Nothing to fear but fear itself (and parrots)

I once punched a medium-sized pig in the face. Twice. Not because I can’t separate real life from Angry Birds but because, as far as I could tell, it was in the process of biting my daughter’s hand off.

I’ve always been very blasé with the kids if they were afraid of something unlikely… “Daddy, I’m scared of going upstairs on my own in case there’s monsters”; “Daddy, I’m scared of riding in the shopping trolley because it might chop my legs”; “Daddy, I’m scared your investment strategy relies too heavily on the returns of a single class of investment, spreading your money across a range of investments such as shares, property, bonds and cash would reduce your exposure to market risk”. My view is that any inability to overcome fear-of-the-untried could prevent the children from living life to-the-full, so I have always pushed quite hard through any initial resistance to new things. (This has mainly applied to my little boy – my little girl is dauntlessly intrepid, he is “naturally cautious” or “a total wuss-faced fraidy-cat” depending on your parlance.)

However, when my previously-considered-to-be irrational fear of the kids getting their arms stumpified at a petting farm turned out to be a valid concern, I had cause to reflect on this approach…

My pig concern almost-certainly germinated from a) the films Snatch and Hannibal, the two most widely-available showcasings of pigs’ ability to chomp through bone; and b) many examples of the folly that is trusting non-domesticated animals (Siegfried & Roy’s tame white tiger; countless brutal attacks by friendly chimpanzees; that pink bear’s final betrayal at the end of Toy Story 3). But I’ve always laughed it off as a ridiculous concern, “It must be fine mustn’t it? Kids don’t get their fingers bitten off by pigs. Someone would have said. Let’s enjoy some light petting.”

On this particular farm visit, my daughter three at the time, I cautiously placed the pellets on her palm and held her fingers straight with my hand to ensure our porcine patron was just slurping them up from a flat surface. But at some point, as I let go of her hand to reach into the pellet bag, porkface saw it’s chance… chomp… couple of frantic seconds trying fruitlessly to get its jaws open… punch, punch… release… fingers very cut & bloody – but still there… phew.

Similarly, as if to further emphasise the validity of living in a perpetual state of uneasy caution, my generally-gung-ho little girl recently experienced a shocking realisation of her one ‘silly’ fear – the suspicion that, given half-a-chance, any nearby bird will try to peck her eyes out.

On a holiday to visit friends in Kuala Lumpur, we went to KL Bird Park (which claims to be the world's largest walk-in aviary). As she entered, timidly holding my hand, the very first thing she saw was the harrowing scene of a big heron lunging repeatedly at a small boy’s face with its beak. Understandably she spent the rest of the day wanting to be carried with her head pressed into my chest.

Then, in an attempt to perk her up and demonstrate how fun and friendly birds can be, my wife bought a cup of parrot feed and held it out in the hope that a couple would come to perch on her arm… within seconds she was engulfed by a frenzied cloud of bright red birds, screaming as they nipped various bits of her. This was not effective in alleviating our daughter’s distress.

Prior to these incidents, I’d found my little boy’s circumspect approach to life very frustrating. He has made a screaming hot-mess out of many a sledging trip, donkey ride (his love of horses seemingly only from afar) and trip to the toilet (a jittery mis-trust of hand-dryers meaning we currently always return wet-handed). For a long time he would sit down on his bum to descend any steps, no matter how small, rather than take on the miniscule risk of a tumble. And swimming lessons are an on-going challenge as any requirement for him to be on his back with ears in the water leads to howls of aversion.

In every activity we choose to do (or not do) there’s a risk vs. reward equation to consider and my growing fear was that, because my son seems to have a very low appetite for any risk, my hopes of us having some adventurous experiences together as the children get older may be scuppered. (“I know you’re terrified of sledging down that tiny mound by our house, but how would you feel about dog-sled polar bear safari?”) However, after the pig & bird skirmishes, I see that this was probably a selfish viewpoint. He’s little, but he’s not stupid and - hand-dryer mistrust aside - he’s generally only scared by things that hold a real (if remote) chance of harm or discomfort. Who am I to decree to him which activities are fun/interesting enough to warrant the risks they carry? He can watch and decide for himself... as he did surprisingly on holiday, laughing with glee for hours at a time while body-surfing in waves taller than his head*.

