Feaster

Easter has always confused me.

Not just because the date changes every year.

Not just because some schools taken the holiday, while others stick to set dates or weeks of the month.

Not just because some of us work Good Friday, and some of us take Monday and Tuesday as holiday.

But mainly because we seem to buy loads of over priced and pointless chocolate eggs.

Ok, so they are supposed to symbolise new life, resurrection or similar, whatever similar could be.

To me though, they just represent buying, and getting ripped off in the process, for the sake of it.

It may be down to the fact that we used to get a few Easter eggs as children. Ours were always bought by our great aunts and uncle, who couldn’t realistically be told not to.

Our parents always bought us something at Easter if we deserved it, like a toy or CD.

My late Wife always insisted on chocolate. Albeit in the form of as many slabs of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk that my allocation for an Easter egg would buy.

There is the two morals. Don’t buy things for the sake of it. And if you are going to buy chocolate, buy it as cost effectively as possible.

My child got a shed load of eggs from all sorts of places and people. If he ate them all, he would be six stone, and have no teeth.

In fact, even with my egg consumption management he still managed to eat enough to be sick.

It disappoints me that some of the people that bought unnecessary eggs are parents too.

Hopefully by me not returning the unwelcome favour, this will be the last year they do so.

The Dummy Has Gone

And I don’t mean me.

I’m about a year behind my desired target date for ridding my Child of his night-time mouth companion.

He’s had a dummy from a few weeks old. At first it was a relief and a sleep aid, but shortly afterwards became the reason why he would wake as a child. One of life’s Catch-22’s.

As he became a toddler, I set myself the target of having it gone on or around his second birthday. This was delayed by a cold, for him, and the dummy seemed to help him settle so it stayed for a few weeks.

I set a new target of New Year, which was only a month past his second birthday anyhow.

Cue Chickenpox and a Father who couldn’t put his child through any more misery.

And since then other things have taken precedence, like his introduction to nursery and the very stressful potty training.

He’s also always had a ‘blue’ which he takes to bed with him. It’s a fluffy scarf, predictably in several shades of blue.

I’ve never really been worried about that, but that may well be because one of my good friends has always called me Linus, after I admitted to having a security blanket as a young child.

I saw this Easter period as a good time to get rid of the dummy. Lots of chocolate eggs to bribe him with, and we were away for a few days, so not really in the normal routine and environment.

After a few tears, and bribery with extra bedtime reading, the dummy was reluctantly forgotten.

I hope it continues while we are home.

Out Of Office, Well, Without Internet Access

I'm playing truant for a week.

We're off to North Wales for some good old family fun. I hope the weather is ok and picks up, or I could be back before the ink on this post has dried.

When You Gotta Go, You Go

Or so I thought.

I’ve typed before, as well as spouting from my face, that potty training has not been the most enjoyable part of my parenting experience.

It’s forever challenging as your child develops their bowel and bladder control, matching this with there every ongoing routine evolution and lifestyle.

What I mean is it’s one thing to have them cracked at home, another at nursery and then there’s the outside world.

The outside world can be as close as the journey from the nursery to home, or even in our case last week, from the nursery to the car.

My little treasure was caught short as he was about to board our vehicle home. The school was too far back, so I chose the drain at the rear of the car.

A couple of parents gave the wincing look, but I would like to know what the alternative was.

Probably taking a wee at the nursery before we leave, which believe me has now been included into our current routine, especially when I suspect my child will be playing for at least 10 minutes on the school’s outdoor activity centre, before we even head for our transport.

It’s not the first time we’ve been caught short, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I’d even prepared, and carried, an empty bottle for our recent London trip, which I knew would include several toilet-less tube journeys.

We’re not on our own, and I was chatting in the village bakery today, to a lady whose similarly aged daughter had been chastised by an elderly member of the public, for recently short-cutting the route to the main sewer.

Now that’s another issue, because the child should never be chastised for that. If there’s a problem with it I want to hear it, after all, it's me, or this girl's parent, that have allowed it to happen.

Interesting this lady believes that it is still legal for a man to relieve himself onto the rear wheel of a public bus.

Would be interesting to see what sort of reaction I got testing that theorem. What this space, or Central News anyway.

Big Barn Farm

Now the thought of watching a load of talking animals, à la Charlotte’s Web, would normally fill me with dread.

But the BBC’s Big Barn Farm has been an absolute delight this week.

