Yeast

Our youngest little monkey has gone on "nursing strike".

She has given up feeding.

I would have thought that being ten weeks old would preclude you from any sort of industrial action - but she is a Liverpool girl after all.

The original cause of the strike was a nasty little yeast infection in her mouth. After a little jaunt to our local (and absolutely fantastic) children's hospital, the infection has been quashed.

However, being a Scouser, the original event is remembered by her with feelings of anger, injustice and resentment. The pain is held dearly as a prize of embittered existence at the hands of a repressive state. Our neighbours have banded together to launch a campaign against such future infections and have demanded a full inquest as to who was to blame. A whole swathe of floral memorials have been laid outside our house. Local florists have bought new cars. Micky Starke and Jerry Marsden have staged a two-day Mersey Ferry vigil and my friend Pete Wylie has released the charity single "Mouth As Big As The Mersey".

I myself have embarked upon staging a community play called "Yeast" loosely based on the "typically scouse" characters from Carla Lane's "Bread". I hope to cast Louis Emmeric in the lead role as the down-trodden father "Tommy Boswellox" who can't get the alcoholic, middle-class, Tory doctor to stop flogging his servants and write a prescription with a steady hand.

Ani has been disseminating pamphlets to other babies and the strike action is likely to spread nationwide. Already 'dribbling pickets' have been sighted as far north as Southport and a number of direct action events involving chucked nappies and bum-stuff have occurred in the picturesque North-Wales town of Rhyl.

Our very own royal, Ricky Tomlinson, joined the hunger strike this afternoon. However, by late evening he was seen going out for chips.

This is how we actually live in Liverpool.

A Boozy Do

This little blog is supposed to be about family life, which for the past few weeks, I've not had an awful lot of.

The Lady went away with the two babies for a week or so. She often does this when I have a play in its final weeks of rehearsal. It saves her the bother of living with someone who wakes up in the middle of the night bellowing stage directions and sweating, of having to do that monotonous supportive-spouse thing or of having to go to the theatre where it's hot, dark and boring. *

When The Lady goes away I tend to revert back to the behaviour I exhibited as a single bloke.**

It's quite crazy really, I usually live the life of average family guy. My social life now consists of four pints drunk once a week in my local. I participate in the same old conversations with my best friend, my co-writer and a business partner. These are all unfortunately the same person.

We continually repeat ourselves, but don't point this out to each other as we enjoy the ritual. Often, I will stop him in the middle of a story to remind him that he has missed a bit. This doesn't seem odd to either of us. If we have company, we will jointly recount stories - swapping over the role of first person effortlessly. At these times the stories are always about how wild we were before we became fathers. We are, I fear, becoming old farts.

But when The Lady goes away, people don't stop calling me. Somebody must send up a flare or something, or perhaps there's an announcement on local radio: "Jake Ryan who was missing, presumed familied away, was tonight let out on reprieve for a few days. All those who would like to buy him beer should call his mobile now. You should, however, be warned that he will smoke all your fags because he has now 'given up'."

I always intend to have a quiet few nights in but as soon as I get snuggled on the couch up with a mug of tea, intending to watch a japanese film, the phone rings as I take my first sip.

"I can't leave you sitting in by yourself, I'll be along in a taxi in five minutes - we'll have a few." This without doubt means many. I jump at the chance - anything to avoid watching a three hour long, black and white japanese film. This cycle is repeated night after night for a full week. The film gradually becoming a hollow excuse for continual debauchery.

Hangovers are supposed to get worse as you get older - but the ones I used to get in my mid-twenties were really bloody awful. They would be an unrelenting eight-hour roller-coaster of vomiting, headache, paranoia and dry heaves, all accompanied by an deepening sense of mortality and a good slug of existentialist angst.

These days its more like I become a pensioner for a while. I feel fuzzy headed and full of ache. I need frequent naps and milky drinks. Now they last for about a week. I expect they will get longer and longer until I finally do become a pensioner and just stay that way.

The Lady and the babies came back last week expecting a nice bit family time over the half term break. Unfortunately, I totally forgot that I was running a performance project all week. This messed up all the schedules timetables and routines that she holds dear. It caused all sorts of problems. She had to take Ani to have her jabs by herself. A planned family day out was ruined. Tempers were tested, words were spoken.

I forgot to cancel my driving lesson as well.

What came over me?

How could I forget about a week-long project?

Oh, that's right...

... I was quite hungover.



* Besides, there's something a bit uncool, maybe a bit amateur about having all your family and friends turn up to a show when you're thirty-three. It takes you straight back to that awful moment after a school play where you emerge front-of-house to wallow in a puddle of parental approval. Even at the time it felt a bit awkward, quite a shallow experience - particularly as my dad had already pissed off down the pub.


** I say single - in fact as a desperate serial monogamist, the longest I have ever been without a girlfriend since I was nineteen is three weeks. Rubbish I know. I can't help it.
I am actually referring to the times when I had my own place and several friends who were over the age of two.

Still Waters

I'm feeling very calm at the moment.

"Oh, good for you!" you might say to me.

