The Toddler Resistance Movement – Guide to the Supermarket

Fellow comrades, listen up. For the Ugly Giants, the supermarket is a necessary chore, but if you follow the guidelines below the supermarket can become your own personal playground with added food and fizzy drinks. If you follow the steps below you will be in line for a juggernaut payday from the Holy Trinity of Toddlerdome – snacks, fun and attention. BOOM!

1. Before even entering the supermarket, seek out the children’s rides and demand a go on whatever flashing monstrosity is at the entrance. Run screaming into the carpark if you don’t get your way.
2. At the entrance insist on riding in a shopping trolley. Subsequently demand to get in / out of the shopping trolley every 10metres or so. The Ugly Giants love the exercise. Twats.
3. Once inside, alternate between dawdling painfully slowly in some aisles and sprinting like a cackling loon down others. If you run into other shoppers, throw yourself to the floor and scream hysterically until they realise it was their fault. This should result in a yoghurt or muesli bar payoff.
4. Take off all your clothes and randomly distribute them around the store. Socks, pants and soiled nappies are known as #aislemines and should be deployed near fresh produce. This is just for kicks people.
5. Find the aisle with glass jars, crockery or high value electronics and insist on spontaneous and robust play with all items. NB dropping plates on the aisle floor and then screaming hysterically will result in a snack payday.
6. Your role is “The Confuseriser”. Create Maximum Confusion by offloading items that the Ugly Giant puts into the trolley and uploading other unwanted items. Not only is this great fun, but it could also lead to a placating bag of Minstrels. Every little helps, my supermarket warriors.
7. Make it your priority to find the pastry, cake and bread aisle. Quickly stuff your cheeks with whatever comes to hand. Teeth marks count as possession in the cake aisle, so a half eaten croissant is effectively yours. Bite everything until you are stopped. THE PASTRIES ARE YOURS!
8. Situational awareness is key in our struggle, comrades, so be sure to make a note of the aisles where the yoghurt and cheerio’s are kept. You will need this information for the POWERPLAY.
9. The powerplay approaches. Prepare for the powerplay by getting properly lost.
10. Next find a security guard and put on your best Lost Child Look – tear streaked eyes, finger in mouth, lispy, half formed words….you know the drill comrades, we are talking CHARM OFFENSIVE, defcom one.
11. Once taken to the customer services desk, all stars are now aligned for the powerplay. As soon as staff backs are turned, grab the intercom and shout the following words “This is a customer announcement: All Gin is now three for one in aisle seventeen. I repeat, THREE FOR ONE ON GIN”. 
12. In the resulting madness, find your way back to the Cheerios and yoghurts and GO. NUTS. You should be able to do a couple of packs before you are busted.
13. If you and your Ugly Giant have not yet been arrested, congratulations, you are still in the game. So insist on helping* at the checkout. If denied, find a pensioner and wedge your head between their legs whilst screaming “IT’S SO DARK! I CANT BREATHE!” until security is called to break up the #pensionerwedgie
14. Make a loud beeping noise every time the till operator scans an item. Carry on BEEPING LOUDLY. For ever. Or as long as it takes to get a chocolate profiterole.
15. On the way out, carefully place cigarettes, batteries and alcohol miniatures in your Ugly Giant’s pockets and then alert a security guard. Again, not for snacks people, this is just for fun.
16. At the exit, find the children’s rides and stage a sit in. HOLD. YOUR. NERVE. You know it and the Ugly Giants know it – they cannot leave without you. BOOM! Before you know it you will be riding off into the Cheerio and yoghurt coated sunset with Postman Pat and his black and white cat as accomplices.

*helping broadly defined as – “eat all consumables”

#aislemines

#pensionerwedgie

Why men matter (and other reflections on gender equality)

Many reports and studies show that there is increasing equality between parents in terms of traditional parenting roles and responsibilities;

For example British men are spending more time on domestic work than their forefathers (an increase from 90 minutes per day in the 1960s to 150 minutes per day by 2004), are taking increased responsibility for caring for their children (from 15 minutes to 2 hours per working day between 1975 and 1997, an 800% increase) and are increasingly becoming the parent with sole responsibility for childcare during the working week (21% of fathers of under-fives are solely responsible for childcare at some point during the working week)

While there is still some way to go before we can begin talking about true equity and equality between the sexes, these are positive trends.

And yet public media is unfortunately still very much geared to reinforcing the traditional “doofus father” stereotype – the blundering, largely absent, beer and sports obsessed icons of yesteryear, petrified to change a nappy, incompetent at meal times, useless around the house, and generally setting a bad example to their children.

And to compound this stereotype, society is also not currently particularly geared to accepting the change in the zeitgeist which the statistics suggest is happening,

Whether it is detail such as the fact that nappy change facilities are still largely positioned only in female public toilets; that there is still poor or non-existent pre-and post natal support for fathers; that marketing and advertising for baby products is still geared towards women.

Or more at the macro level like for example the fact that until recently there has been dreadful inequality between paternity and maternity leave entitlements, it is little wonder that men may feel intimidated by impending fatherhood.

Traditional notions of masculinity still pervade a man’s everyday life too. One only has to see the incredibly damaging four “rules of masculinity” pioneered by 1970s American psychologist Robert Brannon, to understand how many fathers have been coded to act.

