5862/18882
“Daddy, you’re a poo poo!†said my daughter, not for the first time. "You can’t talk to daddy like that,†I reminded her. "I said it nicely,†she replied.
She’s so polite. And I am doing an excellent job bringing her up.
I had another bad night’s sleep and my mild lurgy carried on lurking and my wife was off again, seeing if our new car could get her to London and back with the heater on (it did it, but she kept the heater off most of the time just in case) and it was a struggle with the kids. A struggle that I mainly won by letting them watch TV.
But I had an escape in the afternoon as we’d been invited to my in-laws for a late lunch and maybe I could sleep. But once again, corralling two kids and dog into the car on my own was a nightmare and a modern day version of trying to get the wolf, the hen and the bag of seed over the river. I managed it, but wasn’t helped by having to move the isofix seat between the two cars. On the new one it’s really easy as you can see the bars that the seat has to clip on to, but in our polluting car the bars are inside the seat and unless I am being stupid (which I probably am) the bars are inside the seat and you have to push the connector into the hole and hope it catches. I left everyone inside (the baby was asleep) whilst I tried to do this, but after what felt like five minutes of trying I gave up and decided to do it later. Luckily the dog hadn’t eaten either child, though the bigger child had eaten the little one. You live and learn. At least I didn’t need the car seat now.
I may have been so tired I was hallucinating. I hope so.
Once the Isofix challenge had been completed, we had a nice time at Nana and Papa’s house, though we got there too late for me to be able to both eat and nap. My daughter started telling me improvised stories as she sat on the loo. They were mostly nonsense of course, but I was impressed to see this leap forward in her abilities. One of them was about an old man who had no children and lived alone. It was pretty full on. Maybe she had had a glimpse into the life I would have had if I hadn’t met her mother.
The amazing thing about children, apart from the fact they exist at all and the freaky way they grow inside a woman and the freakier way that they come out, is how there is this explosion in development. The reason parents go on about it so much is that they’re with their kids for so much time and for so long they are pretty much capable of nothing. Then after years of them grinding you down they suddenly have the skills to do stuff that seems impossible. Even though my daughter thinks that I am a poo, I still love her very much. And the boy, though useless in almost all respects, is pretty cool as well.
They have saved me and destroyed me. It can only get worse.
I went to bed at 8pm. I knew it was stupid because surely I’d wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to get back to sleep (yup, but only for five hours) but I was too knackered to do anything else.
I am part of a Life Lessons from comedians feature in this month’s Men’s Health. It's just a snippet of what I said.
You can read my full interview here. If you want some life lessons from a man who gathers stones from a field.