But the thing is, calm is not a state I am accustomed to. It's not something that feels natural. Harassed, stressed, lost, bemused, angry, befuddled, distracted and moody are all things I do on a daily basis. But not C-A-L-M.

I usually wake from a fitful, snorey, asthmatic sleep-like state, often after dreaming that I have been beset by zombies,* and stumble downstairs to flop on to the couch. The Lady and the babies dance around me in a flurry of breakfast, whilst I grunt and watch a random news channel through one rheum-encrusted eye. The Lady then brings me tea, not because I prefer it to coffee, but because she has had all the coffee - every last drop - and is now jumping through flaming hoops, reciting Welsh poetry and polishing the light-bulbs. Incapable of lifting the cup, I wait for it to become luke-warm before tipping it down my snore-battered gullet in one slosh. I then precede to sneeze repeatedly, twice a second, for the next fifteen minutes until I am completely worn out and ready for bed.

It's at that point I realise that I have to write a report, arrange a rehearsal, take the babies to the park, return DVD's that are attracting punishing late fines, have a driving lesson and spend three hours on public transport to travel to a two hour workshop in order to earn some money to give to the student loans company.

It is also at this point that I consider giving up entirely, putting the children into care, selling the missus on eBay and having myself committed to a home for the gently bewildered.

When every day starts this gleefully its difficult not to laugh (hysterically and for hours).

But now I feel C-A-L-M.

Calm just feels wrong, it's like everything is just so easy, my brain is functioning, rational decisions are being made in seconds, witty comments are coming out on cue. If this is how normal people feel all the time, its like they have been cheating at life - taking a cheery shortcut and heading me off at the pass, whilst I have struggled uphill under the weight of a metaphorical backpack filled with angst and recrimination.

Usually my mind is traversing a different time-zone but right now I am entirely present. I feel so controlled, so happy. Like the Buddha perhaps - or at least a cheery postman, one that always whistles, even when the dogs are after him.

But it is not right. Not normal. I keep on catching myself and thinking, "God I feel calm." That in it's self is alien. Plus, I'm worried that much of my creative output is dependent on a sense of unresolved guilt and self loathing and that all I'll be left with is this C-A-L-M.

I'm hoping it might go away of it's own accord.

Is it possible to get something for it? "Doctor, for the past eight years I have been suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder. It left without saying goodbye. I miss it."

If not, I may have to go out out and drink eight pints of Stella Artois and be insulting to everybody I respect and admire. It's worked before...

The thing is, I don't even fancy a drink at the moment. It's like my soul has spent a couple of months in the Priory without informing me. I might have reached a great spiritual epiphany but nobody has let me know about it. Maybe it was a prize from Readers Digest, but I threw the envelope away.

It's quite disconcerting. Worrying in fact. Perhaps its a genetic illness, my grandfather was manic-depressive. He spent a lot of time on mental wards making strange noises. Maybe it's a chemical imbalance, something caused by a small tumour on a gland somewhere. It could even be something terrible growing in my head. Oh god, what's happening to me? I feel terrible! I can't breathe. Oh god I feel anxious!

Ahhh, that's better.

It' good to be back.

*On average I have about two zombie dreams a month. I don't know why. Lately I have started to quite enjoy them.

Soft Play, Hard Lessons.

This is my daughter Mali.

I swore when she was born that I wouldn't become one of those strange, overprotective odd dads that scream at other peoples children and shout in the faces of sheepish mums and dads who's children have just spilt milk on my child's new shellsuit.

I have never in my life felt violent towards a child.

Lord knows, I've had the opportunity. I've worked as a youth worker, a play-group leader, a children's theatre facilitator and museum re-enactor (dressed as a dapper Edwardian Sailor, tying knots on the dockside). I have been severely tested over the years: By abusive kids from hard areas of Liverpool whose dads would smash your knees for confiscating their home-made knife; With whole classrooms stacked to the gills with statemented 'behavioural disorder" kids press-ganged into a drama workshop by a teacher who surrendered to drudgery years before; And most bizarrely a group Orthodox Jewish kids, in the full Hassidic regalia, surrounding me on the dockside and chanting "YOU ARE A SOFTY, YOU ARE A SOFTY! *

But yesterday I felt like kicking a four-year-old's head in.

Don't call social services yet, I have my reasons.

We took the babies to a 'soft play area'. You know the type of place - the whole thing is like a spongy climbing frame that serves chicken nuggets. Children run feral in socks while mothers gather together in quacks** wearing badly fitting, practical clothes and showing obvious signs of nicotine withdrawal.

The only other male who was there approached me sheepishly with the opening gambit, "I can think of better ways of spending a saturday." I smiled, but when he asked the question, "Have you heard any of the footy scores?" I was forced to admit that I don't follow football, which in Liverpool is tantamount to admitting to enjoying dressing as the late queen-mother and going out to tickle policemen. He turned away in disgust.

Ani, our little newborn babba, is too little to enjoy the delights of the play-zone. Or should I say too young. She really is growing very fast. The other day, she put on 4oz overnight*** She is on the 98th percentile of development and although she is only six weeks-old, she has already grown out of three-month baby clothes.

