Honey, We Cloned Ourselves…

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children, Family, funny, Humor, Humour, Life, Relationships, stay-at-home Dad

Any excuse to feature a photograph of Stormtroopers

The missus has been working away a lot recently, last week in Birmingham in the UK and this week in Cannes in France. Birmingham to Cannes – that’s roughly the equivalent of one week in a Thailand prison vs one week in a…well, one week in Cannes.

This working away malarkey has led to me being on my own-some with the kids. Or should I say ‘kid’. You see at the moment my daughter is going through a somewhat annoying phase where she prefers the company of females. This is despite me raising her for the last six years. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary upset (for both her and myself), when my partner works away she stays with her grandma – or ‘mamie’, as they prefer to be called in France.

If I’m honest I really can’t complain too much, after all as anyone reading this who is a parent will know – or anyone with half a brain cell for that matter – one kid is much easier than two. I do still miss the kisses and cuddles at bedtime though, I’m not a completely cold-hearted monster.

So I’ve have had  lot more time recently to spend just with my son, and this has led me to reflect on how similar we are to each other. It’s something that’s been pretty obvious for the last few years – or maybe since ‘day one’ if I really think about it – but these last few days have really hammered it home.

He loves reading, he loves having a laugh, he loves video games, he loves to draw, he loves films, he daydreams (a lot) he’s annoying, he whines (a lot) , he’s lazy (very) and sometimes I suspect he wouldn’t be able to find his glasses if they were sat right on the end of his nose. He’s also got a very high-pitched voice that can cut through any other conversation with all the effortless precision of a dentist’s drill.

Yup. He is me.

Obviously not all those characteristics still hold true for me. I’m nowhere near as lazy as I was when I was younger, but this is something that we often lose as we get older. Well, some of us anyway (I’m specifically thinking of my father here, who wouldn’t get out of bed even if his house was on fire, and whose catchphrase was ‘No’, usually in response to the question ‘Can you help me with *insert generic favour here*’ but more often in response to the question ‘Are you physically active?’.)

He even sits to read the same way that I do – curled up in a corner, one legged crossed over the other, completely lost in a far-away world. We both enter creative ‘fugues’ as well now and again – him much more often than me. This is where he becomes obsessed with creating some new thing, drawing some new creature or painting some new portrait. He will not be distracted from his goal until he is spent/it is finished (whichever comes first).

This, obviously, leads us to my daughter. Who is a perfect clone of her mother.

Organised. Strong-minded. Laid back. Friendly. Easy going. Mature.

Stubborn.

As.

Hell.

Yes, unfortunately with this one I think a little bit of me slipped in during the ‘cloning procedure’.

Apart from that though, she is just a mirror image. 2/5 scale size mini-mum, if you like. This also means that she has a tendency to mother her older sibling, something that he used to find annoying, but which he is relying on and appreciating more and more (see: lazy.) Needs his shoes? His sister brings them. Needs more tomato ketchup on his chips? It’s already in her hands. His glasses are dirty? She’s cleaning them. Getting picked on by a bigger kid? She’ll beat them up for him (this last one is a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be true one day.)

Yes, we’ve cloned ourselves quite effectively, and can see ourselves in our kids each day. More and more as they get older.

He has blonde hair though.

Just like our old milkman did back in England.

I’m just saying….

Trapped In The Negative Zone..

Tags

Family, funny, Humor, kids, Life, Parenting, Relationships, stay-at-home Dad

 

All I ever seem to do at the moment is say negative things to the kids. And I don’t mean I’m just hurling abuse at them and saying nasty things – well, perhaps a bit. No, I mean all I’m ever saying is ‘no’ or ‘stop that’ or ‘give up’ or ‘put that down’ or…

The problem, for us anyway, is that they refuse to learn by their mistakes, so instead of understanding that what they have done is wrong, followed by them stopping doing it, they just do it again. It may not be that exact day, but they will inevitably repeat it.

Hitting each other, leaving rubbish everywhere, not doing what they are told, hitting each other, not tidying their rooms, interrupting people when they are talking, fidgeting ALL THE TIME, talking too loudly, being disrespectful, hitting each other…

I’ve been working a lot recently, in a travel and tourism office, and so my partner has had the kids to herself full time at the weekends, as tourism offices have family-unfriendly hours. This has led to her experiencing what I am only too familiar with: being bored by the sound of your own voice.