1. No sissy stuff – reject all that is associated with femininity
2. Be a big wheel – wealth, power and status define your success as a man
3. Be a sturdy oak – reliable and strong in a crisis
4. Give ‘em hell – men are associated with risk, daring and aggression

These notions are damaging because they are divisive. They perpetuate notions that it is somehow emasculating to let your female partner go out to work while you look after the children at home.

Even though the proportion is at a historical low (and despite all the positive advances mentioned above) a recent study revealed that nearly one in five British men still believe that it is the woman’s role to stay at home and look after the children. Those one in five constitute an important critical mass, and one which needs to be addressed if a tipping point for societal change is to be reached.

For some families it no longer makes as much economic sense to automatically designate the father as a breadwinner because according to a number of studies the gender pay gap has all but disappeared in low income families and findings by the National Equality Panel in 2010[i] found that the earnings gap is continuing to narrow.

And this trend is likely to continue across all demographics as young girls / women now outstrip boys / men not only in school participation, graduation and results but also in further education and training.

So going forward, men in the UK are likely to have much more of a role in bringing up their children than their fathers, or their fathers father’s, ever did. And new research shows that this is perhaps no bad thing.

Researchers and child experts are realising that there are incredible benefits related to this societal shift. Research[ii] shows that infants of highly involved fathers have higher cognitive functioning, are better problem solvers as toddlers and have higher IQs by age three.

As well as better cognitive functioning, infants of highly involved fathers show better social and emotional development and well-being. And if that is not enough, involved fathers lead to less disruptive behaviour, less depression, less sadness, less lying and substance abuse and a myriad of other negative development outcomes in their children[iii]. And when men participate fairly in the home, research shows that everyone is happier and healthier.

What this boils down to is the need for gender equality and men can be important agents of change in this regard. An excellent recent report from the Government Equalities Office[iv] (which dad blogger John Adams – @dadbloguk – contributed to) points out some of the challenges that face individuals, organisations and societies when pursuing equality.

But the report argues that the key thing is to ensure that male voices are included in dialogue about gender and that actually, in doing so, amazing opportunities may arise. Many men will have much to gain through gender equality that allows for new ways of working and living for both men and women to flourish.

As UN Under Secretary General Ban Ki Moon points out, the evidence is clear

“Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable. Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all”

This all strikes a very resonant personal chord with me. I have recently cut down to a four day working week in order to spend more time with my family. It initially wasn’t easy, and I had to have a number of tough conversations with my manager, my colleagues, my wife and most importantly, with my ego.

But it very quickly became a conversation about opportunities. My reduction in work hours, provided my wife with an opportunity to pursue a more challenging career and I got some all-important time off to be a better father and better husband.

The important thing to conclude is that new shifts towards gender equality are exciting and will benefit organisations, individuals and ultimately society. There is still a long way to go however, before a true tipping point can be reached.

However through modelling opportunities presented by pro-equality governmental and organisational policy, and continued dialogue around gender equality and the roles of men and women in society, there is no reason why a more equal vision of society cannot be achieved in our lifetime.

 

[i] Report of the National Equality Panel; Executive Summary, January 2010

[ii] See for example “The effects of father involvement: a summary of research evidence” Father Involvement Initiative, fall 2002

[iii] See for example this comprehensive conclusion of the impact of the father on their “children’s learning and achievement” Fatherhood Institute, May 2013

[iv] “Men as Change Agents for Gender Equality”, Government Equalities Office, June 2014

Perfect Moment

A vivid but chaotic dream is interrupted by the sound of the bedroom door slowly sweeping across the carpet.

I am bought quickly into the room by the sound.

I open an eye and can see the door opening, but as yet no figure in the doorway.

The adrenalin and dull shock from the rude awakening quickly subside. I see the hazelnut curls on the top of my daughters head bob past the end of the bed, her footfall padding lightly on the carpet.

She rounds the bed post and her full face comes into view. She is full of sleep and there is no emotion on her face.

I don’t want to wake up yet. I don’t want the embrace of sleep to leave.

I hold my hand out to my daughter and close my eyes. I hear her feet pad a few more steps on the carpet and next thing I feel is her grip tighten around my wrist as she pulls herself into bed.

She collapses next to me and snuggles in tight, breathing loudly. She hasn’t quite yet worked out the concept of personal space, and while her head lies awkwardly across my jaw, and I receive a couple of accidental knees and elbows in delicate areas, her final position is comfortable enough for me to draw her in close.

She sighs loudly, contentedly. She appears to be in no immediate rush to go downstairs today.

She shuffles a little bit in the bed and nestles finally and comfortably in the crook of my shoulder. My face is now buried deep in her forest of curls.

I love being in here. It is soft and warm and smells sweet and earthy. I gently run my face through her billowy cloud of curls.

I chance a look at her, and her eyes are shut. Her breathing is soft and rhythmic, her chest rising with every breath, her warm outbreath kissing my shoulder. She is still and content. I close my eyes and my mind starts to wander.

I can hear morning birdsong outside, carried through the open window on a warm summer breeze which gently disturbs the curtains. In the distance there is the bark of a dog and the hum of a car engine. I can feel myself drifting, the warm embers of sleep burning on.

I have no idea how long we lie together, it doesn’t matter. I am snuggled up close to my daughter and we are still and quiet and entwined. She is safe, and warm and loved.

I don’t want this moment to end.

The Toddler Resistance Movement – A Guide To Swimming

After a particularly traumatic swimming experience I found my toddlers in their room, writing this on their Fisher Price tablet. Be warned people, they are getting organised!