Mali, who is sixteen months old, took to the toddler area like a true pro. Chubbling up the ramps, squeaking down the slides, getting stuck in the pipes and generally just being the cutest, smiliest little monster you ever did see. I was so proud to see her her take on such challenges as the 'big step', 'the steep ramp' and 'the throng of babies'. But then it all went a bit sour...

She was the littlest one in there, you see, and unfortunately, there are some small boys who like to pick on the littlest people they can. It is my theory that little boys like this, unchecked, grow up to be politicians, policemen and driving instructors.****

There is a new, more sensible, social theory being banded about right now that you can spot signs of criminal behaviour in children as young as two. If that is the case, then this little four year-old is going to grow into a fully-fledged twat. The little ginger sod just wouldn't let Mali alone. Every time she went to climb up a ramp or slide down a slope, he was there, doing kung-fu kicks in the air directly in front of face and side-swiping her off the slide.

I smiled and told him that "she's only a little baby," and that he should play with children his own age. To my surprise he fixed me with a hard stare, daring me to challenge him further.

I had hardened his resolve. Deep inside, I started to suspect he had beaten me.

I moved into the play area to protect Mali, eying the boy feverishly, waiting for him to make his move.

He struck.

It was at that point I realised that he really had won. Mali burst into tears and I began to comprehend that there was not much I could do without hurting the child or becoming so angry I terrified him into floods of tears. The latter option was starting to seem tempting when The Lady summoned us both out of the toddler zone, admonishing me with the entirely correct advice that "you shouldn't get into the business of telling other people's children off".

As we left, the little sod stood triumphant, in the middle of the pen, his arms folded insolently across his chest. He had won.

We went home and shared a bag of jelly sweets (vegetarian, of course).

I couldn't stop thinking about it though. I had been beaten by a four year-old.

My eyes filled with tears as I bathed Mali that evening. My baby daughter had suffered her first bout of bullying - and he got away with it.

Until Ani puts on a bit more bulk and can fight on behalf of us all, does anyone know of any seven year-old hitmen? Ones that can give a really nasty Chinese burn?

Thought not.

You bunch of softies.


* I've never told anyone this before but several of the children were also chanting "My father's richer than you." I've selectively edited out this bit of the story for years, being a liberal softy who doesn't wish to perpetuate stereotypes. See, they were right about the softy thing and the fact that their fathers were richer than me - I mean, their dads weren't hanging around a dockside dressed like a clipperty-clop-nobhead for £5.50 an hour, where they?

** I can't find a collective noun for parents. I mean there's some great ones about - a wunch of bankers, a thicket of idiots, a shuffle of bureaucrats, a hangout of nudists and an ambush of widows. No parent noun I'm afraid. I've made up the term 'a quack of parents' after the noise they make just trying to be heard.

*** Or maybe she was just harbouring a massive turd.

**** I will accept my own driving instructor from this distinction as despite being misguidedly right wing, he is mostly okay and was obviously bullied as a child.

How Does This Look?

I've been creating this site on a mac using Safari. It seems fine on that - but I've just had a look using Explorer - not too good at all.

If things look askew from your perspective, could you leave a comment - so I can figure out what's going wrong.

*I've republished with a new blogskin. I hope that this has sorted out all the difficulties.

Lordy, I just want to write funny stuff, not dabble with html!

Chalk and Cheese

We've never spent that much time together, me and The Lady. Since we've met, we've always been pretty much stuck fast upon that old treadmill of work.

In the last six years I've directed, written or devised forty-four plays and short films. All of them, bar three or four stinkers, have been really quite good, have hit their deadlines* and have generally been lovely and touched with a sort of befuddled genius. Of course, I've blown all the goodwill you get from doing excellent work by being rubbish at paperwork, forgetting meetings and not paying people on time because I've lost their invoices, forgotten their names and accidentally set fire to them.**

The Lady has been more productive, she has got a proper job with a proper company and been promoted and earned real money. Her role is to organise things, plan projects stringently, inform people of their roles and ensure that jobs are done in the correct order to the relevant time-scale on the right day of the week. She is very good at this sort of thing. Frighteningly good.

And now we are both at home together while she takes her maternity leave. Working together to look after two babies. Of course it's going so well, I mean our working methods are so similar....

I've always boasted to friends that we don't really argue, we talk through things rationally. What usually happens is this:

1) I state my case.

2) She pulls off a simple trick of emotional blackmail.

3) I apologise and cook supper.

This has worked for us for years. There is no point actually entering into an argument with The Lady anyway. She is convinced that she 100% right 110% of the time. Once, when she had left a broken glass in the sink and I cut my hand cleaning dinner-detritus out of the plug-hole, she asserted that it was my fault for (and I quote) "Cooking food with too many bits in."

As she will not take the blame for anything, I've developed a thick skin and selective deafness over the years. This has helped us both deal with what I regard as her minor mental illness.

But lately, what with two babies to take care of, a house to keep clean and time on our hands, we've just become hyper-sensitive to each other. Conversations now seem to go like this:

Lady: Pass me my glasses.

