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Catie is away for another spa weekend with her friends. She's almost certainly not lying about that.
Sure I was away a lot with the tour, but it's still not fair that I have to look after my own kids for a whole weekend.
At the end of day one I started wondering about whether I will ever drink alcohol again. It's probably just a coincidence that this thought suddenly came into my head after 12 hours of solo childcare.
It will be four and a half years without a drink at the end of this month (I gave up about three weeks before I went to the doctors with my weird big testicle - I am not saying that giving up drinking gives you cancer, but that's a weird coincidence). I hadn't really intended to stop forever, but I wanted a break from it, mainly because I kept waking in the middle of the night having weird panic attacks where I wasn't sure who I was or whether this was reality, which felt like a little echo of the confusion you must feel towards the end of your life if you have forgotten most of the details of your own life. I wasn't drinking loads at this point, but when I stopped drinking the panic attacks almost entirely disappeared (occasionally I have a very light and controllable version of it if I've eaten too late or had a heavy or spicy meal).
After a slightly stressful day (today was actually pretty fine and the kids were good, but I was very tired) I now tend to reach for something sweet rather than something boozy and a part of me wonders if it might actually be healthier to nurse a double whisky for a couple of hours. It's whisky I miss the most, which is ironic as I am pretty sure it's the whisky that gave me the night terrors. But three hours of existential dread starting at 2am might be worth it for a couple of hours of supping on a fine malt....
On the whole I feel better for not drinking and as you may have spotted I am the kind of person who either does something or doesn't with little middle ground or ability to moderate. Am I the kind of person who can just have a glass of wine every week or so? Or if I open the door, will I find myself tumbling down into the cellar and swimming in the pool of liquor that I keep down there?
As much as a day looking after kids might make you think about having a drink, being in sole charge of two young people probably isn't the best time to find out what effect a double whisky might have on me after 53 months without booze.
I didn't falter. I did eat a lot of junk which will kill me quicker than alcohol. I can't say it enough times, booze is an anit-cancer health drink.
I had taken the kids to a toy shop to spend some of their own money (though I am pretty sure Ernie has stolen most of his from our money drawer). Ernie wanted to buy some toy soldiers - these were one of my obsessions when I was his age and I spent hours setting up tiny World War Two figures and then making them kill each other (before eventually playing with them at the edge of any bonfire my dad would have, dropping molten plastic on tot hem like napalm. I loved death and fire as a kid and I've turned out ok, haven't I?) Phoebe was going to just have a look round and see what took her fancy.
A few days ago I was telling a friend about her obsession with the Minions - it's been going for a few years now. She loved King Bob and his teddy bear and would draw him and had loads of Minion toys and pyjamas. I was saying to my friend that I knew the time was coming where she'd no longer love the Minions and all the toys she'd got would be obsolete. It's inevitable, of course, and right and only sad in that it marks the passage of time.
I didn't think it would happen straight away, but today Phoebe wanted to buy some Wicked dolls and she said she was giving her Minion stuff away. I don't even like the Minions that much but I was surprised this moment had arrived after so long. Even though the Minions aren't that funny to me, they represent a love of silliness and comedy and even though I like Wicked (and there's better jokes in it), this is definitely a move away from silliness and comedy. I mourn my little girl, just as I celebrate her journey away from childhood.
"What about the Minion fart guns we bought for your birthday?" I asked. that was only four months ago.
"Oh, I'm keeping those," she asserted.
Some of the little, silly girl survives. And that's all you can ask for.
Too much of my little, silly boy survives. Though he did move on from revelling in death and napalm and so maybe I shed the right parts too.