The Toddler Resistance Movement – A Guide to Swimming

The Ugly Giants think that going swimming is all about learning to swim. Idiots. Whereas we all know that the objective of swimming is to get them to empty the bastard treat bag as quickly as possible. Follow these steps and you will be drinking Coca – Cola and grazing on smoky bacon flavour Wheat Crunchies before you are even out of the changing rooms.

1. Whinge to the Ugly Giants in the days / hours / minutes leading up to your swimming lesson. Shouting about it loudly and frequently makes it happen quicker, and therefore gets you to that treat bag quicker. Fact

2. Once at the swimming baths, refuse to get changed. This should result in a decent treat payout. Refuse the banana, let that sweat in the change bag. Hold out for the Organix muesli bars. The Ugly Giants love the smell of chlorine and humid banana on their clothes anyway. Freaks. 

3. Once changed, refuse to wear goggles. In fact refuse to wear any kind of bastard swimming aid. This includes floats, goggles and swimsuits. This stuff is for losers, and will hamper your chances of executing the mission. Stay focussed. 

4. Having spent the whole morning demanding to go to your swimming lesson, refuse now to get into the pool until you get to call shotgun on the floating aids. The acoustics in this place are ace my fellow swimmers, so to secure the holy grail of floating aids (the shark fin float), cry loudly. Remember you are slowly breaking the Ugly Giants in preparation for the ultimate treat payload – Strawberry flavoured Petit Filou yoghurt.

5. If the swimming instructor is one of those tenacious types and refuses to immediately let you into the basket of floating aids, shout “STOP TOUCHING ME” very loudly. I have noticed this gets you what you want. 

6. Run everywhere. The adults will soon tire of telling you to stop. Once they have stopped nagging, run as fast as you can and fall over dramatically, preferably into the pool. This may hurt, but it should result in a heavy treat payload. A small price to pay for that buttered slice of raisin Soreen, my aquatic friends. 

7. Spend 10 minutes warming up by removing all buoyancy aids from your swim suit. This is a good test to see if the bastard life guard is paying attention. You will need him / her later on (see 10 and 11 below) 

8. Create the illusion of walking on water by strapping all buoyancy aids to your ankles and moving swiftly across the surface of the water whilst shouting “I’VE BEEN TOUCHED BY THE HAND OF GOD” This isn’t for snacks, it’s just for kicks people. 

9. The swimming pool is big and cold. When the instructor is not looking, head for the warm bubbly place with the “no children” sign. Get in, keep your head down and keep pressing the bubble buttons. You may get 5mins or so of chill time. Use this time to eat the bag of Monster Munch you smuggled in down your swimming nappy. 

10. Now we’re building up to the piece de resistance. Grab some attention by floating motionlessly and face down on top of the water. This excites the Ugly Giants. (NB an advanced technique in this regard is to collaborate with the other children in the pool and coordinate a Mass Face Down Float (MFDF). If nothing else, this allows you to see which of the Ugly Giants is paying attention) 

11. Alternatively sink to the bottom of the pool and stay there as long as you can. This is a sure fire technique to get the Ugly Giants away from their iPhones. They spend too long on them anyway. Bastards.

12. Now you have their attention, EXECUTE THE MISSION. Remove your swimming nappy and take a massive poo. Ideally it will be a two day stored up poonami. The bigger the better. (NB This is also a good way of testing the pool evacuation procedures. Anything more than a 60 second delay, report the bastards to the local council). Once out of the water, use this as an opportunity for naked screaming. This will yield a quick snack. 

13. The Ugly Giants understand that you are going to be hungry after swimming so once in the changing room use this opportunity to scream loudly until they have emptied their treat bag. Demonstrate how hungry you are by stuffing everything into your mouth at once. Including the buoyancy aids you have smuggled out in your swimming nappy. 

14. Spend as long as you can in the changing rooms. Changing rooms are either freezing cold or stiflingly hot. And the acoustics are amazing. The Ugly Giant’s resolve will weaken quickly under these conditions, so use this as an opportunity to scream loudly until you have emptied the treat bag and negotiated your way to a double showing of Toy Story and pizza in front of C-Beebies when you get home. What you do in the changing room echoes for eternity. 

15. Remember, collaboration is a key weapon in our armoury. The Ugly Giants are rendered useless in the face of a double toddler, steamy naked, screaming onslaught (DTSNSO). So if there are two of you, do what you can – drop your clean clothes in the puddles, make a naked break back to the pool, swan dive into the sanitary bin, lick the floor. Whatever you do make it noisy, make it big and make it quick. Those fruit flavoured jelly tots will soon be yours. Shock and awe people, shock and awe. 

16. And remember people, to keep those snacks coming, you need a repeat performance. Plant the seed by repeatedly and noisily demanding to go swimming again during the journey home. The Ugly Giants will be like putty in your hands by this point. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Over and out.

 If you are reading this, you are the resistance

 

 

 

 

Breaking Bread

“You know where you can stick your noodles!”

“Look out for the cup, if you keep tipping it you are going to spill it! Don’t tip it, it’s going to spill. IT’S SPILT!”

“Sit down please. Sit down please. SIT. DOWN. PLEASE! No, not on your face, on your bottom….”

“Don’t throw the fish finger. DO NOT throw the fish finger. If you throw the fish finger…I TOLD YOU NOT TO THROW THE DAMN FISH FINGER…..”

Ah! Meal times with the family.

The stress.

The tension.

The chaos.

THE MESS!

It’s not that I even like Cheerios (which is why it was so hard to explain to my co-worker that time I went into work with a phalanx of them stuck in my beard).