I have since found that the most effective approach for introducing new things to my children is to really emphasise the enjoyment that can be had to my little boy, which his natural caution can otherwise cause him to overlook… and to be sure that my little girl is fully aware of any potential dangers, which she would otherwise smash excitedly straight into – after that they’re free to choose for themselves. Mostly.

Epilogue

Since drafting this post ready to publish, my little girl has broken her arm by falling off a 6ft-high set of monkey bars**. On one hand this adds credence to my little boy’s safety-first outlook. On the other, it’s seemingly done nothing to reduce her enthusiasm for climbing/swinging/jumping. Despite having experienced the potential-downside first-hand, she can’t wait to be healed and allowed to play again. If you love Revels, you accept that you’ll sometimes get the raisin one.

 

* Which was really fun to do with him, but has since made the on-going commotion during swimming lessons even tougher to take

** She had conquered it numerous times before the falling incident. It was very important to her that I clarify this to you.

 

Learned Wisdoms

#54: If you were to become hazy on the boundary between real life and Angry Birds, a farm visit would be the main thing to avoid. The pigs would probably be fine (especially once you’d put helmets on them), but the chickens and hens you lob at them might be a little traumatised. As would the duck – especially when you berate it mid-arc for not boomeranging properly.

Baby Windsor and the ‘Twit’ of Auburn

The pregnancy announcement last month and, in particular, the news that Kate Middleton-as-was had gone into hospital for morning sickness treatment from “her main doctor and the royal gynaecologist” started me wondering about likely differences between my kids’ childhoods and that of the current-foetus/future-ruler. (It seemed my wife didn’t even have a ‘main’ doctor during the births, never mind the pregnancies… and when she had morning sickness she got off the train to vom, then carried on to work.) So, as and when note-worthy comparisons arise, I’ll cobble a post together.

Before I start, these aren’t “silver-spoon… look what they’ve got, aren’t they lucky?” thoughts. I certainly wouldn’t wish on my children the constant attention and long-range pixelated-boob-shots that the Royals have to put up with. I’m interested in the way different experiences shape people’s view of the world. I care very much about the opinions my children grow-up holding and I think we’ve all got a vested interest in how Baby-Widdleton turns out (even if you think it’s a purely ceremonial position, you’d surely rather avoid any future international embarrassment from, say, another Prince Philipish casual-racist).

[For complete transparency, it’s worth stating now that this Royals vs Suburbanites framework may not actually turn into a series. It might turn out just to be a one-off, purely used on this occasion to provide some structural credibility for a story about the word ‘twat’…]

Windsor child comparison #1: Appreciation of live sport

Prince William likes his sport. You often see him in the good seats at big rugby matches. And he did a great deal for our fruitlessly-uncorrupt 2018 football World Cup bid. So no-doubt he’ll be taking his first-born to his/her first game when they’re old enough. As I did. Though I doubt the experience will have much similarity...

I took my little girl to watch Huddersfield Town FC for the first time a few weeks ago. Away at Charlton Athletic. Everyone knows language can be a bit industrial at football but, for her first visit, she unfortunately experienced a perfect storm of swearing.

At kick-off there was a big argument around us between all the lads stood up behind the goal and all the people sat behind who subsequently couldn’t see. The bloke right next to me was shouting at the top of his voice, spit flying. My little girl looked at me, wide-eyed and exclaimed “Everybody’s swearing!” In the end it got to that point where even I - who believes that there’s some environments, this being one of them, where people shouldn’t be frowned-upon too much for dropping the odd sweary-bomb - had to ask the guy to tone-down his language… then, after half-an-hour, one of our players got sent off and even I was up on my feet effing! (I don’t want my daughter to think foul language should be encouraged, but he clearly got the ball).

