A bit of a stitch-up...

I am sitting in my favourite armchair by the window, reading the paper while sipping tea and grimacing.
The reasons for the grimace are twofold: firstly the newspaper has done its best to assure me that the world in general (and the country in particular) is slipping slowly but inexorably into financial meltdown, and secondly because my tea contains artificial sweeteners instead of sugar, and therefore tastes just like a good cup of tea that has been ruined with a teaspoonful of shite.
I have been trying to wean myself off the good stuff and onto a low-calorie alternative for some time, but I have found it surprisingly difficult - none of the products I have tried have met their manufacturers promise of tasting 'just like the real thing'; instead each has had a peculiar tang which seems to have been custom-designed by scientists to render tea undrinkable. All the sweeteners I have tried have seemed unpleasantly chemical, almost metallic, giving a taste which I have come to mentally associate with drinking from a robots shoe - an image which does nothing to contribute to any enjoyment I might take out of the process.
In the background I can hear the hum of a sewing machine, accompanied by the low mutter of conversation and the occasional giggle: my wife is clearly doing some craft project or other with the children that has them enthralled. I have just turned to the sport pages, to read of a shocking recent performance by Arsenal FC that does nothing to lift my mood, when Youngest appears at the door with a message for me:
"Daddy, Mummy says do you want her to fix your floppy willy?"
I look at her. She looks back at me. She doesn't appear to be joking.
"Pardon?" I ask, after the longest pause.
"Mummy wants to know if you want her to stop your willy flopping?" she reiterates.
There is another, longer pause. She looks at me expectantly throughout, while I look at her as if she has just landed from Mars.
"No, she doesn't..." I decide, having mentally worked through as many possible scenarios that could have led to this statement, and finding none that can explain it.
"She does. She has her sewing machine out. She says she can fix it now."
That sounds both implausible and also quite eye-watering. I put down the paper and rise from the chair to investigate. Youngest takes this as a sign that I am willing to participate in....well, whatever it is that my wife has in mind, and runs off ahead, calling over her shoulder: "Go and fetch your pyjamas..."
This is sounding really ominous now. I enter the dining room with some trepidation.
"Where are they, then?" asks my wife as I enter. I notice that the craft project she has been doing is making bunting, but I am not sure that we have much to celebrate. It all seems very incongruous.
"Where are my what?" I ask
"Your pyjamas. The ones with the big hole in the seam at the crotch" she explains.
"That your willy might flop out of, if you wear them again..." clarifies Eldest.
"Oh..." I say.
"Nobody wants to see that..." adds my Wife.
"No!" chorus both girls in unison.
"Um..." I say, usefully.
"Go and get them, while I have the sewing machine out," says my wife. "And get that other pair as well, they look like they're going in the same place, I've no idea why - what is it that you do that seems to destroy pyjamas from the crotch outward?"
"Er..." I reply, by way of explanation.
"They are upstairs" she says, pointedly, with unmasked impatience.
"Upstairs, Daddy..." echoes Youngest.
"In your drawer," adds Eldest, as if dealing with a simpleton.
I go upstairs and find my pyjamas with the torn crotch, then return them to the cabal huddled around the sewing machine. My wife holds up my pyjamas, thrusts her hand through the hole and 'tuts' noisily. My children look at me as if I have committed some kind of hate crime. I back out of the room, feeling inexplicably diminished by the whole experience.
I sit back down in the armchair, and take another gulp of tea. It really does taste bitter.