Me: What?

Lady: Don't you ever listen? God. PASS ME MY GLASSES

Me: Okay, where are they? Did you leave them upstairs? Are they in the car?

Lady: THEY'RE THERE! JESUS! I ONLY ASKED YOU TO PASS MY GLASSES!

Me: WELL, I ONLY ASKED WHERE THEY WHERE... Come on lets calm down a bit, you seem quite stressed.

Lady: WILL YOU STOP SAYING I'M STRESSED.

Me: Well, you are coming over a bit stressed.

Lady: WILL YOU STOP SAYING THAT. IT'S YOU THAT'S STRESSED!

Me: No, I fine.

Lady: YOU ARE. EVERYTHING YOU SAY SEEMS AGGRESSIVE AND SARCASTIC

Me: Like yeh,

Lady: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! FULL OF STRESS.

Me: I'm not.

Lady: STRESS...

Me: LOOK, WILL YOU STOP SAYING I'M STRESSED. I'M FINE. I'M NOT STRESSED. IT'S YOU THAT'S STRESSED. CAN'T YOU SEE, IT'S YOU... YOU'RE PROJECTING YOUR STRESS ON TO ME. GOD, THIS IS FRUSTRATING GRRRRRRRRRR. ANNNGGGHHH. BAHHHHHH.

Lady: Will you calm down Jake.

Then I apologise and make supper.



* Oh apart from that breakthrough commission three years ago - where I got writers block and went to the pub for six months.

** Actually only one person, and it was a small fire.

An Anthology of Infant Turds

What a shitty few weeks we have just had.

A new baby at home, a toddler with a stinking case of the wild shites, not to mention my own forays into the world of demi-vegetarian irritable bowels. It's the stress, you see.

This home has been host to the 2005 shit-olympics. Main events include arse*- wiping, mopping, gagging, bagging, retching and slam dunking the little cornish-pastie** shaped nappies*** into the bin. Not to mention the most important event of all - shirking. Finding exactly the right time to leave the room: which is just as two pre-school botties blow a-blast, leaving your partner to deal with the whole debacle.

The prolonged direct contact with cack has instigated my scientific mind to categorise the various substances I have discovered lurking deep within a baby's underwear.

I proudly present to you: An Anthology of Infant Turds

1) Meconium
This is the Nosferatu of all shits. It's the default, factory-setting poo that comes ready installed in your baby before you get it out of the box. An intense black blob that strangely emits a luminous yellow juice. It is best avoided. If you do come into contact with it, the blob is viscous enough to be craned away with a single cotton bud. However, the juice is all-pervasive and can only be removed with an orbital-sander.

2) Shit-Tsunami
A 'normal' shit will fill a nappy. The Shit-Tsunami fills the room, or at least the baby-grow. How the hell does a two-week-old baby produce enough muck to reach the arm-pits? By sheer willpower? I don't know, but I am considering moving house.

3) Whole-Grain Mustard
Speckled yellow filth. Do not spread on frankfurters.

4) The Stinking Walnut
Has the baby just done a poo? You check the nappy: No it must have just been a fart. But why does the smell not dissipate? Half an hour later you discover the Stinking Walnut lurking guiltily, deep within the nappy.

5) The Odorless Pat.
This is the exact opposite of the walnut. No smell whatsoever. A pound and a half of fresh manure awaits casual inspection. Often goes undetected for hours, if not days. It may need chipping off with a chisel.

6) Poo-dini
The escapologist poo. Has many sub categories including The Runny Omelette, The Chocolate Football and my favourite: The Shitey Slingshot - employed by older babies with the necessary motor skills needed to flip bum-chutney using nappy-leverage.

7) Three Course Meal
During the second stage of weaning, food stays quite undigested. You can clearly identify individual meals, often within the same stripey stool. "Oh the apple pudding looks nice!" Bring a spoon. Waste not want not.

8) Kinder Surprise
Lets face it, every day has something new to offer the bemused and bewildered parent. A different variation every four hours. Something for everyone!

If anyone else was coming to stay in your house who continually shat themselves, screamed for food and was regularly sick upon your shoulder, you'd make polite excuses. But you put up with it gleefully for your progeny knowing full well that as soon as you enter a similar state, they'll stick the house on the market, bung you in a home and take an all inclusive holiday in the Caribbean on the proceedings.

Parenthood hey, all things considered,

it's mostly shit.


* For US readers: this is english for ass. Ass - meaning bottom, not asiatic mule or donkey. Arse is so much more of an expressive word. It's long vowels give much more room for manoeuvre of emphasis. Ass is over before its begun, it has too much assonance - making it sound a wee bit camp.

Speaking of bottoms, the Americans call them fannies, which is our term for front-bottom. It's time we got the whole pan-atlantic bum-thing sorted out for good!

** Or burrito perhaps in the USA.

*** If you are American, I mean diapers. But what's the point of speaking English if you keep on making your own words up? Come the next millennia, you'll have invented new words for absolutely everything and will have created an entirely new language based around requests for carbohydrates and animal fats - but by then it won't matter, the Chinese will rule the earth and will have requisitioned your fat arses to make char-sui dumplings.

