unexpectedly, they started bouncing around and pointing.

"It's a Raichu!" shrieked Fraser.

"Bless you," I said.

"No! It's a Raichu - the evolved form of Pikachu! Look! Look! That boy's got one."

The four-year-old in question did, indeed, have a small cuddly toy that looked like a deformed version of Pikachu. Fraser insisted on having his photograph taken with it. Luckily, both the boy and his mum were very understanding.

"There's a lion over here," I said when the photo session was done.

The boys just shrugged. "Whatever..."

Marie ignored me entirely and started dancing round some litter. "It's a crisp packet. It's empty! It's not in the bin!"

It was definitely time to go.

We called into the gift shop and bought a plastic penguin and some other assorted tack, then headed home. Steve and his lot had their car with them, so we said our good-byes on the steps. He shook my hand warmly but slightly awkwardly. Marie and Ophelia gave each other an enthusiastic, jumping hug. Josquin gurgled.

We waved them into the distance and then waited for the bus. It started to rain.

Handily, we had shiny, new waterproofs.

(Some things work out well in the end.)

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad, Useless Dad

  3:00 PM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Almost there

Dear Dave,

Have I told you that Marie is starting nursery soon? I think it might be that I've mentioned it in passing. You know, in an off-hand kind of way. It's not like it's a major event or anything but it's just possible I might have alluded to it once or twice. I doubt it was more than a sentence or two. I certainly haven't gone on about it.

What? What's that you say?

Really?

Every other letter for weeks?

Oh...

Ho, well, get over it, I'm not going to stop now. She starts tomorrow. Excuse me while I pirouette serenely around the kitchen on tip-toes, showering myself with flowers to the tune of The Blue Danube Waltz:

Yah da da da DAH, da-da, da-da. Yah da da da DAH, da-da, da-da

and then cut abruptly to an energetic interpretation of The Time Warp:

It's just a jump to the left...

only to finish with an overblown rendition of The Final Countdown complete with air-guitar, a straggly mop stuck to my head and fireworks:

Cue big-haired, leather-clad, Swedish men erupting from the cupboards in a blaze of pyrotechnics. It's the final countdown! DUH-duh, duh, DUH! DUH-duh, duh, duh, duh!

DUH-duh! Duh, duh, DUH-duh! Duh, duh, du-du, du-du, duh-duh duuuh...

Actually, no, I think I wandered off into The Flintstones there, but who cares? My youngest child starts nursery tomorrow! I'm not fussed if my kitchen ends up full of European rock stars or Fred and Barney - all that matters is that I'm going to get regular time to myself without children.

Yep, the fabled two or so hours a day, on week days, during term time, when all the kids are well, are almost here. That's over ten hours a week, thirty-five weeks a year, during which I might simultaneously have both the time and energy to achieve something. The very thought consumes my mind. I can barely think of anything else.

Then again, maybe Fred would bring Wilma...





...sigh...






Er... Where was I? Oh, yeah, free time once Marie starts nursery. I'll have some. That's going to be pretty odd.

In the past, I've just laughed at those who've said that I won't know what to do with myself. I have a hundred things I want to get done:

• Clean the house. Obviously I make the house look clean on a regular basis already but there are certain out-of-sight areas, like top shelves and at the back of the TV cabinet, that are so dusty you'd think a vampire had crawled in and died.
• Visit all the poky, little shops in the area in which there isn't room to swing a screaming toddler. For years, I've only dared venture into supermarkets and department stores, unwilling to risk navigating a buggy through cramped aisles of breakable goods. Even then, it's seldom been pleasant. One time, when Fraser was small, I took a wrong turn into the crystal department of John Lewis and he immediately decided the only way to travel was with his legs stuck out to either side as far as he could stretch. Navigating my way to the exit became a nerve-wracking test of skill and concentration, akin to those games where you've got to move a metal ring along a wiggly wire without making contact and setting off the very expensive smashing noise. Since then, colourful little stores selling knick-knacks have seemed out of the question.
  