Long queues and wrong clowns

A seaside town in Cornwall.
I am sitting, pretending to gaze out to sea, but in actual fact my eyesight seems to be deteriorating at an alarming rate so I am just actually gazing vacantly at a vague grey blur: it could be anything, really - but I can hear seagulls, the air smells faintly of fish and the car park was stupidly expensive, so I'm going to go ahead assume it actually is the English seaside. The faint spatter of rain suggests it is, anyway.
Snuggled next to me, gazing out at the scene, (which she can presumably see in far greater clarity) is Eldest. She is wrapped in a black and white polka-dotted waterproof jacket with a hood, which she has zipped it up tightly against the elements, giving her the appearance of a ninja Dalmatian. All I can really see of her is a vague opening that contains a huge pair of eyes, though there must be a mouth in there somewhere as well, because an ice-cream is disappearing into the gap at an alarming rate. Her mother and sister are currently absent, away somewhere queueing for the toilet yet again. We seem to spent a lot of our 'quality leisure time' as a family queueing for toilets. Fortunately, as both our children are girls, this is my wife's responsibility - she tells me that the length of the queue tends to be in inverse proportion to the quality of the surroundings when you finally get to your seat, so I'm pretty happy to not be involved. On this occasion both Wife and Youngest have been gone for quite some time, so I idly wonder if the operation has gone as smoothly as it might - I live in dread of  a repeat of the infamous '2009 Legoland incident' (which was the occasion when after queuing for thirty minutes for the only serviceable cubicle, Youngest decided to exit by sliding out on her back through the gap under the door - leaving it locked from within, to my Wife's embarrassment and the despair of thirty onlookers with crossed legs). I gaze into the middle distance and shudder at the recollection.
"Daddy," asks Eldest, suddenly, "What do you think of your holiday?"
I look down into her hood aperture. What I can see of her looks genuinely interested. I am suddenly quite touched.
"Well," I say "I know the weather's not great, but I'm having a good time. It's always nice to go away together, isn't it? And it's lovely for me to see so much of you and your sister, because I often miss you when I've been at work all day.You're both growing up so quickly, so it's great for me to spend time with you and just relax. So: I like my holiday very much. Thank you for asking."
The hood nods slightly, as if carefully digesting this information.
"What do you think about it?" I ask.
"I think you are a bum-clown" she replies, without missing a beat.
I pause. I must have misheard.
"A what?"
"A bum-clown"
"A bum-clown?"
"Yes - a bum-clown. A clown whose head is a bum."
I gaze sadly back out to sea, lost for words.
"His whole head..." she clarifies.
I nod mutely.
"I just made that up" she adds proudly.
"I see..." I manage to say.
Behind me I can hear raised voices coming from the toilet block. I sigh, and think: four more days and I can go back to work...
"Can I have another ice-cream?" asks Eldest.
"No," I say. "On the whole, I think not..."

Dog, Car, Camera, Car, Road, Rabbit, Tree.

