Dance the Night Away

You may know that my musical and performative abilities have been rudely critiqued on this blog in the past.  If not then please cast a glance over this post and have a quick chuckle at my expense. 

That was my eldest daughter’s opinion, however, it turns out she is not the only critic in my family.  L, who was 2 in August, is following in her older sister’s footsteps.  This evening I happened to be dancing in the kitchen while I was getting the children’s bedtime drinks ready.  This caused much hilarity amongst the children, who seemed to think I was trying to be funny.  That was enough to be a little hurtful, I will admit, but nothing compared to what came next.

A Triumph

On Saturday I went to Triumph Live with my dad.  Now I am no motorbike enthusiast, in fact, I’m not even really a motorbike lukewarmist, I can tell one end of a motorbike apart from the other, mainly because it would be a very brave design choice to put the handle bars on the back, but that is about as far as it goes.  I am a big fan of standing around people as they look at engines and nodding sagely when they talk knowledgeably about sprockets and cam shafts and the occasional carburettor but I couldn’t tell you anything about those things, I wouldn’t know what they looked like never mind what they actually did.  I can be part of a conversation like that whilst not actually following a word of what was being said.  I can point out the windscreen washer fluid inlet funnel, because it has the cool picture on it, and I know where the oil goes because I feel I should, but more than that and I am not the man to help you.  So I was mildly interested to go and see some motorbikes, but i didn’t actually expect to really understand what was going on, especially as part of the day was to go round the Triumph factory, a place that I was expecting to confuse me from the moment I stepped in.  In my head, as I prepared myself to go in I knew that this was going to be a trip in which my ego was going to take a bit of a beating.

It was brilliant.  It was so brilliant that I ended up taking almost a hundred photos which for me is like a normal person taking about a thousand.  This really was something quite wonderful.  There were explanatory plaques and stands, some incredibly intricate machinery and one wonderfully excited father.  The fact that I really hadn’t got a clue what was going on was more than made up for by my dad who was charging around like a small child who doesn’t know which present to open first.  It was like taking my daughter round, I kept having to stop myself from reminding him that he couldn’t touch anything.

Anyway, there were a few things that I really wanted to show you, so I shall now proceed to bombard you with photographic evidence.

Le Tour

I’ve never cycled in the Tour de France.  In fact, of all the major cycling races I can proudly boast an unbroken 100% record for not having competed in them.  Not many men can say that.  Well, maybe the odd one or two.  Anyway, to continue the theme from the previous post of people who think they are having a hard week, I don’t think Le Tour can be as hard as all that.  I’ve ridden a bike and it wasn’t that difficult, and it’s not like any of them are likely to forget how half way around is it? 

Our daughter can’t ride a bike, her main problem is that her feet don’t reach the pedals, and her hands don’t reach the handlebars, and her balance isn’t that great either.  All in all, not a natural cyclist.  She does however have a little pink push-a-long thing that she sits on and rides.  Again, she is not quite up to self propulsion just yet, and so far I’ve been able to convince her that it is not appropriate to fit an internal combustion engine.  I haven’t yet confessed to her that I am not actually competent to fit an engine, nor could I source one at the speed which she demands.

Growing Up

Our little girl is growing up.

From September last year to April of this, otherwise known, in my brain at least, as the Dark Ages, I looked after our daughter by myself for two and a half days a week.   My wife worked four days a week, I worked two and a half and so it fell that I was in sole charge of the beast Tuesday afternoons, Wednesdays and Fridays.  In April my wife gave up her job to look after N full time.  So now I don’t really have any time alone with N.

Until today.  My wife went out from 9-5 today, to attend a Phoenix card trader’s conference, check out the website here.  She went out so it was just me and the child left in the house together.  Alone.  With no adult supervision.  Not a responsible person within 100 yards.  And the two of us had a great day, which was surprising.  I have a great time playing with my daughter, but when I had to look after her by myself before, at least one of us, and occasionally both,  would often be left as a frazzled mess by the end of the day, just desperate for mummy to come back, toys strewn in piles, kitchen utensils flung to the far corners of the house, and smoking holes in the walls.  Today, however, neither of us ended up like that.  When mummy returned she found two people serenely enjoying each other’s company calmly sitting in the lounge just taking in the latest in Thomas the Tank Engine stories.  I believe I have officially graduated and I am henceforth awarding myself the coveted Dad level 2 badge, and its only taken me 18 months.  I‘m so proud.  You can all congratulate me later.