It’s generally after lunch that it hits you, after you have spent all morning with the kids, telling them to stop doing whatever it is they shouldn’t be doing. You sort of step outside of your body and start hearing what you sound like: a stuck record. A stuck record that just drones on and on and on in a Yorkshire accent.

I know some people may be thinking things like ‘why don’t you try to be nicer’ and ‘it’s your own fault’ and ‘what’s Yorkshire?’. And I wish I could be nicer and I know it’s my own fault to a degree, but I’m just not that sort of a parent. Oh and Yorkshire is a county in England.

Sometimes I see ‘positive reinforcement’ parents babbling away at their kids, in soothing tones, talking about ‘unkind words’ and ‘unkind hands’ and calling their kids things like ‘angel’ and ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’, and I want to be them.

But then I see their kids kick them in the knees two minutes later, before running away after refusing to eat their fruit-based-snack and I realise that they are just the same as I am. They are just fighting the natural order of things. But they will learn, they will turn to the dark side once Tarquin or Felicity has drawn ‘Mummy is a Dog’ on the wall in their own faeces.

I wonder if there will ever be a day when I get through a full 24 hours without shouting at my kids, a blissful day of no arguments, and no fighting. But that day will never come to pass, and I know why.

Because they are my kids, and they have my spirit flowing through them – and I was an even bigger dick in my day than they are.

And you know what, after all that moaning that I’ve just made you read? I don’t think I would really want to have it any other way…

 

…OK, maybe a quiet Saturday morning once a year would be nice. One can but dream…

Games I Play With My Kids (That I Invented)…

Tags

entertainment, Family, fun, funny, games, Humor, Humour, kids, Life, Relationships, stay-at-home Dad

 

There are loads of games you can play with your kids aren’t there? Hide n’ Seek, tag, musical statues, sleeping lions etc. I however have become a pioneer in this field and have decided to do what no other parent has ever done: I have invented my own kids’ games.

Wow! I mean, I bet your mind is blown right now, isn’t it?*

So without further ado here is my current selection of games. I say current because the games change as they grow older, and what they love today they may not necessarily love next week. Or tomorrow for that matter.

 

To The Moon

For: both kids

Necessary props? A swing set

This game involves me having one or more of my kids on the swings. I then ‘check their tickets’, these tickets being purely imaginary. All details on the tickets have to correspond with each child, and they must agree with each and every detail. So for instance if I say that their name is Lord Poopy Pants the Third, and that their favourite hobby is eating rotten squids with snails, then they have to agree.

I also say all this in an South African accent. I do not know why I do this.

Once they have agreed to all details on the tickets then they may ‘go to the moon’. This simply involves me counting down from 1,000,000 or sometimes just 100 in a very haphazard manner e.g: 999, 12, 6, 57, ZERO! And I then launch them as hard as I safely can on the swings.

I am then obliged to relaunch them multiple times, verifying new details on new tickets each time, and must also keep their momentum up by pushing them several times – even though they both now know how to do it themselves.

 

Plants VS Zombies

For: both kids

Necessary props? just us

 

This is a variation on the popular mobile video game. Except played in real life of course. Now before you start thinking I am one of those amazing parents who designs plant costumes for his kids, and wears authentic zombie make-up to chase them around the garden let me reassure you: I could honestly not be bothered to do any of that, so it’s just me in my coat (depending on the weather) slowly chasing my kids around the garden and moaning and shambling like a zombie.

I am always the zombie. They let me be a plant once, oh what a happy day that was.

I also get hit now and again as the kids have to ‘defeat’ me, and they are both at that age where they are somewhat dangerous. My son because he is eight and can throw things with some force, and my daughter because she is five and is at the same level as my testicles.

 

Poo Lamps

For: my daughter

Necessary props? lights and a dark night (is nighttime a prop?)

This game is one which we generally play at night before bedtime. This is because it involves us looking out of our upstairs bedroom window and counting how many poo lamps we can see.

Now for the uninitiated – by which I mean everyone – poo lamps are poos that have been laid by cats in our garden that glow in the night.