"Please, will you just just stop shouting? Stop shouting. Stop shouting. STOP SHOUTING!"
"But you are shouting..."
"I am shouting because you can't even hear me asking you to stop shouting over the noise you are making. That's better. Thank you."
"I am bored..."
"Shh, now. Daddy is concentrating on driving."
"Can we have a song on?
"Song on! Song on! Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no songs."
"Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no more 'Puff the magic dragon'. Not again. Let's play a game instead."
"I-spy! I-spy! I-SPY!"
"I said stop shouting!"
"Yes, yes, good idea - we can play I-spy."
"Me first! Me first!"
"Me first! Me first!"
"No: me first."
"Stop shouting. Please, will you just stop shouting? How many more times?"
"I tell you what, I'll go first. Are you ready? I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'D'..."
"Dog?"
"Doggie?"
"No."
"It is 'dog', mummy - there was a dog just there."
"Yes, I saw. There was a dog. But that wasn't what I chose."
"Doggie?"
"Why not? You should choose 'dog'. It is a waste if you don't choose 'dog'."
"It is not 'dog'. Any other guesses?"
"Is it 'death in a huge fireball, because the driver can't concentrate'?"
"No. Play properly."
"Is it 'despair'?
"No. Try again."
"Is it 'dog'?"
"Ha ha. Very funny..."
"Doggie?"
"It should be 'dog'..."
"Fine. Fine. Let's say it was 'dog' after all. Well done, all of you..."
"Me next! Me next! My turn!"
"OK, your turn. Off you go."
"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'red'."
"With red? What do you mean, red? 'Red' is not a letter..."
"Car?"
"You can pick a colour or a letter. It's allowed."
"Is it? Since when?"
"Since forever."
"Car?"
"Well, nothing can 'begin with red'. You can't begin with a colour, so you would say, 'something that is coloured red...'
"Just drive, will you? She is five. It is a kids game, not a grammar test. Nobody is scoring her on sentence construction..."
"Car?"
"Yes. It was 'car'. That one in front of us."
"Very good. OK, little one, your turn..."
"Nooo! I want another go."
"But your sister has guessed it...it's her turn."
"That was too short! I made it too easy! I want another go - it will be longer..."
"Yes! Another go!"
"Stop shouting..."
"Okay, well, if you are both happy..."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"No."
"Caravan?"
"No."
"Cat?"
"No."
"Hmmm, are you sure it's not 'car'?"
"No, Daddy, it is not 'car'. I already said so."
"Car?"
"I'm only asking, because last time we played, you said it wasn't 'car', and then at the end you told me it actually was a car, just 'not the one that you meant'..."
"Which was news that Daddy didn't take very well, if I recall..."
"It is not 'car'. We already had 'car' last time. Do you give up?"
"Cloud?"
"No."
"Car?"
"No. Stop saying that. It is not 'car'!"
"OK, we give up."
"It is 'camera'."
"Camera? Camera? Really?"
"Oh, well done. That's an excellent word, sweetheart."
"Where was there a camera?"
"At home."
"Oh, for the love of..."
"Shhh, now. It's your turn."
"I don't want a turn. I'm driving."
"Get on with it."
"Something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Oh, come on, say it properly..."
"Oh, for Heavens sake! Fine. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Yes. Well done. Your turn."
"You can't do that! We had 'car' already. That is cheating."
"Cheating? You think I'm cheating...? When you just had 'camera'?"
"Do another one!"
"Unbelievable..."
"Yes, play properly."
"God. Okay, okay..I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'R'..."
"Rabbit?"
"Rabbit? No. There's no rabbits here..."
"Rhinoceros?"
"Rhinoceros? Rhinoceros? Can you actually see a rhinoceros?"
"Is it 'road'?"
"Yes. Well done."
"I'm seeing a pattern here. Are you just saying the first thing you can see immediately in front of you?"
"No, because then 'R' would be 'red mist', wouldn't it?"
"You're not really trying very hard..."
"That's right, and do you know why? Because I'm driving. I don't know if you've noticed, but in front of me is this sort of wheel, that I keep turning left and right, and what's actually happening is that it's making the car go where I point it..."
"I swear, sometimes it's all I can do to not to slap you upside the head..."
"I'm driving. I have to concentrate."
"The light is red. We're stationary at the moment..."
"Is 'R' for red light, Daddy?"
"Rabbit?"
"Yes, fine, OK, turns out it was 'rabbit' after all. One just magically appeared in the footwell. Well done. Your go."
"Where? Where is there a rabbit? I can't see a rabbit..."
"It's your sisters turn now, darling..."
"But I want to see the rabbit..."
"Shhh, now. Let's just play. Come on sweetie, your turn..."
"I spy...little eye...something beginning with...tree."
"Tree? Beginning with 'tree?'.."
"Yes, tree."
"Is it 'tree'?"
"Yes! Tree! It is 'tree'! Well done."
"That's not right! It can't start with the thing it is! That's CHEATING!"
"Will. You. Please. STOP. SHOUTING!"

(I've wanted to do a post that was 'dialogue only' for a while now, but my apologies to those reading via email subscription, who I suspect have no highlight colours to help them determine who's who...though it may well read better that way, I can't tell...)