Ani

I am proud to announce that our second daughter, Ani Fflur* was born on Friday 19th August at 1.30am.

She is beautiful and she is big. 9lb 12oz at birth to be precise. So big in fact that she could not be delivered in the normal manner. She was born by cesarian.

Its a bit being like ordering a sofa, only to find upon delivery that it's too large for the front door. There's a lot of humming and harring; huffing, puffing and head scratching. Finally, after a protracted struggle you realise that the front window will have to come out.

The Lady in her usual insurpressable manner is back home, running back and forwards, dancing with our one-year-old in the kitchen and vacuuming the floors, the walls, the celling and my face.**

Being a big baby, Ani is very settled. She is feeding well. In fact that is all she is doing: feeding.

This has caused me to ponder, "What would it be like to have an obese kid?" I mean, I'm not exactly svelte myself. I've put on a fair bit of pork since I heard the words, "Jake, I think I might be pregnant," and faced up to fact that I could no longer live my life in the manner of Keith Richards on a stag weekend.

But a big fat kid?

You do see them, don't you? Fat families. Pastie munching parents in wide corduroys, making lightsabre noises with their thighs; their arses - a strange undefined entity between their back-fat and leg-spread - gently swaying in the breeze; with junior in tow, pounding the pavements with his fat feet: a needy whine emanating from his chocolate stained gob, reiterating the fact that his brittle, under-exercised ankles are simply not up to the job carrying his gallumphing heft the full distance to the sweet shop. Come on, its bad enough a child having to grow up with the stigma of a massive dad and a fatty mum without force-feeding the bugger so he grows toffee-tits by the age of ten.

The other angle, I suppose, is the bloater amongst the sticklebacks. The fat kid in the thin family. How embarrassing would that be? "I'd like to introduce you to my daughter, Mary. Unfortunately, she is too fat and hideous to be seen in public, so instead I have brought a marionette of Chancellor Schroder to the christening. Look, I can make him dance..."

Yes, I know, I've been a bit cruel to the fatties. If we all become hideously distended and wobbly-boated in the future I probably deserve all I get. Who knows, next time I move house I might have have to remove the window just to get the bloody kids in.

One thing is for certain though, big or small, fat or thin, there's nothing like looking at your new-born daughter fast asleep in you arms and just trying to imagine just who that person will be.

Promise. Hope.

All just magical.

*Pronounced Annie Flee-ur. Fflur is the old Welsh word for flower.

** Well, I was foolish enough to eat musli.

Swept Up

Still no sign of the new baby.

Christ on a bike! What the hell do you have to do to get a birth around these parts?

Its six days overdue now.

This wouldn't be an issue if the lady's nesting instinct wasn't in overdrive. She's fastidious at the best of times. But now. Oh, heaven help us.. Carpets are being beaten. Wooden floors have been vacuumed, swept and mopped until the varnish has all but dissapeared. The brushed-steel stove is now smooth and shiny. Both myself and our daughter are covered in a thick crust of polish. Somebody stop her!

A kick up the arse

I haven't posted for a while. For two reasons really.

1) I've been running an acting summer school.

2) We are expecting the birth of our second child any minute now.

The summer school is now over. It has been quite nice I have to say, working full time for a bit. Leaving in the morning with the baby crying after me. Returning at night to a whoop of delight and a big smile. When I'm at home with the baby all day I often suspect that she is getting a bit bored of me. My repertoire of songs, games and visual gags is running a bit thin. There's only so many times that you can jump from behind the couch with a tea-cosy on your head blowing a raspberry and be entertaining*.

I've started to wonder is there a script writer who works in the field of baby jokes? There must be a market there. £40 for a selection of brand new visual gags and fresh animal noises** - I'd buy it.

Sometimes I think she regards me with an air of weary resignation. I feel like a bit of emotional furniture that she just always expects to be around. Leaving now and then makes me special again.

But now we are all here. At home. Sitting, waiting for something to happen. The baby is now over-due by four days, which isn't long I know, but its incredibly frustrating. We have tried everything: curries, riding over the speed-bumps at full tilt, cumin tea, raspberry leaf tea, sex, pineapple, blue cohosh, caulophylum, sex, black cohosh, kerb-walking, absailing, sex, bungy-jumping, sex, whitewater rafting with pineapple, the application of woad, chanting, burning sacred cow dung and sex with pineapples.

The two things that she has ruled out are:

1) "the administration of castor oil" (hooray - who needs a pooey pregnant lass hogging the bog all night)

and

2) "the oral application of semen" (boo)

I've got rehearsals starting again next week for a play that goes on stage in mid september, so I'm not ruling out a swift kick up the arse. At the weekend perhaps. When she's not looking.

Oh don't tut. You know I wouldn't really.

I'm nice, me.

Just ask the baby

Preferably when I'm out***


* From a baby's point of view - 1031 times before it stops being amusing.
From an adult point of view - after the third time you lose the will to live.