Basically it seems to be genuine farm footage, yet the animals are digitally tweaked – don’t tell junior, and actually appear to be talking.

If you haven’t seen it, you can catch it again on the BBC’s wonderful iPlayer.

This has really engaged my child, and at 8 O’clock, when breakfast and the nursery bag need to be sorted, it really is a timely bonus.

He’s always been obsessed with things talking and often hands me stuff, like plastic sharks, and asks me to get them to talk.

It’s obviously me talking, as I often don’t change my voice, and I most definitely don’t have the panache of Keith Harris.

In fact the regular bath time talker, the aforementioned shark, has gone AWOL since our trip to London. I will have to look much harder for that bad-boy.

Anyway, Max always looks at these ‘talking’ objects so intently and has great conversations with them. It brings out a creative side in both of us.

I really enjoy talking to him through these plastic and stuffed animals, and sometimes they come in useful to encourage things like teeth brushing and getting into bed.

Long may it continue and it beats Jedi Knight bashing any day of the week.

No Homework Son, Well At Least Until You Are 11

What a great idea. No, seriously it is.

It’s not often that teachers have them, I should know my Mother was in the teaching cult for many years. But by jove, it looks like this is a blinder.

I find the very idea of a five year old having homework ridiculous. Indeed, I’m aware that they do have homework. I’ve actually assisted a few of my own son’s older friends with theirs and taken an interest when prompted by these particular children.

But even in these very young kids, I can see evidence of growing boredom and frustration. Homework just doesn’t make learning fun.

I suppose I’m a little biased. While not a dead loss at school, I wouldn’t class myself as an academic. I got all my GCSE’s at C grade and above, and a couple of lower grade A-Levels, without really putting any effort in.

Effort, for which I found the motivation well and truly hidden.

When I can’t see the point of learning certain things, I quickly shut down and do the least amount possible. My parents used to love seeing the recurring statement - He does the least amount possible to pass - in my not-so-impressive school reports.

However I’ve always recognised the importance of information, and I kept learning alongside my professional career, and have a fairly broad range of professional qualifications. These went along nicely with my various existances and roles at the time.

I believe home life for young children should still be one that harbours quality learning and understanding. But I firmly believe it should be distanced as far from school as much as is actually possible.

Ok, if your child wants to go through his or her times tables again that’s fine, boring and single subject obsessed, but fine.

Rounding is a parent’s job. Exposing children to all facets of life and experiences is what I believe we are charged to do.

I’m not looking forward to helping out with the homework, though I shall always be praising for relative good performance, effort and understanding.

I hope my son will look forward to coming home, as much, or selfishly I suppose, a little more, than he looks forward to going to school.

There will be no timetable in our gaff, unless it suits us both. Long may the un-homework hindered extra-curriculum exploring continue.

Tantrum City Central

We’re just back from a wonderful weekend away in our nation’s capital.

I enjoy visits to London, no less because I enjoy not living there, but also because it has some great places to visit and some fantastic people living there.

We’ve been as a duo, Max and I, several times now. Each time has been a bit of adventure for both of us. I’m not sure who enjoys the trips more, but they are certainly always fun.

This time we repeated a day we’d done before. As our visits to the Natural History and Science museums had been such a success, I decided we should do them again.

Max is obviously older and, as I’d thought, enjoyed more of the museums this time. They were more than just dinosaurs and a water garden.

Anyway, on this trip it was the first time we were going, or more specifically, Max was going commando. Last time he was well and truly in the midst of potty training.

I’d planned for all eventualities, even packing a decent sized empty bottle in our day bag for emergencies on the tube.

It was not needed and Max was ever-so-well behaved on our various tube journeys and museum stops. I thought he deserved a reward, or prize, as he says, and when in London, where better to go than Hamleys.

We got there late afternoon, both reasonably exhausted. There was a Lego Starwars display as we walked in, which Max went mad for – which in itself is another story, but I got the instant feeling this would be a quick shop.

How wrong I was.

Normally well mannered in situations of reward, Max insisted he wanted a huge Imperial Starship set, that would have set us back at least this month's Child Benefit.

I offered smaller, more acceptable alternatives, but we hit an impass.

After several minutes of whining I bit the bullet, and picked Max up, leaving the shop with him empty handed, and kicking and screaming, obviously.