  I want to go and browse pointless trinkets again. I also want to go into one of the four Polish delicatessens that have recently opened within a few minutes walk of my house and see if anything looks tasty. Hopefully quite a lot will, because, before long, a third of the shops round here are going to be Polish delicatessens and I won't be able to buy food anywhere else. (The other two-thirds of the shops are already internet cafes and barbers. The neighbourhood is obviously now full of Polish people who want to get their haircut and then blog about it.)
• Fix some of the things around the house that have been broken so long that I no longer even notice that they're broken. Like, erm...
• Go round the house looking for broken things. See above.
• Meet friends for coffee... and talk about something other than children and things around the house which need fixed.
• Play some of those computer games I've been meaning to play but haven't. These are mostly PC games I picked up a while ago, only to discover my computer at the time wasn't powerful enough. Doubtless they still won't work for some reason but I'd like to give it a try.
• Zombie-proof the house. If they climb on the wheelie-bin, they'll be in the bedroom window before we know it. I need to sort out a spring-loaded booby trap that will catapult them into next door's garden. The neighbours may not be too pleased when it starts raining zombies on their crazy paving but I assume that will be the least of my worries...
• Have a proper mid-life crisis. I had a little one soon after Marie was born but I never felt I really had the time to get into it properly. I was too busy changing nappies to buy a motorbike; I was too tired to do anything else because I wasn't getting enough
• Sleep.
• Write a novel. I've got a great idea for a haunting Celtic fantasy set in fifth century Scotland, stuffed full of myths and heroes, and played out against the backdrop of the growing conflict between Druidism, the old gods and Christianity. It's totally awesome.
  
  Alternatively, I could just cobble together all these letters I've written to you and see if anyone's interested. Got to be worth a shot...
• Buy clothes. Much less awesome but it has to be done. It's years since I bought any clothing other than underwear. The trick, as ever, will be going to the shops and coming back with trousers rather than a PlayStation 3. Gah, who put GAME next to John Lewis? It's just too tempting. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to fashion myself a new coat out of DVD boxes.
• The list goes on...

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm beginning to understand what those people who said I won't know what to do with myself were talking about. There's so much I want to get done and only a couple of hours each day to do it. The problem is where to start. I don't want to waste any of that precious time and I may find myself paralysed with indecision. How best to maximise my productivity and enjoyment? The planning itself could take weeks.

I'm having to keep a lid on my own expectations. Even tackling one a day, I'm not going to achieve all of the above list in the first week. In fact, I'll be lucky if I manage to do more than lie on the sofa groaning for the first week. The second week, I might manage to lie on the sofa groaning while eating crisps. For the third week, I'm looking at a little light TV, less groaning and maybe some pretzels.

There's no point working myself up to anything more - the week after that, the kids are off school. To be honest, even this schedule might be pushing it. Although Marie starts tomorrow, she's being broken-in slowly. Tomorrow is really only a chance to look around; Friday she'll get to stay a bit longer but I won't be allowed to leave the building in case she has a titanic tantrum. (As if...) Depending how she copes, it could be a few days before I get to leave her at nursery all morning.

The pretzels might have to wait until nearly March.

Let's face it, if I get half the things on my list done before the summer then I'll be doing extremely well. If I get three done, that'll still be pretty impressive. Failing that, even just getting my regular cleaning, grocery shopping and a few chores done so I can pay more attention to the kids the rest of the time will be a result.

Drat. Now I think about it, maybe my life isn't going to change that much. Still, at least I should have enough time to dream about that mythical day, nineteen months from now, when Marie starts school. I ought to go get a calendar and start crossing off the days now!

No, hang on. I'll wait a week and buy one in a colourful little store which sells knick-knacks. Then I'll eat something Polish and get my haircut while everyone stares at my jacket made of DVD boxes.

You never know, I might even blog about the whole thing...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad, nursery

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

  We've got to let the mums win at something

Dear Dave,

Yeah, I know how you feel - Christmas suddenly seems to be upon us. Sounds like you're mostly on top of things, though.