** I've been quite successful at teaching her animal noises. Too successful perhaps. Her monkey noises are startlingly good. Her human language skills don't come close to her monkey-speak. If things don't reverse soon, we will have to sell her to a circus.

*** And only if you can understand monkey.

Time Please.

What the crackers is going on with the clocks in our house?

They are all different.

Is this the work of The Ministry?

No.

Its something far more sinister than that. It is the doings of The Lady.

"We're late!" I cry.
"No were not, the clock in the car is six and a half minutes fast." She says smugly.

"I can lie in." I declare.
"No, get up. The alarm clock is ten minutes slow."

"Why don't we just change them all to the correct time?" I say, my hand edging towards a timepiece.
"No, leave them." She snaps, "I like to feel that time is against me when I'm on my way to work and that I can't afford to have a lie in."

Its true, the lady is painfully punctual. Even on her days off, he first thing she does every day is rattle off a list of tasks, household duties and perhaps a few brief leisure activities packed into a detailed timetable. I have virtually a clinical aversion to numbers, sequences and timescales. They just seem so limiting.

For most people, time flows one way, and that's great for them, but rather restrictive in terms of insight. Time, being a dimension, is occurring concurrently, so it is perfectly possible to see into the past and the future, just as it is possible to see from side to side.

And so I spend most afternoons gently time-traveling. Of course I can't actually physically visit places - for a start I haven't got the right shoes - and I can't actually change anything either. I can't get the lottery numbers because I've been in to the future and I know I don't win. I can't tell anyone what's going to happen to them because in the future I become terribly introverted and never call them anymore.

It's not much use really.

Other, less enlightened people, call it day dreaming.

My girlfriend says I spend far too much time doing this.

You see, she changes the clocks so she can monopolise time itself. If she is the only one that understands just exactly where we are at any given point, is it any wonder that I spend my days drifting about?

She just tells me I am lazy.

She then informs me that I am late and hands me a timetable of chores.

The Random Interferer

Do you know who I hate?

Who really gets up my nose?

Women. That's who.

Don't worry. I'm not about to jump whole heartedly into a misogynist diatribe against the whole of the female species. To be honest, I'm under the opinion that compared to ladies men are a bit crap and, for the most part, we are happy to admit it*.

I am just taking about a certain type of woman: The Random Interferer.

Most stay at home dads will know these good for nothing busy-bodies very well. They creep up behind you in public parks and accost you in restaurants with the sole aim of instructing you in the fact that, in their opinion, YOU ARE WRONG! You are a man, so no matter how confident, well informed and sensitive a father you are, they feel that they have the right to interfere with your day, make judgments upon your parenting skills and be openly patronising, weird or downright offensive in the name of womankind.

The other day, I was waking in the park with my daughter and, as babies often do, she started crying. Not random whinges but that specific and definite cry that says "I'm hungry." I checked my watch and yes, we were about ten minutes off her usual lunch-time, so we headed back towards the house. Me, shaking bells, rattles and making little effigies of animals dance and sing in an attempt to keep her distracted, giggly and happy. The sun was shining, the birds were singing it was a lovely day. But then:

Gnome-like in stature with a face that looked like she had spent the last forty years chewing on a cob of shite, the Random Interferer made her move. "Yootryina'gedthababit'sleep?"
"What?"
"Yootryina'gedthababit'sleep?"
"Sorry?"
"Are-you-trying-to-get-that-baby-to-sleep." She placed her hand upon her hip and stretched her neck awkwardly into the position of 'arsey', "Because, you're going totally the wrong way about it, if you ask me!"
"Well I'm actually trying to get the baby home, and I'm fairly sure that I am going the right way," I answered, " I live there you see."
I wanted to add, "And no, I didn't ask you. Next time I want parental advice, my first port of call is unlikely to be a gnome in a tracksuit wandering about a park." but I didn't. I was afraid.

It has happened quite a bit. Its not just random gnomes either. Criticism of my choice of restaurant seat will be freely made by seemingly well educated sticky-beaks. "I hope you don't mind me saying love, but I'm a mother of three and I wouldn't sit in an isle seat on a day when soup is on the menu. I hope you don't mind me saying."

Well, yes I do fucking mind. If I was a stressed, angry mum with a ciggie hanging out of my mouth, kicking my child up the arse in the middle of Netto, you'd steer well bleeding clear of offering 'friendly' advice then. It was the only table available and since none of the waiters are dressed as clowns or show obvious signs of having an inner ear infection I think we can stay reasonably safe from flying broth.

All the time, women I have never met:
"She's tired" - She's just woken up.
"She's thirsty," - She's just had her bottle.
"Where are her shoes?" - She's just taken them off.
"She's in the sun," - she's under a parasol and wearing block so fuck off and leave... oh yeh, she is. I'll move her sorry.

The fact is that women feel free to criticise just because I'm a man. Some of it is down to the fact that women know first hand that men are crap at relationships, household chores, parenting and anything else that distracts us from watching the telly. So, there's a bit of forgiveness there on my part.

Some of it is just due to the fact that generally mothers are a bit more uptight than fathers when it comes to risk.
"My god, he's got the electric drill."
"Oh leave him, it's only a 15 volt."