In reality they are actually my many, many solar lights and any other neighbourhood lights that may be lit at that time. So three solar lights, two lights in the neighbour’s house = five poo lamps that night.

Sometimes my daughter improvises and counts the moon and the stars too. On nights like that the game can go on a while.

As it’s not dark now until after she goes to bed she has taken to counting the next-door neighbour’s chickens – around ten of them in total – and she still classifies them as poo lamps…

 

Pizza Delivery Foot Phone Call

For: my daughter

Necessary props? one of my daughter’s sweaty little feet

This game involves me using one of my daughter’s feet as a mock telephone. I place one of these damp little things – left or right, we have no set preference – next to my ear and pretend to phone a pizza shop. My daughter is the ‘chef’ and answers the call. I then place an order and verify each item, however I must always, always pretend to get annoyed with her if she does not have what I ask, or if she has something that I think she shouldn’t. Here’s a brief example:

Me: Can I order a pizza please?

Her: Yes of course, what would you like on it?

Me: Can I have mushrooms?

Her: Yes.

Me: And do you sell Anchovies?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why would you sell Anchovies? they are disgusting and taste awful, you should be shut down for serving those things they smell like poo and make my eyes water! You know each time you eat an Anchovie a demon is born in hell? What are you thinking?

Her: (laughing) OK! OK! We won’t sell Anchovies any more

 

And so on…

 

I Can’t Talk Properly Because My Son Is Crushing My Chest With His Powerful Muscles And Making My Voice Go All Funny

For: my son (surprise, surprise!)

Necessary props? Just me and my son

My son is at that age where he thinks he is very strong and likes to display this power by occasionally pushing over his five-year-old sister and squashing my chest. So this game involves me lying in bed next to him and just having a casual chat with him about day-to-day life. While I am talking however he will start pushing himself – using his bedside cabinet as leverage – into my side and so making my chest constrict and causing my voice to alter.

Of course as my son weighs about the same as a bag of sugar this means I have to pretend that he is very strong and he is doing this, when in fact I am just modulating my voice, much to his amusement. My son is however made out of elbows. Hard, bony elbows, approximately 67 I would guess, and these things can really dig into you. The result is that the next day you generally end up with a new bruise that you didn’t have before.

But at least he doesn’t bite like his sister.

 

 

So that’s the current crop of games that I have invented for my kids, your read it here first, you don’t need to be constrained by the world’s selection, you can make your own!

All it takes is a bit of imagination and a desire to make your kids shut their bloody mouths for more than five minutes.

 

 

*Tune in next time when I will be showing you how you can teach your kids to go the wrong way UP A SLIDE! OMG! Rule breaker right here!!!

 

I Blame Me, And I’m Not Alone…

Tags

Family, fun, funny, Humor, kids, Life, Nineties, singing

‘I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world’ sings my daughter as we walk down the road. ‘Come on Barbie!’ my son tunelessly adds next to her ‘Let’s go party’. Their warbles bounce off the walls off the (mercifully deserted) street. My partner squeezes my hand a little too tightly and glares at me. Yes, I am responsible for this.

I’m on a serious nineties music kick at the moment. It’s probable all down to that period being tied up with my years of going out ‘dancing’ and drinking. I added quote marks to dancing as if you ever saw me ‘dancing’ you would probably tell me that if at any time in the future I wrote about my ‘dancing’ I would need to use quote marks to differentiate between what most people class as dancing and what I do.

Demon-possessed person being flung around probably covers it best.

It was these tunes that were the background to my youth, or early-to-mid twenties anyway. And so it’s with wistful nostalgia that I’ve been hitting that repository of everything that is YouTube, in order to get my vintage fix. It pains me to type ‘vintage fix’ when referring to the nineties I’m not going to type ‘retro’.

One of the tunes that I wouldn’t normally listen to though is Aqua’s Barbie Girl. That’s because Barbie Girl is, by any definition, a bloody awful song. It’s even worse when you watch the music video of it, then it’s as if someone has vomited skittles into your ears AND your eyes.

It would never be made these days – with its lyrics objectifying women and giving men all the power.

That plus it’s bloody, bloody awful.