All this didn’t concern me too much. Anyone who thinks they can protect their kids from hearing swear words once they’re going to school is dreaming. My daughter knows of “f*ck” and “sh*it”, but she knows they’re bad words and that, as she wisely pointed out to me during the game, “people shouting them look like idiots”. Unfortunately, she then learned a new word… a bloke behind us shouted “linesman, you ginger twat”. My daughter, not knowing what it meant but clearly liking the sound, jumped to her feet, pointed and shouted “ginger twat, ginger twat, ginger twat”. Everyone around us creased-up laughing (including the bloke next to me – credit to him for not asking me to tone-down my daughter’s language). I had to tell her it was a bad word. She was mortified – gasping and covering her mouth with both hands – which happily gave me some confidence that I wouldn’t soon be getting a call from her teacher telling me she’d dished out slurs to a crowded classroom (and so far, so good).

Anyway, the point is, you probably don’t get exposed to that language quite as much in, say, the hospitality seats at rugby union. But, on the other hand, you probably miss out on the occasional moment of highly-concentrated euphoria…

With 90 minutes up and the team 0-1 down, Huddersfield got a penalty right in front of us. (No one complained when everyone stood up at that point.) I picked my daughter up so she could see. She shouted “Kick it in the net”. Our player duly did. The stand erupted and my little girl repeatedly shouted in my ear, “YEEEESSS! I TOLD HIM TO KICK IT IN THE NET!!!” She was pleased as punch and I’m pretty sure she’ll never forget her first match - and the belief that she deserved an assist on the equaliser for her tactically-masterful suggestion.

Upon leaving, I could see the benefits of a Royal lifestyle. I was around the protocol lounge of the Olympic Stadium at the end of the Games Closing Ceremony* and saw Kate & Prince Harry being whisked away to their waiting escorted car. After her first match my little girl had the luxury of riding on my shoulders out of the ground, but then the luxury-lacking experience of waiting on a crowded platform to get on to a palpably overcrowded train.

Conclusion

I think it’s great that the wee Windsor is likely to appreciate sport and witness some great moments around the world. Always being in the expensive, non-partisan seats will probably mean he/she never quite experiences the atmosphere of a consistently unheroic team’s packed stand when, with only 10-men, they equalise in the last minute… but that’s just a cross they’ll have to bear. (Although, unless I somehow end up the kind of man who gets chauffeured away from things in waiting escorted cars, my daughter might also miss the odd last-minute winner in my later years when, as a grumpy old man, I decide I’d rather go 5 minutes early than plod slowly through the crowds.) 

While I like the idea of the future monarch being ‘one of us’ and having sat in the away end at Charlton or Millwall (or, quaintly, stood at Brentford), I don’t believe you miss a huge insight into society by not experiencing this – just occasionally watch the footy on mute with Shameless playing loudly on your laptop in the background.  

From watching sport with me, my daughter will probably grow up with increased patience in slow-moving large crowds, increased tolerance of being in close proximity to badly-articulated angry shouts and reduced fussiness about pie quality. I think these are solid traits… however, they probably aren’t that useful if you’re the queen or the king.

* “Oh fucking were you?”

Learned Wisdoms

#48: If you tell your mother-in-law a story about your daughter having used the word twat and she pauses for a moment then asks you, “What does twat mean anyway?”, I can confirm that - when giving an explanation that offers no escape from use of the word ‘vagina’ - going very red may be uncomfortable but feels totally appropriate

#49: If it becomes clear that your mother-in-law isn’t aware of the meaning of the word twat, in fact having thought it to be “interchangeable with the word twit” and having actually “been using it all over the village”, don’t assume this is amusingly uncommon. When you jovially tell your sister, you might be told “Our mum & dad thought exactly the same, I had to break it to them that it was swearing”

#50: Your wife will never give you a hard time about taking your daughter to the coarsely-languaged environment of a football stadium once she’s indulged their shared love of dance by showing her Billy Elliott, aware that it’s a 15 certificate, but having forgotten just how incredibley sweary it is

Not Autistic, Just Really Likes Horses

My little boy’s speech-development, first mentioned in an earlier post, didn’t catch up quickly as we expected. In the end, with mild concerns of autism, I took him to see a speech therapist - just to check everything was ok and to get some tips on helping his development.

It was reassuring. 

He’s what they call “a child of his own agenda” - while he can play happily with other people and pick up their language, he’d just sometimes rather not*. Mainly because there seems to be something else he prefers… Here are some extracts from the therapist’s report:

“He was reluctant to leave the toy farm and begin an adult-led activity. However, when the toy horses were moved to the table top, he did come and sit as required.”