We're getting there. We've converted the lounge to 'Christmas Land' (as Marie calls it) with the help of plenty of shiny baubles, an explosion of tinsel and a very irritating musical santa. Hopefully we'll get the cards done soon. We've given the kids a gift or two each already to spread things out. We're having a mulled wine party in a few days. (Scary Karen has promised to bring her accordion!) The shopping's mostly done. I've been to a couple of carol services. Everyone keeps asking Marie what santa's bringing her. Fraser keeps impatiently explaining to them that santa isn't real. The school nativity play was yesterday. There's Christmas music everywhere. Christmas adverts. Christmas food. Christmas lights. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas.

Too much Christmas.

And there's still over a week to go. Goodness. I'm going to be burnt out before the day arrives.

Must think of something else...

Actually, there is something I've been meaning to write about for a while and it's kind of related to Chr... er, that other thing... in a round about sort of way:

A recent study has indicated that boys who have been cared for by their fathers for a significant amount of the time as toddlers perform less well at academic assessments upon starting school than boys who have been looked after by their mothers.

There are plenty of obvious questions thrown up by this. Why boys and not girls? Exactly how much less? Were the dads who were surveyed looking after their children out of choice or circumstance? How does this compare with children who are looked after by their grans? What sort of assessments? And what's all this got to do with Chr... er, the time of year?

Maybe the actual study answers some of these questions. (Well, perhaps not the last one). Typically, however, the press coverage didn't even ask most of them. It was all 'housedads could be damaging their childrens' future chances'! Men don't give children as much mental stimulation as women, apparently... or, at least, possibly. The study didn't have any definitive reasons for the discrepancy.

Of course, the instant reaction is for us to jump up and down in annoyance. How dare journalists accuse us of not stimulating our kids? They do fine at school. What are the researchers talking about? Unfortunately, this is twisting things to support our own agenda as much the newspapers have done. Men and women are not the same. There are plenty of situations and problems that, on average, men and women will deal with differently. Whether this is due to upbringing or genetics doesn't really matter - it simply is the case. This is bound to apply to childcare too, and thus it's bound to affect the kids in some way. Maybe what this study has discovered is true.

Don't hurriedly rush out to find a job and order Liz back home to stimulate Sam and protect his future, though.

There are a million things you could measure about a kid to evaluate good parenting. These include nutrition, behaviour, happiness, fitness, curiosity, dental health, vocabulary, politeness, bravery, cleanliness, stubbornness, resilience, knowledge, empathy, hand-eye coordination, kindness, imagination, road safety awareness and biscuit decorating ability. Chances are, dads are better than mums for encouraging at least some of these things. Working out whether it's men or women who come out on top for a majority of the list would take rather a long time, however, and, even then, it wouldn't necessarily help very much in determining who should look after the children. Is a slightly higher chance of the kid being resilient more important than a slightly higher chance of them being polite, for instance? That could be quite a debate and, in the end, the childcare duties in any given relationship will still come down to finances and temperament. Which is how it should be. Having parents who are solvent and enjoying their roles is going to do more to encourage a child's long term development than anything else.

Bearing that in mind, I'm quite happy to accept the results of the study. There was always going to be something that dads aren't so good at. I'm actually pleased that it turns out to be this. You see, I'm not certain that children doing less well in academic assessments upon starting school is necessarily a bad thing. Surely the whole point of schools is to teach children how to do well in academic assessments. I wouldn't want to interfere with the teachers' jobs and, besides, being a little behind the curve gives plenty of room for some quick confidence-building improvement. Even The Daily Mail pointed out that the research didn't investigate whether 'the damage to the boys' prospects' is permanent. There's every possibility the boys in question caught up in a very brave and resilient manner after a couple of months. Maybe the other ones, the ones who'd been taught to read by their mums, got bored, burnt out by the end of the second week and dedicated their lives to politely decorating biscuits.

Who knows?

And you're still wondering what this has to do with Chr... the current up-turn in sales of turkeys and Brussels sprouts...