Behold My Works

I’m hot.  This makes me grumpy, and sweeps away any vestiges of comedic ability that I might have.  Which is not great when there is a blog post to write and funnies to be made.  However, in the midst of my wallowing in self pity, which is generally the case with me when the temperature gets up above 20 degrees, about 70 Fahrenheit for those of you who speak foreign, I began to wonder about the little girl, whether she was feeling as hot and grumpy as me.  It would certainly explain the fact that she has just completely demolished one of her toys.  Literally, it is sat in bits in the middle of the floor right now looking reproachfully at me as I write this instead of fixing it.

Hang on, just wait there a moment please.

There, sorry about that, it’s done now, back in pristine condition waiting to be pulled apart again .  Which brings me to a question that I want to ask.  Why is my daughter such a destructoid?  I can foresee a great career in wrecking for her.  I think her dream holiday would be a tour of Britain’s 100 biggest demolition sites.

Water Baby

Have you ever tried to bathe a fish?  You know, give it a really good scrub, get its scales all gleaming and sparkly.  No, me neither, really it was a foolish question, but now that the idea is in your head let me give you a taste of bath night in our house.  It involves no fish, but a fairly good substitute.

Bath night is exciting, mostly for little Miss Jones (we have about a million things that we call our daughter, the vast majority of which are in no way related to her actual name, or any distinguishing features, they just tend to be the first things that pop into our heads.  Some stick, some fall by the wayside in the manner of someone that has just developed a cramp and needs to wait to let it ease off while the rest of the party goes on ahead.  Many of these names will crop up on the blog, I’ll try to flag up that it is the daughter that I am talking about, but sometimes might forget.  Just assume it is).

I think we’ll try that paragraph again, it having been hijacked somewhat. 

Bath night is exciting, mostly for little Miss Jones, less so for her two frazzled parents.  The cycle runs something like this.  She loves going in the bath, hates having her hair washed and then is absolutely determined never to leave the bath in her life once the hair is washed.  There is a very fixed routine for the bath.  Each of the various stages coming with their own particular challenges and dangers.

She's a girl!

Shopping has never been my favourite activity.  Along with millions of other men, I dreaded a shopping trip and would spend the entire time making snide comments about anything and everything.  Being a father has not really changed my feelings towards shopping, it has, however, ramped up my dread for these occasions.

I first noticed a real change in the shopping experience when people suddenly started stopping us to look at the Buglet and chat to us.  This caught me totally by surprise, it was not a practice in which I had engaged before having the child and I was just not expecting complete strangers to strike up a conversation amongst the processed meats.  For a start, why couldn’t they have picked a more exotic aisle to examine my child in?

A question of children

I had an interview today.  It went quite well thank you.  Why is it that you always come out of an interview feeling like you must have sounded like a complete idiot, as though you have been answering the questions in Hebrew, whilst standing on your head and juggling with your feet.  Or is it just me?  And anyway, if I had done all of those things I think they should just give me the job, who else do you know that can speak Hebrew and juggle with their feet?

All of this interview stuff got me thinking, unfortunately none of it was fit to publish as a blog post so I did what I always do in tight corners and asked my wife what I should write about.  That, by the way, is not the best question to ask when the tight corner you are in is surrounded by panthers. So here we are, with a simple question to answer.  What would you ask if you were interviewing prospective parents?

They're not Terry's, they're ours, unfortunately.

7 years ago today I watched the woman of my dreams walk up the aisle towards me as I waited to become a married man, and whilst this blog isn’t about me and her I feel like it is appropriate to take a little time to think about 7 wonderful years.

Enough time?  Good, now back to the calamities. 

We use cloth, reusable nappies, the majority of which are shaped.  Just like this.

I'll never look this clean ever again

 However, we also have some square terry nappies, which are just like this. 

Doesn't look like it could make a grown man cry does it?

Here are a few of my favourite things

One of the great things about being a new parent is all the really incredibly disgusting things that you suddenly get to try out first hand.  No, really, I distinctly remember whilst I was growing up yearning for the day when I would get to wipe the snot off my baby’s face with my bare hands because she needed to look good and there was nothing else available.  If there is one thing that new parents learn it’s that there are no lengths they will not go to for their child.  Anyway, here is my, totally non-exhaustive (believe me, there are some things that are just too horrendous to use electrons on), list of things that I never imagined I would do, guess where the snot thing comes.