“He happily attended an activity of his own choice (he particularly enjoyed playing with the toy horses for a long period of time)”

“He produced many single words during the session e.g. ‘horse’ and ‘horses’”

“Less horse toys should be visible at future sessions”

 

He’s confirmed as showing no signs of autism - the problem is just his small vocabulary, rather than any reluctance/inability to chat (which is consistent with him not coherently being able to tell me he’s hungry, but being fine telling me “Go big on Frankel’s final race Daddy, it may be the softest going he’s encountered and the odds are a miserly 2-11, but he is just unbeatable”**) So it’s a shame that he’s not going to rake in a load of money counting cards***… but he’ll hopefully be a good jockey or tipster instead.

We're trying extra-hard to help him learn more non-equine words and our new childcare arrangement, which gives him more 1:1 attention during the day, is also helping a lot. The switch to a nanny came about when our little girl finished nursery and started going to a new school, no longer the one where our child-minder’s children go, meaning logistics of that arrangement wouldn’t work…

Our daughter initially struggled to settle at new legally-have-to-go-now school. Getting dressed into the uniform and during the school run each morning there were lots of tears. There was also a lapse back into bed-wetting and sucking her fingers. We talked to her about both…

On wetting the bed, she was sad about it but didn’t know what to do because she just kept having dreams about going to the toilet and then waking up wet (I think we’ve all been there…)

The Internet tells me that, in dreams, “toilets can often link to bad experiences we have just had, emotional situations, and intense fears”. So it was hopefully just a matter of riding out the settling-in phase. In the meantime, I picked her up and sat her on the potty as I came upstairs for bed each night, meaning she was generally running-on-empty by the time latrine-dreams came. And having the potty upstairs proved useful all-round as our bathroom was out of action for a refurbishment at the same time.. (The only potty downside was this)

With finger-sucking, the timing was good as we had the encouragement of less/more presents at her upcoming birthday depending on behaviour (with the back-up of Christmas if it’s not totally nailed post-birthday).

In the end, everything settled down again within 3-4 weeks. She was soon running into the playground happily with her new friends, going on play-dates after school and generally being back to her old self.

It was nice that all this coincided with a slow period in my job, enabling me to be around for her more than usual (and to help my little boy learn more non-horse words… like zebra). My new job starts next week. Back to the challenges of two parents both working full-pelt…

* The irony of me having stayed home drafting this post on my own, rather than going on a works night-out isn’t lost on me

** That’s how it happened. I didn’t work alone. Honest. He made me do it.

*** Yes, all my knowledge of autism comes from the film Rainman. What of it?

Learned Wisdoms

#43: When you’re in a museum or aquarium and are asked for the hundredth time “Can I touch this?” by your daughter, your bubbling annoyance can be reduced by thinking about the fact that MC Hammer may have kids. And that this situation must be even worse for him.

[Looked it up, turns out he’s got five…]

#44: Caring about your children’s vocabulary and grammar is important, but planning to concoct your own “No, More Tears” shampoo out of lemon juice & vinegar as a lesson in the importance of punctuation is probably going a bit far.

#45: It does feel early, but it turns out that November is a fine time to start reaping the behaviour-improvement benefits of telling your children that, when the red light comes on the motion sensor in the corner of the room, "It means Santa is watching".

#46: If your daughter’s new class at school has 21x girls and only 5x boys, it’s certainly just a chromosome-related coincidence. You don’t need to start eyeing the admissions people with suspicion just because Jimmy Saville’s in the news.

#47: The school run is pretty monotonous. But mixing things up by dropping your child at a different school each day probably isn’t the answer.

Taking Back The Living Room

We didn't expect to have a nice, tidy, toyless lounge at this point, but it had got ridiculous. The corner of the room earmarked for toy storage was full-to-overflowing and toys were (even in 'tidy-mode') on all surfaces in all parts of the room, smothering it like those parasitic vines that cover trees and suffocate them of their tasteful decor, calmness and ability to sit-down comfortably.