I did feel that my daughter would like it though, as she’s very much a girlie girl, and loves all things pink. And all things Barbie. I also thought it might be nice for her to view it with her brother, as a kind of history lesson, and insight into what we used to send to number one in the music charts back in ‘the day’. Sigh.

So yes, I made the mistake of letting them watch it on my tablet, one wet boring Sunday (It’s April so basically pick any Sunday). Oh dear. Whatever possessed me (Not the dance demon at least, his days are done)?

I made the further mistake of leaving my daughter alone with my tablet while I helped my son with some of his crafts. She watched it on a loop, again, and again, and again…

So now I’m in the envious position of being unable to escape the lyrics of the Danish-Norwegian dance-pop. It follows me around, like the worst backing soundtrack you could ever imagine.  To be fair to them both they aren’t causing anywhere near the amount of aural damage that the original song was responsible for.

What’s possibly worse, even worse than the way my partner now looks at me when they start singing it, is the fact that I now hum it to myself. I also correct them if they sing the lyrics incorrectly. So when my daughter sang ‘Come on Barbie let’s go Barbie’ I told her that instead of the second Barbie she should actually sing ‘Let’s go party’.

What’s wrong with me?

I’m going to let them listen to STEPS next.

Tragedy? Yes, yes it is.

King Of The Castle…

Tags

Family, fun, Humour, Life

So we’re having work done on our road at the moment, to drag us kicking and screaming into the 21st century and upgrade our internet to fibre. Woooh!

This has resulted in a LOT of upheaval to parking, traffic, access etc. etc.

One of the bonuses from all this work however is all the machinery that the workers use. The kids love it.

They especially love it when the workers dump a ton of rocks right outside our front door too. I look at it and see something vaguely annoying, and wonder why they couldn’t put it somewhere else.

This is because I am old and grumpy.

My kids see something else, this is because they are young, and have fresh eyes. They see Everest and want to conquer it. So that’s what my son did:

 

Yay! Round of applause! Now go clean your bedroom…son? Son? Why are you running away????

Sandwiched Between Indifference…

Tags

Family, food, fun, funny, Humor, Humour, kids, stay-at-home Dad

On tonight’s menu in Mr Mum’s house we have a veritable feast of delightful foodstuffs, all lovingly prepared to cater to the needs of the individual’s requirements. It may be only sandwiches, but no corners have been cut (literally BOOM BOOM!) in the efforts of the Michelin starred chef that has created this bounty of bread-based, bite-sized taste-bombs, that will surely set the tongues of the tasters alight with joy.

 

For Her

Carefully sectioned into quarters, this sumptuous feast features only the (supermarket) freshest ham available, and with all the fatty bits trimmed off and shoved in the bin, there remains only the choicest pieces of ham to ensure the palate is treated to a veritable pork-based party.

Cucumber has been loving rinsed for three seconds and then sliced to make it look slightly posher than it actually is, and the segments have each been painstakingly, and liberally, salted, to avoid cries of ‘SALT! SALT!’ as has happened from time to time.

Fresh (ish) tomatoes have been added for a little variety, and also because there’s nothing better than cleaning the seed explosion from off of the sofa cover (purchased to protect the sofa underneath from seed explosions*  (*and other things)) when madam bites into them like some kind of animal.

The whole dish is served up on a dazzlingly blue plate emblazoned with Ella and Elsa, or Sarah and Sue or whatever they are called, from the tragi-comedy that is ‘Frozen‘.

 

CRITIC’S RESPONSE

Grunts and chewing noises can be heard and there seems to be a word emitted from the thing on the sofa. Could be ‘Merci‘ or ‘Thanks daddy, I love you‘ or ‘This is delicious, I’m so lucky to have you making this for me‘ but in all likelihood it’s probably ‘Where’s my water?‘.

 

For Him

Eschewing the needless frivolities of cucumbers or tomatoes, this dish is served up in as bare a bones style as possible. This suits the needs of that most exacting of connoisseurs: my son. Who has rigid rules, very much like Fight Club.

These rules basically boil down to:

1. I don’t want any fruit
2. I don’t want any veg
3. I just want ham
4. With bread
5. Or sometimes pasta

With this in mind the meal for sir has been carefully prepared on seedless brown bread – oh yeah, rule number six, I forgot:

6. I don’t want any seeds in my bread

Again all traces of fat have been removed from the ham to ensure only the best meat passes sir’s lips. The resulting mix of bread and ham and butter has been loving shaped in to what one hopes resembles a face. Six consecutive attempts were made to try to lovingly shape it into this, after the first five were what could lovingly be described as ‘nightmare-inducing‘.