Heartstrings, hats and homosexuality

Sigh. Another week, another inevitable series of blows to my pride, like the pounding of tiny hammers. Let's just take a little look at the events that have served to gently erode my self-esteem in the last seven days, shall we?

1) We are all in the car, driving back from visiting my inlaws. Despite the lateness of the hour, our eldest is chattering away like a drunken monkey, filling the car a with a constant stream of good-natured gibberish:
"I love my Mummy," she sings. "And my sister".
"Ah, that's nice" says The Wife. "Anybody else?"
"Tatty Ratty" she says firmly, waving her revolting, dribble-stained toy rabbit.
"Aha. Any other people?" suggests TW, nodding in my direction in a way that she perhaps thinks is discreet, but is in fact anything but.
"No, I don't think so..."
"What about Daddy?"
"No...."
"No?
"No," she says airily. "I like Daddy. But I don't love him..."
I wince visibly. I imagine the snapping of paternal heartstrings can be heard even above the road noise.
"That is not very nice..." chides her mother.
She thinks about this for a while.
"I was only joking you" she announces. "I do love Daddy."
"Good."
"Just not as much as my Mummy and my sister..."

2) My wife and I are attending Parents Evening at the local school. I am delicately reversing the car into a parking space, when my wife suddenly notices the hat I am wearing. It is a knitted woolen hat, of the type favoured by snowboarders, skateboarders and The Youth in general, and in truth it has little business being on the head of a 37 year old man - but then, I am am not wearing it to be urban or edgy: I am wearing it because I am getting old and my head increasingly feels the cold. Sadly, it becomes apparent that I am also wearing it wrong, in some mysterious way:
"What the hell is up with your hat?"
"I'm parking the car dear, could you not shout at me until I've done that? Only the last time we hit a car in a car park it was a Porsche, and the repair bill was pretty costly..."
"You look ridiculous."
"It's a hat. You've seen it before. Many, many times."
"You don't wear it like that!"
"I'm not sure how else you can wear it? You just sort of put it on your head."
"No, no, no. You can't even dress yourself properly, can you? It should go over your ears."
This seems slightly unfair. It is, after all, my hat, along with my head, and indeed my ears. I feel that I have reached the age where I should be able to arrange these three things in a way that best suits me, without a Fashionista harpie shrieking at me (though I do inwardly concede that if my hat were pulled down further over my ears I would not be able to hear her, so there is some merit in the idea).
"Take it off," she commands.
"What?"
"Take it off, in case anybody I know sees you looking like that."
I put the handbrake on. It makes the same grinding noise as my teeth...
"What?" I ask
"There will be people in here that I know. The teachers, other parents..." And she rips the hat off my head, and confiscates it away into her handbag.
"But that is my hat..." I say, both pointlessly and helplessly.
"The way you wear it make you look like a mental patient" she informs me.

3) In a few days, I'm off for a long-planned weekend away with 'the lads', if such a term can be given to a group of men with an average age of 40, who are all married with kids. This trip has been discussed at some length, and my wife has prepared our children for my absence during the coming weekend by explaining that "Daddy is away with his friends", and that while he is "off with the boys" that Mummy and the girls will do lots of nice things together.
However, it appears our eldest has misunderstood the nature of my trip in one very significant way, as is proven when she meets me at the door when I come in from work.
"Come with me, Daddy", she says, taking my hand, and leading me to the dining room. Another five-year-old girl is sitting there, clearly her friend from school.
"This is my Daddy" announces my daughter.
"Hello..." I say
The other girl nods disinterestedly.
"My Daddy is going away at the weekend with his boyfriends..." adds my daughter.
"They are not my boyfriends" I correct her, perhaps a touch too quickly.
"They are..." she insists,
I close my eyes sadly. I can see the inevitable chain of events unfolding in my mind, whereby the visiting girl informs her parents (who in turn inform everybody else we know, and possibly post the news on the Internet) that I enjoy the odd weekend away with my boyfriends. This will make the school run next week a whole lot more interesting...