It came to a head when, in a discussion about taking toys she'd grown out of to the charity shop (because there was no space for them), our daughter looked around the room and said "But there's space there" [gestures with both hands towards the small piece of floor between the sofa and the telly]

Time for a change...

Our little boy recently got big enough to start sleeping in the bottom of the bunk bed. I'd taken his cot-bed out of their room and given it to friends. And into that space we moved the toy cabinet and 95% of the play-shrapnel that had been covering what was once a living room where adults could sit in the evening without being reminded of the film Big.

It was surprisingly liberating. And, added bonus, having more things to do in their bedroom when they wake up buys us a little bit of lie-in time on the weekends before they both slip out of their room, climb silently onto our bed and jump heavily onto our sleeping, unprotected bodies. (My default sleep-position has evolved into a lying-down version of the footballer-in-a-defensive-wall pose.)

Alongside ground-floor-reclamation, there's been a couple of other nice developments recently:

• Our little girl has started putting clothes on herself, which reduces dressing-related time/stress by 33% in the mornings (I've still got to clothe my trouser-repellent little boy and *heavy sigh* myself... recent optimistic google search: "buy Wallace & Gromit-style auto-dressing machine")
• The kids are able to clean up after themselves a bit. Even our little boy, when he spills milk on the floor - if passed some kitchen roll - will do a pretty effective job of wiping it up, then go and put it in the bin. Brilliant. (Is 2 too young to start teaching a child to mow a lawn?)
• My little girl makes me laugh in ways beyond just-being-really-cute. We were walking by the Thames in Putney early one Sunday and Boris Johnson was there preparing to do some filming. We walked right by him and I said to her, "That man there is the mayor of London!". She looked at him, turned back to me, shook her had and softly said, "No. I don't think so."
• They play together really nicely, which is great because - while I really love playing with them - it's nice to have the occasional minute on the evenings & weekends when I can move away to do something without being whined at for neglecting my duties as a ballet-student/pirate/bear-hunter/Justin Bieber
• They're starting to show an interest in sports. My little girl even expressing retrospective disappointment that I didn't take her with me to watch Huddersfield in the League One play-off final last weekend... I'm savouring her current enthusiasm, as I'm pretty sure it'll be gone about 17 minutes into the first Town game I take her to watch

While the kids certainly aren't perfect (they frequently whine if I won't carry them; often have toilet-accidents; and are prone to dissolving when immersed in mercury), things have started to feel a bit easier recently. To the point where, after resolving toymageddon, I did even catch myself thinking "Well. Isn't this lovely? It's like the end of an episode of Quantum Leap where everything's fallen nicely into place. And things will probably just keep getting easier from here..."

Then my little girl ran into the room naked, jumped onto the sofa and gyrated around while singing "I'm sexy and I know it" over and over again.

Oh boy...

Learned Wisdoms

#40: You'll be excited when your little girl enjoys doing karaoke with you on the playstation. Even more so when she graduates off the Disney disc onto the chart versions. Then less so when she latches onto Aqua's Barbie Girl and sings it repeatedly, i) because there's some pretty negative messages in there that may detract from her learning that a woman is not dependent upon anyone else to make her feel good about herself, that self-esteem comes not from others but from within, and that the pursuit of social acceptance should never drive us into degrading situations; and ii) because it's shite

#41: If your kids' increasing ability to do things for themselves is conflicting with carry-both-children-up-the-stairs-to-the-child-minder's-flat-every-morning being the cornerstone of your exercise regime, then recognise that the 'as they get gradually bigger, I'll get gradually stronger' logic doesn't actually seem to hold anyway (as your gradually more achy spine and gradually more clicky elbows will testify)

A Little More Conversation?

My little boy is two-&-a-bit years old now. He doesn't really talk like our little girl did at the same age and apparently he should have about 50 words by now. 

He's got some, but not nearly that many. They include Daddy, Mummy, Milk, That, Ball and Are... he's definitely got "are", no question about it...

... I'm counting it!

(Now all I need is to source a series of songs that showcase each word in the English language at the end of their choruses, within his range of pitch.)

The doctor and health visitor both said he's probably fine, but suggested he might see a speech therapist as a precaution.