Well, I guess my first point - that housedads aren't an abomination against nature - doesn't actually have anything to do with Chr... Frosty the Snowman... but, given the context of this letter, it's not really much of a point either. You probably saw it coming. My second point, however, is about stimulation:

I grew up somewhere so dull that I used to sit watching the test card for entertainment. Maybe if my mum had sat with me and taught me to spell then I'd be a genius now, but I doubt it. I'd probably just have been a know-it-all who made life difficult for my teachers in primary school. I might also have lost a very useful trait. As it stands, I have a very high tolerance for tedium. This makes my job a whole lot easier. I can play Snakes and Ladders for hours at a time without going mad and watch the same episode of Tweenies endlessly without gibbering. I should really thank my mum for leaving me to my own devices so much as a child. (I'm not going to, though, just in case it comes out wrong...)

So remember, next time you sneak off to check your email, you're not ignoring the children, you're building resourcefulness and self-reliance. After all, there is such a thing as over-stimulation.

If you're in any doubt, think of Christmas.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS I've got a peculiar ringing in my ears now. I think it's jingle bells...

Labels: christmas, housedad, statistics

  11:00 AM - Permanent Link - 5 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  The disappeared

Dear Dave,

Marie starting nursery seems to have been a tantalisingly close prospect for a long time now. Back at the beginning of the year, I thought there'd be an in-take after the October Week holiday and, since Marie's birthday is late September, I was hoping she'd get in then. Just before the summer holidays, I found out she wouldn't be eligible for a place until after Christmas. More recently, I started to hear rumours of place shortages at the nursery attached to the boys' school. There were tales of kids having to wait months, even though they were already three; accounts of parents having to beg, plead and shout to get their children in; whispers of vast hordes of Polish four-year-olds invading the area and demanding pre-school education; suggestions that Marie might have to wait until August 2008...

I'd got used to thinking it was several months away - just about in sight but too distant to really plan for. Now, suddenly, I know she's got a morning place in January. I'll have a couple of hours or so each day without children. In five weeks. It's actually going to happen. I can hardly believe it. I'm BobBIng UP aNd DOwn aS I tYPe. There are all kinds of possibilities.

I can hardly wait but, now it's all more of a reality, I can't help feeling a little pang of fear. I will no longer have a small child in my care every minute of the day to justify my existence. On occasion, I will have to be a person in my own right. That's going to be strange.

Stranger still, there will be no more parent and toddler.

Admittedly, I've been feeling like I'm serving out my time there for a while. I go along and drink my hot drink, eat some biscuits and stare into space while Marie entertains herself. I chat a bit but, if no one I know is around, I'm not desperate to introduce myself to new people.

The idealised image of these groups suggests I should have a core band of friends to go to the cafe and talk potty issues and sleep deprivation with by now. It's not happened, though. I just haven't collected a little clique of coffee-drinking companions.

Some of this is probably down to being a man. Place thirty mums and a dad in a room and tell them to make some friends, and the dad is almost bound to be at a disadvantage. Throw in another dad, and the two of them will stick together but there's no saying that they'll have anything more in common than being trapped in a room full of sleep deprived women and children with potty issues. This is not necessarily a recipe for long term friendship.

Oh and, chances are, the second dad will just be giving his partner a break on his day off from work and the first dad will never see him again anyway.

Grrr.

Yep, some of the reasons for not having a coffee shop clique are down to being a man but, let's face it, some of them are down to me. I'm quite shy, I struggle to start conversations and I've never been much of a coffee shop person. On top of that, when Lewis was young, I had depression, which is never helpful when making friends. When Marie was small, there simply wasn't time in the schedule between changes, feeds and school runs for any caffeine-based socialising .

It's not like it's been a total washout, though. I have made a few friends who live close by - just not very many of them compared with the number of people I've chatted to. I've made far more acquaintances. Unfortunately, in most cases, at the point I was starting to get to know them better, they disappeared. One week they were at parent and toddler and the next they weren't... ever again.