So why do I bother insisting on this anarchic routine twice a day (three times at weekends, goddamit)? Wouldn’t it just be easier to just leave a pile of food on a plate on the floor and let them pick at it like skanky hyenas over the course of the day?

Sure it would.

But there is something in that which goes against every fibre of my being.

And this is probably because both my wife and I come from families where food is a deity, and meal times are the closest to worship we will ever get.

My name is the Secret Father, and I’m a foodie.

There, I said it.

If it is not home grown, organic, fair trade and hand knitted I don’t want to know. And I expect this ethic to extend to my children too.

So you can imagine my chagrin when, having prepared a chickpea (organic), spinach (from the allotment) and garlic (organic, home grown) dhal, I have to sit there and watch as my son picks out all the spinach and all the garlic, and then painstakingly removes each damn chickpea, one by one, until he is left with nothing more than a bowl of dhal stained rice. 

Which of course because it is a starchy carbohydrate, with very little nutritional value, he adores.

And then the whinging starts. “Hungry. Hungry. HUNGRY!”

And this then leads to “The Discussion” between Mrs Secret Father and myself;

Mrs SF: “Well, we can’t let him go to bed hungry”

Me: “Why not? He needs to learn to eat what he is given”

Mrs SF: “But he will wake up in the night hungry!”

Me: “Just leave him. He won’t starve himself”

Mrs SF: “I’m going to get him something else to eat”

Me; (hissing) “Don’t! Don’t do that! Don’t. Do. It”

Mrs SF: *returns with a selection of yoghurts, garlic bread and Cheerios.

Me:*gives wife a Paddington Bear stare.

You get the picture.

Basically my wife comes from a family of feeders. She would be mortified if one of her brood went to bed one calorie short on their daily allowance. Because that would mean she is a BAD MOTHER.

And I come from a family where if I left anything on my plate, my father and brother would swoop like vultures within seconds and pick over the carcass of my leftovers.

And if I left it, I knew there was nothing else.

And I knew that feeling hungry was a rubbish feeling. And I learnt that when I was hungry it was harder to play football, harder to run and jump and harder to cycle so far from home that the Police had to be called.

And as a boy, that just wouldn’t do. So I ate everything I was given.

But now these days, after a long day at work, when everyone is grizzly and just a little bit short with the day, it is tempting some meal times to just give in. Because being out to work full time, there is only so much “quality time” that I can have with my children.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I don’t want to have to spend that “quality time” being strict and grumpy and stern at the dinner table. Meal times should be fun.

So I don’t want to have to spend that time repeatedly insisting, like some demented parrot, that a 2 year old child who is off their head on carbs and yoghurt, should “sit nicely at the table” for a few more minutes.

Because frankly, asking a 2 year old to just sit still is hard enough without complicating things by adding the “nicely” bit.

I don’t want to have to negotiate every damn mouthful of whatever it is that my children are refusing to eat that day. Because let’s face it, my toddlers are the SAS of negotiation and will have me waterboarding a bowl of Calpol in no time.

I don’t want to have to spend 25 minutes on my hands and knees wiping the floor clean, whilst simultaneously having leftovers poured on my head by a cackling child. Because whatever fashion is on trend at the time, squashed knee raisins and rice noodle hair is never going to be a “look”.

And I don’t want to have to keep hounding down an errant toddler who has breached the sacred perimeter of the dining room table for the 50^th time in five minutes, just because they can’t possibly eat another mouthful unless Iggle bloody Piggle is sitting with them.

And because yelling “STOP twerking at the table!” is something I should never have to shout in my own home.

And so I frequently ask myself – why do I bother? Why not just feed them pizza, cake and fruit shoots and let them eat it all in front of CBeebies? Why not just let it all drop for an easier life?

Because I can’t.

And the answer is both profound and frivolous.

Frivolous because part of me (the weird-uncle-that-lives-in-the-loft part of me) actually enjoys the noise and vibrancy and chaos of meal times.

That’s not to say I enjoy having sausages squashed in my ears (because sausages are big and my ear holes are small), but there is something rather great about a noisy, colourful table, heaving with food, vitality and conversation.

Even if that conversation is just increasingly shouty, repetitive instructions.

And the answer is also profound because meal times are a celebration. They are a celebration of nurture, life and energy; of the family unit with all of its drama’s, weaknesses and foibles; and of the human condition. We may be weak and fragile and yet we are a social animal that craves company.

And what better company than those sitting around a table devouring a delicious meal together?

Food is what keeps us going, and mealtimes have been uniting people, families, tribes and clans throughout history, providing sustenance, company, rest and a chance to connect over the breaking of the bread.

Despite the tantrums, the persistent nagging and the occasional flare up, I am going to continue to teach my children the importance of eating as a family. However much they play up, my instinct tells me that this connection will be invaluable in years to come.

So that when my tribe eventually breaks up, which it inevitably will do, we will hopefully always have that one thing remaining in common.

The love of a decent family meal together.

 #cheeriobeard

#waterboardingcalpol

#squashedkneeraisins

Happy Days!

You lovely people. You lovely people! Yes you (looks straight at you)

A few weeks ago I wrote on this blog about how I had two choices when I became a father; develop a healthy addiction to horse tranquilisers or take up therapeutic writing.

I chose the latter, largely because it is free (yes, I am a cheap skate), but also because it looked like fun.