We haven't done that yet as he seems to understand and respond correctly when we talk to him ("Get back into bed"; "Stop doing that"; "Drop it into 3rd, get your foot down and overtake that Volvo"; etc.) and the words he knows, he uses in context.

The health visitor suggested one of the things I might want to try is holding his head still in front of mine (so he has to look straight at my face) and saying words so he can watch how my mouth moves as I pronounce them. 

I tried this while we were sat on the side at the swimming baths as his sister had her lesson. I showed him my pen and exaggeratedly mouthed "PEN" at him (somehow making it about five syllables). Then pointed at the water and told him "POOL"... he didn't say anything, but he snatched my pen, ran and threw it in the water. I couldn't fault his logic.

This concern has made us think about the fact that he gets slightly different attention from us than his sister did at the same age (when there was just her). In the bedtime melee we've tended to read her a book but not him. And she often gets the choice of show when they watch TV... meaning he doesn't see as much of the little kids' gobbledy baby-talk programmes that may (or may not) help with language development. 

So we've addressed that... I really like reading him stories, but I'm not that keen on having Iggle Piggle back in my life (that guy is a liability - I'd hate to work with him... Macca Pakka, on the other hand, I'd employ in a heartbeat - great work ethic. And very clean).

We're not really too worried... as Michael McIntyre says, it's not like some girl will be introducing my son to her parents in 20 years time and all he'll be able to tell them is "MILK. BALL!" 

In fact, I'm actually getting suspicious that he can speak fine - it just suits him not to... Subconsciously, we maybe treat him as slightly younger and don't discipline him as much for things like hitting as we would if he could communicate. His sister has picked up on this and has taken to reminding me, "Daddy, when he can talk, don't forget to tell him off for all the naughty things he has done to me so far". If he's clocked that, no wonder he's linguistically reticent.

The other thing that's potentially in-play is that he's more exposed to Portuguese than our daughter was. Slight childminding-arrangement-changes mean he spends more time than she did with our childminder's Portuguese mother. Apparently children exposed to multiple languages at an early age pick them both up but are slower to start talking. 

It doesn't seem to have had a major cultural impact though - I was telling him about Chelsea beating Benfica in the Champions' League the other night and he didn't seem bothered either way.

It's all too easy to worry unnecessarily about development. But, the fact is, there's nothing significantly wrong and he'll no-doubt catch up. 

I'm a little impatient though, as I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say about things. But on the other hand, if he talks as much as his sister did between two & three - and with similar value-of-content - I'll probably look back on this as a relative period of golden tranquillity.

Learned Wisdoms

#38: Much as you might want to, you can't claim that your son can say "I don't want to" if he only pronounces it via the action of throwing whatever's in his hand at your head, lying down and crying.

Musical Differences

I like music. (Yes... these are the kind of intimate truths I reveal in this blog. Hold on tight.) So do both my children. They dance a lot and both have distinctive and hilarious moves, so it's fun to have music on as often as possible. The problem is, what to listen to? Generally a 33 yr old seems to have quite different taste to a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old. And there's a very small sweet spot of tunes that they like to dance to that don't make me want to push my fingers into my ears until they touch.

The be fair, my default musical type is melancholic acoustic folk, which never moved a person to dance (other than metaphorically through a lonely, existential malaise) so I was always going to have to visit the outlying regions of my taste to find tracks that ticked all our boxes.

Similarly, my 4 yr old girl's natural bent wasn't helping our cause. JLS Breathe Again got a lot of airtime in our house before I just had to tell her that we couldn't play it any more. Because the boys who sang it were sad that we always had it and they never got to listen to it. (Don't judge me until you've listened to it ten times in a row.)

We've since hit on a pretty steady stream of tunes that we all like and which stimulate a bit of dancing fun. Unfortunately nearly every tune we agree on seems to contain some level of inappropriate content. 
Out of habit, respect for the way the artist intended it to be heard, or just because I subconsciously really like naughty words, I never remember to click on 'clean version' when buying. This has effectively sentenced me to ten years of hastily making-up similar-sounding clean lyrics and singing them loudly over the offending words. Every time. (Sooner or later, one of the kids is going to ask me why so many songs have a duck in them, or why tractors never get a mention yet people often sing about diggers.)

