I Wanna Be Air-dored

It’s breakfast time. For once, the children are actually eating their food, rather than just re-decorating the kitchen with it. Start The Week is counteracting the coffee I’ve just drunk, so Radio 4 is jettisoned in favour of 6-Music. The Stone Roses pay me instant dividends with I Wanna Be Adored and I do what I often do whilst listening to music in the comfort of my own home – I start air-drumming.

I catch a peripheral movement and turn around to find my youngest daughter, also air drumming. That is to say, she is mainly waving her arms, a gesture which more normally means she wants the sippy cup. But she’s in time with the beat, her eyes are locked onto mine and her mouth is curled into a grin. She’s feeling it.

Suddenly, imaginary snare-drums and high-hats are no longer enough. As the ‘Roses take it to the bridge, I let fly, hammering invisible crash cymbals.  The one year-old follows me enthusiastically. For an instant, our connection is absolute.

It’s at this point that my eldest daughter decides to hit a crash cymbal of her own:

“Are we listening to Old MacDonald, Daddy?”

This comment rather breaks the spell. I lower my hands.

“No, Sweetheart, it’s…. “

I look from elder back to younger. She’s still waving – only now she is staring at the sippy-cup.

She really is thirsty. And I really am a man stood in a kitchen waggling his hands about, while his daughters – who discern no difference between a Stone Roses classic and ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm‘ – look on in bemusement.

For the remainder of the record, I restrict myself to air bass guitar.

Just like daddy, but with real drums…

Notes from the Daddy Dossier

Monday morning: We are ten minutes into our latest attempt to leave the house. My youngest has another cold. My eldest has initiated Operation Enduring Hinderance, because she can.

Me: Can you put your shoes on please, Sweetheart?

My Eldest: I just jumped off the sofa!

M: I saw you. Can you put your shoes on please?

M.E: Daddy, why are you big?

M: Because I’m Daddy. Put your shoes on, please.

M.E: I want some raisins… Where are my raisins?

M: Put your shoes on now, please.

M.E: I don’t like the strap ones.

M: All your shoes have straps! Now put your shoes on.

M.E: I can’t do it on my own!

M: Yes you can. Put your shoes on please.

M.E: Will Grandma Mair help?

M: She’s in Somerset. Put your shoes on, please.

M.E: No!

M: Put your shoes on NOW!

I’m suddenly reminded of Jeremy Paxman interviewing Michael Howard on Newsnight a few years back.

I wonder if Mr. Howard wears strap shoes, too?

Are you going to put your shoes on, Mr. Howard?

 

Stay-At-Home Dad-ism: A Clarification

I recently uploaded a post entitled Stay-At-Home Dad-ism. It was intended to be a collation, in words, of the tiny particles of experience I’ve filtered from my journey around the Dad-osphere these last few weeks.

It has no connection to Stay-At-Home Dadaism, which might look something like this:

Sorry Marcel.

Stay-At-Home Dadism

You can’t be late for playgroup. Not if you live in the borough of Wandsworth, the most fructiferous corner of southwest Nappy-Valley. They get so full that doors have to be closed to latecomers. My three year old takes that sort of thing pretty personally.

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CBeebies bailed me out, again. The kids were too sick to go out, too well to be in bed. I practically had to rebuild the kitchen after breakfast. Urgent emails were waiting. Just as well there’s a Justin-Fletcher-shaped bat-signal installed in the TV remote.

I used to be quite snobby about CBeebies, because it encouraged people to get their kids into watching TV too early in their lives. Then we had two children and I started freelancing. Now, I get it.

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Cbeebies is easier to switch on than it is to switch off. How long I can leave it on before I am in dereliction of duty? I suppose that catching myself admiring Mr. Maker’s natty aqua-coloured sneakers might counts as a sign.

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Mums seem to be easier to talk to than dads at playgroup. Dads can be sat next to each other, working in concert to entertain each other’s children and yet, not speaking. I’m as guilty of this as all the other dads I’ve seen doing it.

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Supermarkets can double as heated playgrounds (in this weather, anyway). The baby goes up-front in the buggy; the eldest sits in the trolley behind. Other shoppers seem surprisingly tolerant of the giggling juggernaut thus created. Sometimes I actually buy groceries but mainly, I buy time. The girls are entertained and I’m not freezing.

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I saw Fiat’s marketing viral, The Fatherhood. That guy is surely going to need a bigger car. I suppose you could tow the double buggy…

Notes to Self: Mother’s Day Itinerary

1. Deliver breakfast in bed, with paper
2. Bugger off somewhere (minimum 2hrs)

* Don’t forget to take the kids

** Don’t forget to ring your mother

Feeding Time: Every Kitchen Tells the Story

5pm. Kids’ suppertime. And supper is being served, in all directions.

I try to make resignation look a little more like composure. Vanity, eh? Mentally, I am already hunkered down under the kitchen table, waiting for it all to be done. And while I’m down there, a thought suddenly takes me on: that the kitchen could tell the story about us. The real story.

I have two children, one aged nearly 3, the other, 9 months. For them, the single most tedious thing that you can do with food is to eat it. My infant daughter will release her inner Jackson Pollock with every tray of finger food she gets. The eldest, meanwhile, has clocked the fact that her parents are happier when she eats her food, and presumes this to mean that, somehow, she isn’t getting her way. Meal-times become the perfect cover for insurrection, with food as leverage (unless it’s cheesy pasta, of course – then it’s definitely food again).

The real story is on the floor, mostly. A rookie C.S.I. technician could outline our day pretty quickly: dried cereal means that we’ve managed breakfast; dry cereal means that daughter no.1’s bizarre dry-cereal-eating habit has returned; cherry tomatoes indicate that baby Pollock has lunched (cherry tomato on the ceiling means I gave her food, when she wanted the sippy-cup). And paint or glitter reveals that the morning coffee was waaay too strong, and one parent has set off at an unsustainable pace. On paint-and-glitter days, supper-time is very interesting.

But then, supper-time is bound to be interesting. It brings the perfect-storm conditions: low blood sugar and witching-hour tetchiness. The girls can get moody, too… Yet, even from my mental safe-place under that table, there’s an obvious funny-side: I’ve been psychologically duffed-up by a couple of cherubs; my kitchen is a land-fill (again).  And a similar tale is unfolding, in family homes across the land. If you should meet the four of us in a café – all chubby cheeks and latte-harmony – just remember what the kitchen told you, and smile.

Birthday Girl

The baby-sitter has been arranged. Friends are coming to raise you a glass. And I may have got a few things for you…

Why? Because you’re ace! And you don’t have to stay awake past 9pm to prove it.

Happy birthday, flower.

P.S. I love you. You’ve probably picked up on that, already…