And having reached my first blogiversary during February I decided to ask you lovely readers for nominations for the MAD Blog awards 2014, because it was my birthday and I was feeling temporarily empowered.

And lo and behold I have received nominations in three of the categories – i) MAD Blog of the Year ii) Best Blog Writer iii) Best New Blog

I was on the London – Oxford X90 bus service when I found out I had been nominated, and let out a little whoop of joy, loud enough for the remainder of the journey to be a little bit awkward.

I dread to think what would happen if I get into the top five

Fire a hundred white doves over the neighbourhood from a glitter cannon? Maybe.

Semi-naked pants dance in the living room? Goes without saying. 

High speed handbrake turn into work parking place with “Roar” by Katy Perry playing at top volume out of wound down windows? Hmmmm.

So a massive thank you to all of you who have voted for me already. You made my day.

And if you haven’t already voted for me, please do here http://www.the-mads.com/awards/ (or click on the nominate badge on my blog pages) and please vote against one of the three categories I mentioned above (preferably Best Blog Writer).

And if what I write about doesn’t totally float your boat, then that’s fine, I know I am not for everyone.

In that case perhaps I can suggest this selection of some of the finest writers on the interwebs as worthy of your vote?

An incredibly thoughtful, very well written blog from the lovely Tric http://mythoughtsonapage.com/about/

The most hilarious and anarchic parental writing from the amazing Justanormalmummy http://justanormalmummy.blogspot.co.uk/  (@wallymummy on Twitter)

For a superb journey into some of the coolest photography around check out http://capturebylucy.com/ (@capturebylucy on Twitter)

For excellent, thoughtful and challenging writing on motherhood and mental health try http://delusionsofcandour.wordpress.com/ (@SamCandour on Twitter)

For a funny, wry and often acerbic look at fatherhood check out http://haplessdad.blogspot.co.uk/ (@haplessdadbog on Twitter)

Thank you once again to everyone who has nominated me.

Competitions like this are great for the blogging community, of which I am part, so it is a win-win.

Moments that mattered

It wasn’t a beautiful day, but then again it wasn’t dreadful either. A typical English summer day; a little overcast, a little drizzle, the mercury hovering around 18C.

We had been invited by friends to go camping with them and their kids, which we had accepted.

The kids were excited and if I am honest, so was I.

The reason for this is that I love being outside. And I love being outside with the kids.

Outside there are no walls, no perimeters and no parameters. The kids can run free in a field and I can relax for a few hours, knowing that they are safe.

Everything is better outside.

For me connecting with nature is so important, and there is no better way to connect than being outdoors on a camping trip.

The sights, sounds and smell of a campsite are part of the experience too.

The high pitched rip of a zip, the flap of canvas and the pungent smell of fresh grass, woodsmoke and freshly brewed coffee all combine into a heady mix.

And when you are camping everything ebbs and flows with the rise and fall of the sun. And at night, as the sun drifts below the horizon, the infinite expanse of the universe unfolds with celestial majesty, mind-bending in its vastness.

Just one night out in the elements and the mind can become untethered from the daily routine, released from the shackles of the flickering electric box in the corner of the living room and the piles of bills, letters and reminders that enslave us on a daily basis.

Camping is communal living, how humans would have co-existed many hundreds of years ago, before office blocks, air conditioning and artificial strip lighting. For me this is part of the allure; to get back to basics, however temporary.

And we are fortunate in that we have a phenomenal campsite nearby. There is something magical about this campsite, nestled in the shadow of a white horse, carved in chalk on a hillside dotted with lush and ancient deciduous woodland.

Once we had arrived and found our friends, the tent went up reasonably easily and the kids got to run around, liberated, urgent and red faced, constructing imaginary universes and populating them with imaginative abandon.

The drizzle stopped and the afternoon blended lazily into the evening. As the sun went down groups of people began to gather around freshly lit fires. With the kids so content, some of our group chanced an early drink.

The bedtime routine went well, and the adults in our group had, by now, started to sink into their chairs around the fire, faces lit and glowing amber as the flames licked and danced. Only one child remained awake, my daughter.

It wasn’t the kind of awake that was problematic though. There were no tears, no tantrums. It was a gentle kind of awake, driven by curiosity and an active mind.

After a few failed attempts to settle her into her camp bed, I decided to bring her around the camp fire. It was a risk. By now we were firmly into adult time, and the addition of a child may have been looked upon dimly by my peers.

But within a few minutes it became apparent that my daughter was content to sit quietly on my lap, settling into the hypnotic soundtrack of the night;

There were snatches of conversations from around the camp fire; I could hear a story being shared, an offer of more food, a bottle being opened.

And there was also the sound of a guitar and a soft but beautiful voice singing a quiet refrain.

The sound of a tent zip punctuated the air, and a lone blackbird piped melancholy from the tree tops.

I could hear a peel of laughter from across the field, a group bonding over a joke or story, and all of this was set to the gentle hiss and crackle of our fire fanned by the night breeze.

My daughter cuddled in tight, her curls falling on my lap, and at once I felt utterly content, at peace, my heart melting into the fire.

I realised she had probably never seen the night sky like this before, pitch dark and bottomless, so I asked her to look up at the stars. She lifted her head and fixed her wide eyes on the sparkling canvas above.

It took her a minute to take it all in, and then the questions started; magnificent questions driven by the young, pure and inquisitive mind of a three year old.

I don’t know how long we spoke for, but it was beautiful. A father and daughter huddled close amongst friends, cuddling under a vast night canopy and warmed by a fire, repeating a conversation that humans have been having through the millennia.