Here's just a small sample of our favourites from the last couple of years:

Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man

-- Sample lyric change

"I really mucked it up this time, didn't I my dear?" 

[Easy rhyme. Plausible lyric. No problem]

-- Typically-induced moves

Little girl: Soldiery-style marching at increasing pace; leads into frantic banjo-driven twirling & flailing

Little boy: Knees bent, leaning forward, feet rooted to the spot, clenched fists, doing a frantic 'the twist' motion with arms and bum

Katy Perry - Last Friday Night

-- Sample lyric change
"We went peeking in the park; 
lots of skipping in the dark; 
then had an apricot bar" 
[More challenging rhyming. Strange-but-believable-ish-when-you're-4 lyrics]

-- Typically-induced moves
Little girl: Non-stop spinning around. Falling down dizzy
Little boy: Knees bent, leaning forward, feet rooted to the spot, clenched fists, doing a frantic 'the twist' motion with arms and bum [Why change a winning formula?]

Nicki Minaj - Super Bass

-- Sample lyric change
"This one is for the boys in the polos; Riding their diggers in the moguls" 
[Easy-ish rhyme. Makes very little sense, but no questions have been raised as-yet]

-- Typically-induced moves
Little girl: One hand on hip, one hand in hair, gyrating turns
Little boy: Knees bent, leaning forward, feet rooted to the spot, clenched fists, doing a frantic 'the twist' motion with arms and bum [Doesn't work at all... at least he's enjoying himself]


Azealia Banks - 212
-- Sample lyric change
"I guess that bun getting eaten" 
[Doesn't rhyme with the original word, but solid lyric and scans fairly well. Has side-effect that we do now tend to buy more buns]

... by the way, admittedly I sometimes zone-out and 'enjoy the sound' rather than properly listening to the lyrics, but how did I not notice that this was in no-way child appropriate??
-- Typically-induced moves
Little girl: Lots and lots and lots of wiggling
Little boy: Knees bent, leaning forward, feet rooted to the spot, clenched fists, doing a frantic 'the twist' motion with arms and bum [Starting to worry about him a little bit]


Learned Wisdoms
#36: Just because the singer's got a Mickey Mouse t-shirt on doesn't mean absolute filth won't come out of her mouth. You should really notice this before your little girl has hit replay video for the third time.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Occasionally. Just Occasionally. I’ll be a bit jealous of the lifestyle my non-child-having friends enjoy. Both the flexibility and possibility of spontaneous-ism. And also the disposable income. 

Our combined salaries apparently put us in the top two per cent of UK households. But once you add time constraints and subtract childcare costs/all the things we buy for the kids/saving for their future education it results in 90% less ski trips, 100% more £5-limits on work-day lunches and infinitely less moonwalking-across-the-deck-of-a-yacht-moored-in-St-Tropez than I foresaw at these income levels.

However, human adaptability means we all get used to the patterns of our lives and quickly take things in our routine for granted, leaving evolutionary psychologists to say that happiness largely comes from "encountering unexpected positive events". So for Kanye West to feel sensationally happy he has to fly to Paris on a private jet full of Victoria’s Secret models. All it takes for me to achieve rapture is opening the kitchen bin to find I can drop my rubbish in it without having to first squish-down overflowing contents with my hands. Poor, poor Kanye West.

Plus fatherhood is getting more rewarding as the kids develop. My little girl is 4 now and is starting to be mildly hilarious (my little boy isn’t yet 2, but does a good line in facial expressions and energetic Scrappy-Doo-style assault). Conversations with other parents are also getting better. Where it was all monotonous patter about feeding cycles, behaviour-control techniques and how tired everyone is, there’s now lots of anecdotes about genuinely funny things that have happened. Ok, it’s not always as funny as days-gone-by chat with your friends about drunken antics/sexual encounters/accidental puffin slaughter, but it’s entertaining stuff. Recent examples:

- Friend tells us that her teacher called her to say there was a problem with her child’s language. Friend says “Oh bugger. What has she said?” Teacher replies “Bugger”

- Wife tells me to stop being facetious. Daughter gasps, lowers voice and says “Don’t say that. The police will get you. It’s a bad word… like f*ck-it or oh-sh*t”