The whole meal is beautifully presented on a random beige plate due to sir’s ‘Marvel’s The Avengers‘ plate being out of commission due to an earlier incident involving chocolate.

 

CRITIC’S RESPONSE

‘What’s that?’ (after being told it’s a face) ‘No, it looks weird, it doesn’t look right…where’s my water?’

It’s Just Like Having A Newborn Baby Again…

Tags

Family, funny, Humor, Humour, kids, Life

I know what you are thinking: ‘Why’s he talking about babies and then going and sticking a picture of a water heater above this sentence, instead of a picture of a baby?‘. Well unfortunately* it’s because I am not actually a parent again, it just feels like I am. This is due to the water heater deciding to give up the ghost, doing it at everyone’s favourite time of year too – just after Christmas, the period that is synonymous with people having loads of money to throw around, especially on large, expensive items.

It’s not completely dead though – it’s just slowly, slowly dying. And this is where the newborn baby part comes in. Take a look at the following photo, a fascinating glimpse at the underneath of my beautiful water heater:

That big blue box (from here on in I will refer to big blue box as BBX, just to be lazy) is essential – without it I would not be typing this as I would be swimming around in the downstairs of my flooded home. You see the water heater is dripping – this is how we know it’s dying. Well, that and the fact that the boiler man turned up, took one look at it and said ‘It is dead’ and then told us we would have to pay just under a thousand euros to have a new one fitted. No resurrection for the old one, no band aid to apply, she’s dying and that’s that.

Unfortunately her death rattles consist of a constant drip, drip, drip, which means I have to get up and see to her every few hours, to get rid of the water that has collected in BBX.  No matter the hour, day or night, up I get, bleary-eyed and sleepy and do my duty. It’s this that makes it feel like having a new born baby.

It’s just a little bit wetter, and a lot less smelly.

As for the equipment I have to use to sort this out have a look:

Remember Die Hard With A Vengeance? The scene with the two jugs of water? Exactly like that, except I’m not in the glorious sunshine in New York, I’m squatting down in my bathroom using the measuring jug to empty the water from BBX, and then pouring it into the medium-sized bucket, and then emptying that into the bath. Also Samuel L Jackson lives next-door to me and he comes round and helps me.

OK, part of that is a complete fabrication, but you see what I mean.

This may be one of the most mundane blogs I’ve ever written, but such is my rock and roll life.

I will say one thing though – I’ll take a leaking water heater over an actual new born baby any day of the week.

 

*Unfortunately? Why the hell did I type unfortunately? I’ve seen people with three kids, I’ve heard their screams, their moans of despair, I don’t want that life.

Childcare – It’s Cheap As Chips Here…

Tags

Childcare, England, Family, France, French, kids

Why I love France – reason number 1,028: childcare costs.

The following photographs show the disparity in childcare costs between my new home, France, vs my old home, the UK. The costs in France for a day’s childcare – including meal – are 7 Euros. In the UK you can take that figure and multiply it by a factor of nearly 10. I am not joking about this.

In the UK if you have one child and you pay X amount, and then have another child in the same nursery, you pay X again. Here they adjust the price, so as not to hurt the family wallet too much. So you are already paying a (relative) pittance, and then they add in reduced costs for more children.

This is one of  the reasons why this blog even exists, I had to give up my job in the UK because, when child number two arrived, I was essentially working for nothing. Can you imagine that? Doing a job that does not fulfil you in any way, only to see all your earnings be swallowed up, just so you can pay someone else to look after your kids, because you can’t look after them due to being too busy working to pay them to look after your kids…

It sounds like absolute madness, doesn’t it? But this is the reality that faces many parents in the UK. This is a stark contrast to France, over here they embrace the family and encourage people to have children and enjoy their lives with them. In the UK it sometimes felt like you were being punished for that greatest of all sins: wanting to have more than one child.