But for the most part, I feel its because the dominant sex is now starting to colonise the traditionally female area of parenting. It is, I suppose, only to be expected as part of a society that feels it is becoming more equal. Some women, especially those who have not felt the benefits of our supposed equality, feel that the little ground they possess is being taken away from them.

Which is all very well, but men don't go up women and tell them how to do their jobs or assume there's certain tasks that they will be less able to do because of their sex.

Don't they?

Oh dear.

The boot's on the other foot - and I can't abide the taste of shoe-polish.



* Especially if it gets us out of the ironing.

Arthur? Martha? Monkey?

monkey
Originally uploaded by nappyfever.

The baby is imminent. By the looks of the lady, it could come any minute.

People keep on asking, "Do you know what you are having?"

I tell them that we are hoping for a human child.

"Oh, so long as its healthy." they sigh.

Which is a nice sentiment, until you examine it closely. Then it becomes a bit fascist. They might as well say "lets hope you don't have a cripple." The fact is that we will love this baby, girl or boy, healthy or sick, able bodied or disabled. (I nearly finished off this sentence with "black or white". But no, I imagine that would be an issue).

To be honest, I really don't know what to hope for. Another little girl would be lovely. You know, sort of like a matching pair. There's only fifteen months between them, so they could be best friends.* It would be very cute to have two little pink toddlers chubbling about. When they are a bit older we can take them to ballet classes and watch them totter about uncontrollably in little ballet shoes. It would be very, very cute.

But girls grow up in to teenager girls and for a few years: yeuch.

I have worked with teenagers for many years; and some girls, not all, but many go through a hideous transformation at about the age of 13-14yrs. A sweet, unassuming twelve-year old gets possessed by the puberty demon and bang! They challenge constantly; they scream and cry if they don't get what they want; and they weave intricate social wars against each other. Two of these creatures in my house at the same time could prove to be unbearable. Particularly if I'm the only chap.

Then there's the prospect of having a boy. I would love to have a son we could do father and son things like... erm ...ahh... oh. Now, this worries me for a number of reasons.

First of all there's football. I'm ashamed to say that I've never been sporty. I have absolutely no idea of who is in which team and who finished where or won whatever. This is a problem. I'm from Liverpool, you see. One of the first questions anyone wants to know when they first meet you is "What team do you support?". There are two responses: I either lie and feign loyalty to a local team or tell the assembled company that I have no interest in football whatsoever.

If I lie I'm swiftly caught out as soon as anyone starts footy talk and that happens every time two or more men meet in the presence of booze. "We should buy defenders...Milito and Ibanez would be nice. Then again, I think we only need one new CB. I'd like to see another forward, I'm not too sure about the Lord of Frodsham yet. I hope he comes good for all he's been through. What do you think Jake?"
Fixed idiot grin: "Yeah, nice. Lovely. Football's nice and that. Isn't it?"

If I state that I have no interest, I may as well stand on a bar-stool and declare in a clear, loud voice, "Do not trust me at all. I am quite frankly, odd. Furthermore, I would like to bum each and every one of you. Hard"

Talking about football is something most men do. It transcends all social, racial and class barriers. You can walk with Kings and keep the common touch and what's more, be a man, my son.

My dad actively dislikes football and I would hate to pass on that social disability to my own child. The problem is that it's too late for me now. To know football takes a lifetime of study, commitment and passion. You can't just go out and start supporting a team or pretend to like football, not without looking like a prize nob.

The other thing is that male intimacy is quite a funny thing. I never had a particularly intimate relationship with my own dad and, not having any sort of real role-model, I'm not sure if I've got the inherited man-skills. I've always had lots of female friends* and found very blokey company a bit uncomfortable.

And finally, I suppose I am a bit of a pussy. Who wants a house-husband / theatre-director dad who makes a really good sweet-potato curry and knows how to get stains out of silk, when Toby-down-the-road's dad drives a big shiny truck and knows how to kill a man with one blow?

So all-in-all a boy would also be a bit difficult.

So when people ask again "What re you hoping for?"

I will respond "A monkey. A lovely uncomplicated monkey-child."

Just think off all the fun we will have.

So Long as it's healthy...




* There's only ten months between my girlfriend and her sister and they are as thick as thieves. Bloody impatient if you ask me. What did her dad do? Ask the midwife to step aside so he could have another try?

** Female friends are like male friends in that you can drink with them and have a laugh, but they are slightly better because they can dance and have tits.

It's a Dad Thing

snoreboar
Originally uploaded by nappyfever.

I'm knackered.

Absolutely shattered.

The baby is sleeping fine though. Lucky wee thing.

My problem is snoring.

Not little night time dozy zeds, but the enormous noise of a pig with sinusitis operating a road-drill.

Now, this wouldn't actually be a problem if I lived down the bottom of a sound-proofed well. I could sleep soundly through the night and then when I woke up there would be a tasty mossy snack and a friendly frog to play with. But I live in a small Victorian two-up two-down with a baby and a lady.