- Sis-in-law finds 3 yr old son playing with huge kitchen knife. Goes spare at husband for letting him get hold of it. He later tells me that he walked past, saw tooled-up lad and – through a haze of pre-occupation, tiredness and just being very used to seeing both knives and his boy frequently (though separately) in day-to-day life – all that went through his head was “Huh. Nice knife son”

- Crackers and jokes over Christmas lunch. Family and both sets of grandparents. Daughter wants to join in but, being unable to read her cracker joke, has to freestyle… “Everyone. Why did the duck cross the road with only pants and no vest on?.. To get to the sexy cow” 

If we’d been able to ignore the uncomfortable fact that our tiny daughter/grand-daughter had just revealed her awareness of sexiness and, seemingly, beastiality, I’m sure that would have got a massive laugh rather than a stony silence. Family’s a tough crowd.

So over Christmas, while Facebook was telling me that a friend “can’t wait to go skiing” and another  “is spending a 3rd straight day on the beach”*, I was jealous but only fleetingly. Who needs exotic locations when you’ve got increasingly comical chat? (And future challenging conversations about the birds & the bovines)


Learned Wisdoms

#35: If you read back on the child-related things that have amused you over the festive season to find they’re mainly to do with swearing, sex and danger, just try not to think about it. Nothing to worry about. That’s probably fine.


* In the Southern hemisphere. Not North Yorkshire. 

You Do It To Yourself, You Do

Pre-Read

If you’ve never seen the video to the Radiohead track Just, then click here. It’s great. And a working knowledge of it is needed for this post to make any sense (... I don’t know how anyone expects to get the most out of the blog if they won’t do the set preparatory work)


A Coincidental & Mildly-Amusing* Thing That Happened

(* Given a somewhat-niche background knowledge of popular culture. And a pretty generous sense of humour)

My little boy does this thing when he gets tired or sad (or both), where he just lies down flat, silent and motionless on the floor. To an extent I admire him - if I wasn’t a slave to social conventions I’d probably do the same thing about three times a day - but it can be a bit embarrassing when we’re out & about. It's hard to project the image of a motivational parent, inspiring their kids' to great enthusiasm for life while you're stood over what's effectively a boy-skin rug.

So, we were at a birthday party the other week. There was a bouncy-castle. And food. And a rule that the castle would be deflated as soon as the children sat down to eat. (Shrewd stuff. I guess you don't spend too much time wiping partially-digested quavers/cheese/icing off your colourful vinyl before you see the value of introducing that one)

Food time came around. The castle went down. My little boy, tired from the frantic bouncing and sad that it was over, predictably slumped to the ground and laid quietly on the flattened jumpy-château.

A few other kids noticed him and wandered over. They had a little look at him. And then at each other... And then they all laid down!

I couldn't believe it. It made my day. I thought it was brilliant.
(Though I'm well aware that you might not. The octogenarian I was talking with at that point certainly didn't... but, I suppose, if you're a) not familiar with Radiohead, b) not interested in toddlery life-imitating-art coincidence, and c) not that welcoming of  any conversational-deviation from the impact of open-end spinning technology on the Yorkshire textile industry, then no amount of excited pointing and laughing on my part is going to convince you that this was a noteworthy moment)

Future Opportunities

So there you go. The bloke in the video had been on a bouncy castle and was a bit tired and a bit sad. Or not.

Either way, my little boy's tendency to lie down where and whenever he wants resulted a nice little funny moment.
I'm now on the lookout for other scenes from popular culture that the kids could be nudged towards re-staging in miniature...

My daughter loves climbing. And she carries her little toy monkey everywhere with her. If anyone needs us, we'll be at the nearest model village until a small-scale bizarro-King Kong moment ensues.

Learned Wisdoms

#30: When your little boy suddenly vanishes inside your house, you will be relatively comfortable that he can't have got far (once it's clear that the doors are locked and that his passport & tricycle are still there). However, until you actually find him, it will be very stressful. So, if he is known to have a penchant for lying-down flat and motionless for significant periods of time, it will save you a frantic 6-to-7 mins of confusion if you check under the duvet of your bed right away.