At one of the groups I attend, the other parents have all changed three or four times. Even the helpers have changed twice.

Often they've gone without me noticing. It's quite normal for people to be off sick or on holiday for weeks at a time. It's only after a month that it becomes clear they're not coming back. And there's no way of contacting them. The organisers aren't allowed to hand out personal details (if they even have them) and, by then, two-thirds of the other parents are liable to struggle to remember who I'm talking about, let alone where they live. (My descriptions don't usually help much. 'You know, that tired looking mum with brown hair and a couple of kids. She used to wear a scarf quite a lot...')

Where have these people gone?

There's no way of knowing. Have they moved house or got a job? Have they fallen out with someone or found a better group elsewhere? Has the kid taken to napping in the middle of the morning? Has the parent taken to lounging around in coffee shops? Are they all OK? Has there been a disaster? Was it anything to do with zombies?

It would be nice to know. Sometimes the family shows up again at nursery or with another child or when the kid starts napping in the afternoon once more. Other times, they're just gone. Vanished. Disappeared.

I wonder where they all went...

New people ask me, "Have you been coming here for a while?"

It's quite interesting watching their reaction when I say, "Six and a half years."

There's nearly always a slight double-take and some nervous laughter. New helpers realise that I know a great deal more about how the group works than they do. New parents realise the length of journey they might have begun.

And now my own journey is about to change course. In a few weeks, I will be one of the disappeared.

I can't help feeling a little sad and, as I said before, a little scared. Where has the time gone? What mark have I left? Will people wonder where I've gone and then struggle to remember my name?

I have to assume so.

Still, I've given plenty of advice and sympathy in my time. Hopefully it's done some good. More than that, parent and toddler has got me out of the house, given me the chance to talk to people old enough not to idolise the Teletubbies and provided me with a steady supply of hot drinks and biscuits. I've been very glad of it... but it's time to move on. I have a different life ahead of me.

I'm kind of hoping that it involves coffee shops and not zombies...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad, nursery, playgroup

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

  Bleargh

Dear Dave,

We're all suffering from one illness or another, the mice are back and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was unexpectedly rubbish. I'm pretty fed up.

I've been coughing for three weeks and I'd just like to feel better, thank you very much. Fraser has some kind of virus that's making him tired, achy and argumentative. (Well, more argumentative than usual). I don't think he'll be at school tomorrow. As I write this, it's late at night and, over the baby listener, I can hear Marie sounding pretty choked up. This could be a long one...

Still, on a positive note, Marie has a place at nursery after Christmas. I can hardly believe it - it's even a morning one. I'll have two and a half hours each weekday where I won't have any children to look after (during term-time, at least). The possibilities seem endless. It's not a case of not knowing what to do with myself. It's a case of not knowing what to do first. I hardly dare imagine it.

Interestingly, Marie can't imagine it.

"What should I do once you're at nursery?" I asked her.

"Come and collect me," she said.

"Yes, I'll collect you from nursery but what should I do all the time you're there?"

She looked blank. "Play with me?" she ventured.

"No, I'll be somewhere else."

She considered the thought that I exist when she isn't there and seemed to reluctantly accept it.

I asked her again. "So what should I do?"

She laughed. "Go to work!"

I wasn't impressed.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad, nursery, sickness

  12:30 AM - Permanent Link - 1 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

  Special talents

Dear Dave,

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

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

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

Really?

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

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

He's ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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


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


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

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, depression, housedad, TV

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

  On its last wheels

Dear Dave,

The buggy is dying.

This isn't good - I need it to last at least another six months. Marie could conceivably walk everywhere already but it's slow going at times. I don't want to be dawdling about in the rain and sleet and cold. After the winter, she'll better able to maintain a reasonable speed and it won't matter as much anyway. The buggy can be put out to pasture then.

I'm kind of looking forward to it. It will be nice to have more space in the hall again and to be able to get on buses easily but there will be a sense of loss as well. Where am I going to put my shopping? I'll have to go get groceries twice as often or start taking a rucksack with me to Tesco.