I sat with her, talking in whispered tones, long into the night, not even moving when she eventually fell asleep on my lap.

It was too perfect, magic, and I didn’t want to move, lest the spell be broken.

And my enduring memory from the night was of my daughters angelic eyes, facing skywards, reflecting the embers of the fire, desperate for knowledge, her mind beginning to tangle with some of life’s imponderables.

And for me it was a deep and profound connection with my little baby, a truly rare moment in the normally frantic rat race of everyday life.

Since that night I have realised that my daughter is growing up fast, and these moments will become less and less.

There will become a time when she will leave my side and stride out into the big wide world on her own. And when that does happen, she won’t know it, but my heart will go with her.

But for this one night, I was able to savour this moment, a primal bonding between father and daughter, a moment so precious and pure that it will stay with me until I die.

This was for me the moment of 2013.

A moment that mattered.

This post has been created for the lovely Mummy’s little Monkey and is part of a competition she is running on her site designed to get people writing about moments from 2013 that mattered to them. If you have read this post, or any of the other posts in the moments that matter series on her site, and feel inspired to contribute your own moment that mattered, then please do. You could even be in the running to win an iPad mini courtesy of those good people at Lloyds www.lloydsbank.com who are doing a sterling job in supporting the blogging community.

 

A Red Demon Rising

There is a knot of tension rising in my chest.

My son is writhing and planking on the change table, his eyes screwed tight shut, screaming like a dentist drill. He is tired beyond logic and reason.

It’s been a really tough couple of months, it’s the end of a really hard day, and I am exhausted myself. But I am just about holding it together.

I try to put his pyjama trousers on and his flailing feet kick me in the stomach, right in the solar plexus. The pain makes me feel sick.

His screaming is bouncing around my head, and my brain is throbbing. I haven’t eaten or drunk enough fluids today. My needs are secondary these days.

But I am still holding it together.

I’m now trying to put his pyjama top on and he is getting furious. I try the usual placating moves, the false choices, the soothing voice, the singing, the tickling, but my patience is wearing gossamer thin and he is going nuclear.

Suddenly he lunges forward and hits me on the nose. It hurts. It really hurts.

Still he screams and writhes.

I’ve tried hard to suppress the anger but my skin is beginning to flush and my ears ringing. I’m starting to feel removed from my body.

I try to stay calm and in control. I’m holding him now, still trying to negotiate the pyjamas.

He opens his mouth and clamps his teeth down on the soft skin between my neck and shoulder.

The extreme pain causes a flash of bright red light in my head, and a surge of rage courses through my veins.

Now I’ve lost it.

I’m properly yelling at him now. The force of my voice scares even me.

There are flames burning up my back and neck, my head is swimming, my ears ringing and my heart racing. My boy is still screaming. My daughter has retreated to a corner. Her fingers in her mouth and her eyes wide open. She looks horrified.

But I am full of fury.

The red demon has risen.

The red demon is me.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My wife comes in and tells me to leave the room. But I am full of fury. I’ve snapped

And the demon is jumping up and down, gibbering manically on my shoulder, gleeful at the chaos.

My wife tells me to leave the room again.

Suddenly I realise what I have done. I take a horrified step back.

I leave the room, shaking with adrenalin.

++++++++++++++++++++++

I am out running in the cold streets. The rain is on my face. It’s refreshing. My heart rate is up and my breathing rhythmic. I am scanning my body and physically I feel good.

Emotionally however I am shot through.

The red demon is still present but with each step I take the flames are subsiding, the fiery rage dissipating. His embers are still glowing but the demon is skulking in the darkness now, whispering to the shadows in forked tongues.

But his legacy is strong. I feel filthy, polluted, toxic.

I am going over the incident in my head, reflecting and analysing.

I am making excuses. I know I am stressed. I know the last few months have been really hard. I know I am exhausted, and yes, my boy was acting up. But the one thing I keep coming back to is that there is no excuse.

There is no excuse for losing my temper. There is no excuse for yelling at a two year old child. There is simply no excuse.

Anger is an important reflex in the story of human survival and evolution, and if harnessed correctly should continue to play a role in inspiring us to strive to be better as individuals and as a society. But it needs to be managed.

The cold night air is in my lungs, in my head. I can see things incredibly clearly. I was totally in the wrong. There are no excuses.

Much to the demon’s disgust I begin to harness the aggression constructively. I am starting to feel grateful.

I am grateful for my wife’s understanding and quiet, calming presence. Not just tonight, but at all times.

I am grateful that this is the first incident where anger has got the better of me in close to four years of being a father.

I am grateful that this incident has made me determined to be an even better father. To love my little boy even harder.

I am grateful that I can use this to show my children how important it is to apologise when I have done something bad, to show them how truly sorry I am – to hug them, kiss them and breathe them in. To show them that I am also vulnerable and prone to error.

I am grateful that I can use this to learn and grow. I will be able to identify the warning signs in future. I will be able to harness the powerful emotion of anger correctly.

My feet are moving quickly over the concrete now. The demon is squealing and shrinking, and in its place a pure white light is growing.

I am running faster. I want to get home. I want to see my children. I want them to see my vulnerability. I want them to see me apologising.

And I want them to see a light burning in my eyes.

But instead of the red light of anger I want them to see a glorious, luminescent glow of pure love blazing from my soul.

Because that is what I feel right now.

The light of love in my heart finally engulfs the demon. I am sprinting to my front door.

