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Friday 22nd June 2018

5686/18706

Yesterday I was talking with my daughter about how toys come alive when everyone is asleep. She’s seen Toy Story so it’s not a concept that is unfamiliar to her and she found the idea mildly diverting. Tonight my wife had put her to bed, but fiver minutes after lights out she was calling for me. This in itself is quite unusual. She usually wants her mum. If it’s my turn to go in in the morning she’ll invariably say “I don’t want you daddy. I want mummy.” You can’t have an ego or any feelings when you’re a parent. Unless you’re the parent your kid prefers. I imagine my wife is just beaming with happiness constantly at being the chosen one.
So tonight she wanted me and after months of being negged by this tiny monster, I was immediately delighted that I was suddenly in favour. She knows what she’s doing. Unconditional love is a bitch. I could put in some conditions, but she knows how much I adore her and won’t negotiate.
Anyway I got up there and Phoebe was babbling a little bit, but I managed to glean that she was disappointed because her toys weren’t talking to each other. “But you’re not asleep yet,” I told her. I guess she thought she could trick them into coming alive by pretending to be asleep. But her toys aren’t that stupid. 
I sensed she was, not unreasonably, a bit freaked out by the news that her toys were creeping round her bedroom whilst she slept, so reassured her that this was probably all just pretend (I mean, how would I know? I am never awake to check this hypothesis) but also that even if it was true, her toys really loved her and would look after her whilst she slept because she looked after them when she was awake. 
This seemed to satisfy her. 
The real world is a confusing enough place so it’s weird that we befuddle our kids more by making up a load of shit for them to have to cope with. But provided the kids eventually realise that the stories of fairies and magic toys and Jesus are bullshit when they’re older, then it’s a positive thing on the whole. Aside from unnecessarily putting the fear of God into them by making them worry that Fluffy Rabbit might murder them in the night.
Having got the toy issue out of the way, we lay beside each other having a really lovely father/daughter chat about why my beard was prickly, whether little girls can have beards, why some men have them and some don't and why it’s better to make people laugh than to hit them and why there aren’t girl things and boy things (however much the rest of the world wants to perpetuate that fantasy). 
She’s a sweet and thoughtful person, though exuberant too and she fights her own corner, and it’s terrible to think that the real world will impact on her or that her confidence or self-belief might be taken away by some snotty little prick at nursery. But I told her she could tell me about anything and I would sort out any issues she has. Which for the moment, I think I actually can. 
As much as she knows that she can take the piss out of me (and I hope she always will), this was a magical five minutes of serious heart to heart. A lot of it was nonsense. I suspect some of her stories are as made up as my ones about talking toys. But how wonderful to be secretly needed by this rapidly developing human being.
Tomorrow morning she’ll tell me to go away again, I know. But we’ll always have tonight. 
I hope the toys didn’t spend all night mocking me for my soppiness.


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