Actually, I should buy the kids rucksacks and take them with me to Tesco.

I guess that problem's solved but I'll still miss the buggy. It's seen many, many miles of active service as a toddler-carrier and also doubled as a containment unit for unruly children, a bed on wheels and a handy shield to park between myself and people I'm intimidated by. It's a great place for stowing wipes, clean clothes, rainwear and snacks. When I venture forth without it, I feel exposed and under-equipped.

We've had a number of wheeled transport devices over the years: a pram, three single buggies, a double buggy and a buggy board. (That's not taking into account bikes, trikes, scooters, office chairs and storage tubs, but these are more for fun than serious means of getting from A to B. That said, Fraser is convinced that spinning round really fast on an office chair is a good way to travel backwards in time. I'm sceptical. In practice, he seems only able to get as far back as a time before he felt entirely well.)

Each device has had its uses but it's the single buggies which have taken the real punishment. The first got slightly mangled by a car boot and the frame broke when I tried to bend it back. The second got twisted out of shape by over-use of the buggy board when transporting heavy boys. There was no longer any way to get all four wheels to touch the ground at the same time and it had to be retired. Our third buggy, though, has survived the buggy board, leaking nappies, cobbled streets, rutted fields, steps, snow, constant use and being regularly loaded with a child and a fridgeful of shopping.

True, most of these things immediately invalidated the warranty but, then again, the instructions claimed that so did going up and down kerbs. The warranty was effectively out the window the moment we crossed the entrance to a little carpark that's just along the road. Bearing that in mind, we've felt free to pile the underseat storage with six pint containers of milk, loop a shopping bag over each handle and then try to use speed bumps as launch ramps with a buggy board and toddler on the back.

It's still going. I suppose it hasn't had to put up with some of the things I've seen other people do. I've seen adults sitting in buggies, older children hitching a ride by hanging off the back and at least one buggy being used to transport a TV. Our buggy hasn't been abused quite that badly but it is seeming a little past it - its wheels are pitted and worn, it struggles to turn, its raincover is in tatters. One of the back wheels is even in danger of coming off. One day, I'm going to take a sharp turn in the electronics department of John Lewis, the wheel's going to get left behind and Marie and I are going to spin off into a display of giant tellies. As we crawl to safety, the buggy will explode, showering us in breadstick crumbs and remote controls. It will be a sad end to a faithful servant (and some expensive TVs). I should really dispose of it before then.

I just can't do it quite yet.

It's like a dog - an old, tired dog that only has three legs and smells bad, admittedly, but it seems callous not to give it a proper send off. I wanted to catapult it, flaming, off the top of Edinburgh Castle and watch it blow up at the culmination of the Hogmanay fireworks but the council weren't up for that. So now I'm considering something akin to a viking longboat ceremony. I'm going to pile it high with old baby clothes, set it alight, float it gently out to sea and watch it drift serenely off into the night. If I can get a couple of hundred other people to join in, that could be quite beautiful.

Sniff.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There's life in the old dog yet. I'm going to give it a wash, spray its wheels with WD40, tighten any loose screws, tickle it behind the ears and then let it gambol around out the back door for a little while.

Then I'm going to load it up with six bags of books to take to the charity shop, perch Marie on top, jump on the mudguards and try to beat my downhill time to the bottom of the street.

If I use enough oil, I might even be able to leave a trail of fire behind me...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: housedad, stuff

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

  Moving on

Dear Dave,

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

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

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

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

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


Nobody escapes the birthday hat...

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All the best with getting some sleep.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, housedad

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

  There's no going back now

Dear Dave,

Things are looking up. Sarah's been given a rundown of the reasons she's been picked for the redundancy list at LBO and they're decidedly unconvincing. As far as we can make out amidst all the business babble, there are three main strikes against her:

• She hasn't done the training course for the customer data analysis tools. This is true but, then again, she helped specify the system in the first place and has been using it daily for nearly seven years. The only reason she didn't go on the course was because it was a fortnight before she went on maternity leave with Fraser and her manager at the time