A life interrupted

I remember this feeling. I remember this.

I’m walking along the hospital corridor, my footfall is echoing loudly and my legs are heavy.

It’s getting darker. I feel like I am going underground.

And the familiar feeling is there.

I wish it wasn’t.

It’s the feeling of knowing that something major and tragic has happened in the life of someone who I love beyond condition.

It’s the feeling of knowing that in a few seconds I am going to look upon the face of the person that bore me for many months, the person that gave me life and the person who sacrificed so much.

And it’s the feeling of knowing that the moment I look upon that face, it’s going to hit me, a huge jolt of turbulent and violent emotions; shock, love, horror, grief, guilt and sadness.

I am bracing myself for this moment.

I’ve already been through the rite of passage of dealing with the death of one parent. The wounds have barely healed, the scars are still fresh. I’m not ready for this again. Not yet.

The child in me wants to run, to scream, to cry, to find comfort in the embrace of a parent. But the adult in me knows that one parent is dead and the other is fighting for life in a bed, just the other side of this door.

I am on my own now, and my mind is wandering. I pause by the door.

I’m thinking back to the moment when I found out.

It was a normal day. They always are.

It was the text message from my brother. There was something not right about it.

“Call me as soon as you can”

These are plain, casual words. But the sterility of these words belies the fact that this text was screaming in my inbox, like a silent alarm.

Instead of immediately calling my brother, I started a conversation with a colleague.

At that point I wasn’t to know my brother had sent the text from the back of an ambulance.

I wasn’t to know that the ambulance had been called five minutes previously by my sister-in-law.

I wasn’t to know that she had just found my mother, whose brain had been annihilated by the ravages of a massive stroke. And that my sister in law had found my mother in a pool of her own bodily fluids.

And I wasn’t to know that she had been lying there for nearly four days, drifting in and out of consciousness, on the floor, on her own, unable to move, unable to talk,

And all the time, the rattle and hum of everyday life had been going on around her; people calling on the phone, visitors knocking on the door and getting no response, newspaper delivery….everyone blissfully unaware that behind that door a terrible drama was playing out.

I am jolted out of this reflection by the sting of the hand soap hanging on the ward door as I apply it.

The clinical fragrance lifts my sinus, it’s a familiar smell. It has immediate associations with death and then of childbirth. I think back to my son’s birth close to two years ago now. This is a pleasant thought in an otherwise dark day.

I am in a hospital, but I am barely aware of it; I’m numb,
going through the motions, a weird state of consciousness somewhere between passive acceptance and airport lounge autopilot. 

Hospitals; these are places of hope and despair. These are places of extreme emotion. Despite the veneer of busy efficiency, clinical precision and sparkling cleanliness, the walls are thick with it; Scratch a layer of paint of and the walls drip with the cries of life coming, or returning, into the world, and the silent gasps of lives as they leave.

We are in the ward. I brace myself.

On first impressions my mother looks better than I had imagined her, but then again I still find myself catching my breath. Her face has slipped on the left side. One of her eyes is heavily infected. I learn later that this is a result of her having lied in her own vomit for days.

Her skin is sallow, grey and translucent and her mouth hangs open and heavy.

She opens her mouth to speak and a sound comes out. This sound doesn’t belong to her. In fact it is barely a human sound.

There is fear and terror in her eyes. I’m trying to be brave but I suspect she can see these things in my eyes too. The child in me wants to start crying, to grab onto my mother’s trouser leg for comfort.

The consultant explains that my mother has suffered a haemorrhagic stroke. I am listening, but I am not hearing the words.

My body is standing there, my head nodding, my mouth forming words and forming those into questions which I find myself asking of the consultant.

But my mind is somewhere else, drifting, numb.

We try and offer reassurance to my mother. It is hard to know if she has understood what is happening. Her thoughts are confused. She is anxious, frightened. I realise I am crying, hot tears streaming down my cheeks.

Now we are standing at the door to my mother’s house. The last person to leave this house was a paramedic. The child in me doesn’t want to go in here. I am frightened of what we will find.

But it has to happen. We have to go in and try and piece events together, secure the house and clean up.

I take a deep breath and walk in.

The smell is overwhelming, almost agricultural.

I think back to what my sister in law must have walked in on those few days ago. I am glad it wasn’t me. But I also wish it was me.

I wish it was me so that it could have been one of her sons that my mother saw first, a reassuring sight of familiarity in an otherwise terrifying nightmare.

I wish it was me so that I could have gently lifted her head off of the floor and wiped away the blood and everything else she was found lying in.

I wish it was me so I could have cradled her in my arms whilst stroking her head and whispering reassuring words about her future.

I wish it was me so I could have done all of these things – just like she did with me some forty one years ago.

We begin tidying up, doing the best we can. Everywhere we look, there are the signs of a life interrupted.

There are immaculate diary entries. The computer is still on. The long list of efficiently worded and business like emails stop on the Thursday evening.

There are the drawn curtains, the vacuum cleaner lying abandoned on the stairs and the unheard, unanswered voice messages on the answer machine.

There is the Friday paper on the door mat which lies there accusingly – why didn’t you call her on the Friday night like you were going to?

And in front of me I catch sight of something which causes me to choke back some tears. 

There is a bowl of apples on the kitchen floor.

And I imagine my mother being distracted by some other mundane task and placing them there as a half-way holding position between where they came from and where they were meant to go.

In that moment she wasn’t to know that they would never get to wherever they were meant to go.