The baby, as I have already mentioned, is mostly fine with the noise but the lady who is now six weeks away from popping a sprog, is sleeping fitfully enough as it is. Add the current hot weather and my snout-sounds to the mix and well, let's just say she's not too happy.

In the night I get kicked awake "Jake, you're snoring!"
"What?"
"You're snoring."
"Yes, well I thought at least one of us should get some sleep." Then I go back to the land of nod. This happens about thirty times a night, the severity of the blows increasing with every instance. I am worried that one night heavy implements might be fatally employed.

I've tried sleeping on the couch but the big leather thing acts as a sort of sounding board, amplifying the sound to that of a prehistoric sabre-tusked pig dancing on kettle drums whilst using some sort of industrial electric toothbrush. It even wakes me up.

I went to the doctor, she referred me to the hospital, who did a sleep study for apnea. This is where you stop breathing but don't quite die about a hundred times a night. I thought it might be an interesting dinner-party-conversation-type-of-illness to have, plus I could use it to explain away the dozy fuckwittedness that has been facet of my personality since childhood. Alas, it turns out I am classified as a "simple snorer". (Simple? It makes me sound like I should be carted around in a mini-bus.) The answer? Loose weight. Less pies. Less bacon. Bugger!

I think snoring is a dad thing. I have always given it a few zeds, but since the baby has come its got gradually worse. My dad also snores. I think all dads do.

Being a bit of an amateur anthropologist, I have recently being concocting various hypotheses over why this should be. At first I thought that maybe its some sort of warning, the loud roar of the alpha male, scaring dangerous juveniles away from the nest. But all the snore really says is: "Fat dad. Knackered. Come in and take the stereo." So that theory was ruled out. Maybe it is just a 'dad thing' after all, I thought to myself.

There are other things that belong to the world of dad. Pajamas become quite essential fatherhood tools. It doesn't seem quite dignified having to get up in the night five times with your wanger flopping about the shop. Also, on a cold night, slippers top the costume off quite well. This is what my father wore. It is what I wear. They are 'dad things'.

But, I read some research recently that said that fifty-percent of British fathers are sleep-deprived.

When people are deprived in one way or another they often become ostentatious. People from the ghetto like to show their worth by sporting lots of bling. If you are a teenager from a poor area in Liverpool, you have to shell out for a £200 tracksuit* and a pair of scally issue Reebok Classics. And men who aren't getting any, drive long, willy-shaped cars. The important thing is to make a show of possessing what you have a limited amount of.

So, by applying this principle we can deduce that:

Snoring is an ostentatious sleep-display, a dad's way of shouting "Look at me everyone, I'm fast a-kip!"

Pajamas are an outward signal to the world that we are getting some (sleep that is).

And, do you know what?

Slippers are our bling.

It's true.

Trust me, it's a dad thing.



*These are also a type of pajama. For that matter, trainers are very much like slippers. Is it any wonder the level of teenage pregnancy is rising?

I Q

Went down to the Albert Dock yesterday to see the tall ships sailing. There was, of course, the usual curfuffle* of getting ourselves and baby into the car, sorting the safety chair out, going back in getting the pram, the changing bag, baby food, emergency food supplies and bottle, bankets, spare blankets, toys rainhood, thermonuclear baby shelter etc. then driving there, finding and paying for a space, barging through crowds so we could get a glimpse of tall ship mast.

It was at that moment I realised:

A) I've never been that into ships, tall or otherwise.

B) Neither has my girlfriend.

C) The baby doesn't even know what one is.

and

D) We have a wonderful river-view from our front window.

Thinking back, it was actually the just about subliminal image of a tall ship passing the window that made me say "Ohhhh, shall we go and see the ships today?" Me Lady responded "Oh I was just thinking the same thing." Of course you bloody were! There's a massive bleeding ship just there! There! One that neither of us has even bothered to pass comment on!

But we are a family and we must do family things.

The thing families most like to do is queue.

Sundays, bank holiday week-ends, any glimpse of moderate weather and what do we do? We all get in the car and drive until we find a nice log-jam of traffic. Here we shout and swear and bang the dashboard and act all frustrated. But this is all an act, a ritual in fact. We are not really unhappy. This is what we have come for. When the whining from the back-seat has become more than unbearable and inside the car is the same temperature as the filling in a McDonald's apple pie, this is when we are most at ease. We are thoroughly elated.

Once that queue breaks, we scurry as quickly as we can to a theme parrk, such as Alton Towers or Chessington World of Standing to enjoy a variety of differently ordered and shaped lines for an entire afternoon. At last, an activity that we can moan about as a family! By now we are in our element. All we need now is to wait an hour for a slice of plastic-coated bacon and a cup of warm weak tea in a bleading Little Chef and a further hours traffic jam on the way home to justify the £150 quid that we have spent.

It could drive you a bit mad.

After seeing the top of a few masts, we changed tack ourselves and scurried off to a nice restaurant for extra rations. Not a Little Chef but a nice little dockside eatery. We then went home for puddings, coffees and cuddles.

If you stop following the leader, freedom can be ascertainable.

So long as there's not a queue.


* Curfuffle is a confused shuffle with lots of elbow movements. I think.