I’m conflicted about my own personal situation, having to quit the ‘rat race’, because on the one hand NOBODY should have to stop working because they cannot afford childcare, but on the other hand it gifted me some incredible times with my children. Times that I may never have experienced otherwise, and these memories will last forever.

Some people are lucky, and so have parents/family that can ‘pick up the slack’ and help out with the kids, and thus ease the burden of childcare costs. We didn’t have that, we didn’t have that ‘support network’, as they call it in the UK. And this is another one of the reasons why we decided to move to France.

This kind of thing is something that parents who are contemplating moving over here really have to factor in to their decision-making, as it is a huge, huge plus. This isn’t even considering the lower costs for other things such as school trips, extra-curricular activities, university etc.

They even adjust the scale in pre-school nurseries to reflect your income, so someone on a lower wage pays a lower rate than that of someone on a higher one.

Yes there are other costs incurred from moving over here but this took a great weight off our family’s financial shoulders and I’d imagine, for many other parents, it would be the same.

How Many Pieces of Lego Have You Hoovered Up?

Tags

annoyances, cleaning, Family, funny, Humour, kids, stay-at-home Dad, toys

I believe I broke through the £300 barrier today – that’s the approximate value of Lego I have hoovered up.

In days gone by I would bend down and pick them up, but then I discovered that ‘accidentally’ hoovering them up was easier. I also realised I was fighting a losing battle, as for every 1 piece I picked up my kids would drop 6 more.

I draw the line at figures (complete figures only, heads still go up the tube) and pieces in excess of 10cm, but everything else is fair game.

They get everywhere. I guarantee that if you look under any parent’s sofa it will look like a Lego-battleground; heads, wheels, arms, blocks, lights, tools, legs, those pointy corner bits – they’re all under there. I recommend the narrow attachment for this. Another tip – if you can’t quite reach them all under there, and you have a rug – drop it at one side of the sofa and the resulting breeze will blow the parts towards you – as well as all the dust-bunnies.

The kids might not be happy, but at least when I go for a pee at 4 a.m I don’t wake the house up with my cries of anguish after stepping on Lisa Simpson’s Lego-head.

Cost-effective? No.

Easier life? Oh yes.

I Don’t Care What Time Of Day It Is, I Hate Clowns….

Tags

Clowns, Family, fear, food, funny, Humor, Life, Phobia, Scary

They all bloat down here…especially if they have TWO Big Macs

We go to McDonald’s now and again. I might have mentioned it. People will frown about that. They will say things like ‘Consumerism’ ‘Frankenstein food’ and ‘I hate McDonald’s’. And to them I say ‘Yes, but have you tried the bacon double cheeseburger?’.

Now I have the kids full time on a Wednesday (thanks to French president Mr Macron, and I really do mean that) we often head there, especially if it’s raining.

It was raining on this grey and miserable Wednesday, so guess where we ended up?

Our trip to McDonald’s today was made more memorable as we were ‘entertained’ by the real-life, in the flesh, French Ronald McDonald, walking around saying bonjour, cava etc.

In case you didn’t notice the picture at the top of the page, he looked liked this:

Note suspicious glare from kid in bottom right of pic

He was walking around chatting away, smiling/grimacing at and cuddling people, with a balloon person accompanying him, making balloon animals for the kids, as if this would in some way alleviate the sheer terror that his form brought out in them and the adults as well. Especially adults like me.

It’s broad daylight, in a busy restaurant, yet this clown, squeaking around in his big red shoes, has got me quaking in mine. I hate clowns, yet have a perverse fascination with them, and have watched every horror film featuring them.

Some of the kids lapped it up, but some reacted like me and so there were plenty of scenes like this one:

I can say, with hand on heart, that he was at least 200% more sinister than the already-creepy-as-fuck UK ones that I used to see from time to time. I can also say that I have never seen my daughter turn away from something as quickly as she did when he approached our table today and tried to engage her in conversation, she was having none of him, his red shoes, his balloon animals or his ghastly painted face.

It was a pity, as the kids really did want one of the balloon animals – my son specified a dog, any colour but pink – but they were not prepared to endure having this painted creature interacting with them in order to get one.

He left half-way through our meal, probably had other venues to terrorise. We did not mourn his passing, and are not looking forward to him being there again.

Shame about the balloon animals though.