And now a few days later, I am stood here wondering if she will ever recover enough to find out where I was meant to go; to know where her grandchildren were meant to go; to know where any of this is meant to go.

I’ve lost it. My shoulders are shaking and I am crying uncontrollably.  

 

 

To the power of two

The transition from a family of three to a family of four can often be extremely difficult. New bonds need to be formed, new patterns established and a new personality accommodated in the already complex dynamics of a thriving household. It is no wonder that two children can seem exponentially more challenging than one. But eventually there comes a moment when all the stress is forgotten.

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Those first few weeks as a family of four were extremely difficult.

My daughter, who by now at 21 months had started to mellow, became very volatile again and her sleep was disturbed.

Regardless of the amount of care we put into carefully introducing my daughter to her new brother, jealousy still reared its very ugly head.

And while my son was a very laid back baby, going back to a few hours sleep a night was very difficult for me to do.

And my son’s crying used to wake my daughter.

And she became tired and cranky

And as a result we all became tired and cranky.

It was intense.

Exhausting

Every day was just a relentless process of giving. Giving every last bit of myself to little sponges of seemingly infinite need.

And the nights were worse.

No escape.

No respite. Night after night of bleary eyed wake ups.

A feed would finish and just as quiet returned to the house, and I began to feel the warm embrace of sleep, a whimper would start up and within seconds crescendo, jolting me into reality.

The days and nights merged into one feverish process of giving.

Giving to my children. Giving to my wife. Giving to my job.

And it was the depths of mid-winter. The joys of autumn and Christmas long gone, the promise of Spring not even signalled by a snow-drop.

The days short, dank and cold. The nights long and claustrophobic.

It was a harsh winter.

Barbaric temperatures and rain and snow kept us all indoors and behind bars.

The screaming and crying began to echo off the walls, a stereophonic reminder of the responsibilities of fatherhood.

And then I became sick. It was inevitable.

It was winter. I wasn’t sleeping. I was stressed

It was probably just a normal virus, the kind of winter sickness as a young single man I would have cast off within days.

But in this new state it lingered. For days. For weeks. For months.

I eventually began to shake the virus off and we moved into Spring, my son getting stronger, the night feeds becoming less, my daughter becoming more accepting.

It was still incredibly difficult, harder than I ever thought it was going to be. But there were signs that things were changing.

I once caught the two of them sitting and giggling at each other. It lasted a full four minutes. Four minutes of beautiful, unreserved joy.

I stood and watched and listened, daring not to move, lest the spell be broken, letting the beautiful and heart breaking sound of their euphoria break over me.

And this summer, a brilliantly tempting vision of a potential future has started to shimmer, mirage-like, on the horizon.

With the weather getting better and the back door frequently open they have both started piling outside together; a little crackling ball of fizzing energy, rampaging around the garden, pulling up flowers, eating worms, falling over, getting up, noses in EVERY corner.

No stone unturned.

Six months ago, they were screaming and crying and hanging off my legs and ankles, demanding attention, demanding time, demanding food, demanding love. Now there is occasionally peace.

They will be reading together

They will be in the sand pit together

They will be hunting for slugs together.

My daughter always initiating, my son the little wobbly accomplice.

And just this week an event happened that inspired this whole post. An event that is still as poignant now as it was all those days ago.

I was upstairs in the bathroom, facilitating the bedtime routine. It is easier these days.

But this night the kids disappeared. I heard joyful giggling. I called out to them to come.

Nothing. Just giggling. Lots of giggling.

I called again.

Nothing. More giggling.

I started to get annoyed. That familiar feeling of bedtime routines coming back, the knot of tension building in my chest. I strode into the bedroom ready to admonish.

I stopped in my tracks. I paused. And then I let out a huge belly laugh.

In front of me were my kids. They were both stood there, cheeky grins on face, staring at me, waiting for my reaction.

Because on her head, my daughter had her clean knickers, her pigtails sticking out of the leg holes. And on his head, my son was wearing his trousers, the legs of which were dangling down like giant dog ears.

There was something about this simple moment that levelled everything.

In my laugh, months of stress and tension had been unleashed.

And when my kids saw that I was laughing they both burst into hysterics. My son laughed so hard he fell over, the trousers falling further over his eyes. More laughter.

They had planned this together. They wanted to entertain.

That moment made me realise that the crying and screaming and jealousy and tantrums that used to echo around the hollow chambers of my mind, are gradually being replaced by giggles, laughter and squeals of delight.

I can see them every day, forming bonds, entertaining and looking out for each other. They are little buddies.

And that is why tonight I am sitting on the decking writing this post.

Both my children are bathed and washed and safely in bed. They sleep through these days.

And I am looking out over my garden. I am remembering the trousers on head incident and I allow myself another chuckle.

It is a warm, comfortable evening. The sun is setting and the smell of summer jasmine and honeysuckle is carried by a gentle breeze. The shrill cry of Swifts echoes overhead. A lawnmower burrs in the distance, providing a gentle backdrop to this perfect scene.

I have a cold beer.

Tonight I am happy.

Tonight I take a drink to the power of two.

This post originally appeared on the Daddy Cool Project website. The Daddy Cool Project (DCP) is a London-based voluntary organisation which aims to help diminish negative stereotype of dads in the UK. It also highlights the importance and positive impact of fathers and male-role models living and working in today’s society. They do some really great work – go check them out at www.daddycoolproject.org.uk and follow on Twitter @daddycooluk