He didn’t really calm down until were well on the well home, and the not-so-grateful recipiants of several all too knowing glances.

It didn’t really spoil a lovely day, more a lesson learned.

Max had a nap on my shoulder on the tube back, he seemed fine once he’d had a bit of shut-eye.

In fact, he almost recited what I’d said to him. ‘I couldn’t have the big set could I Dad?’ he sort-of stated ‘But never mind Dad.'

Indeed.

When The Grapevine Just Grows Grapes

I’ve often found it difficult to explain my situation, especially to people I’ve only just met.

It isn’t easy to spin “I’m a widower,” in a positive manner.

I’ve tried many different lines, the harsh and soft approach, but either way it never sounds good, and brings about a lot of different reactions.

One perceived advantage to a village, with a nosier network than that of a built-up suburban zone, was that I wouldn’t need to explain my situation to many. My news would simply spread.

That doesn’t seem to have panned out.

As I actually want people to spread this information, I guess it goes against the very grain of a good gossip, and as such doesn’t get proliferated liberally.

Recently I was asked at a small playgroup we’ve been attending since September, what my wife does. I had previously told a few of the dozen or so parents that go to that group, and they all link together or know each other, yet still my news seems a bit of a secret.

Last week my lovely sister was mistaken for Max’s Mom in the queue for the nursery.

“We don’t get to see Max’s Mommy very much.” Sadly neither do we. See, it sounds horrible doesn’t it?

I don’t want sympathy, I don’t want people to look at us, particularly Max, with sad eyes, I just want to people around us to feel comfortable. And to involve us as much as they would any 2.4 picture perfect family.

We don’t need allowances, we are grateful for what we have – many are in a much worse position than us. We would be grateful if people talked about us a bit, without making our situation a taboo subject, which it really isn’t.

I'm comfortable talking about any aspect of my, or our, life, but it's easier if the other party already knows the basics.

To The Max

I’ve always loved my son’s name. My wife and I had long decided on what our first born would be called, we even had both genders covered.

My liking of his name, and for that matter our choice for a girl, stemmed, rather sadly, from watching Hollyoaks.

At the time Max and Isabelle, or Izzy, were rather rare – or at least they were in my world.

Now J-Lo has even got in on the act, and I must say I like her choice for her other twin. I wonder if she looked here first, and now she’s had the twins she should definitely have a look here.

On a much more local level I can remember the several times that we have come across other Maxs.

One of note was at a local play group. My son had not long been talking and I was interested to see how confused he may get.

Instead of getting confused, and as usual, he was hilarious. “Look Max, that little boy is called Max too, is that confusing?” My little treasure retorted something like “No, but there’s lots of people called Mommy and Daddy here.”

More recently he has pallied-up with another Max at his nursery. They are known as Max N and Max T, or so we thought, we being me and Max T’s parents.

In fact they think they’ve got the rough end of the deal as it makes their three year old sound like some sort of gangster rapper.

But anyway, tonight in the bath we were talking about his day at nursery – just to clarify that’s Max N and myself, I’ve not taken to bathing with other parents.

“Did you play with Max T today son?” I asked.

“Max T?” Puzzled my son, “Who’s he? Do you mean Max Templeton*?”

I hope their friendship grows through school, and as I think about it, I actually share first names with my best friend too.

*Name changed to protect the oh-so-innocent, and to save me from asking for permission.

Anyone Seen My Other Ski?

Well I’m back and I’ve brought all my body parts with me.

They ache a tad. One of my fingers is decidedly off-colour, and my knees are as to be expected, still dodgy.

I found my mini-colossus well and he’d obviously enjoyed his own adventures with his various non-primary careers.

In fact, his Auntie did a sterling job and it feels like they both enjoyed each others company for the few days they had, plus, she got the balance of my euros as a thank you. Sounds like win-win, win, to me.

We did miss each other, and I’m aware that he did ask for me on occasion. More probably for him, because he’s so used to the routine and the owner of each regular task usually being moi.

The very fact that concentration was key on this holiday, helped me to not dwell on what on I was missing, more focus on enjoying what I was doing – or more specifically focus on getting down the side of a mountain in difficult conditions.

Fitness and confidence are very important factors for ski-ing. Factors, while not totally neglected, are not very high on my current list of positive attributes. See, another list.

Conditions in the Samoens weren’t brilliant, too warm and raining. It meant for a lot of slush-puppy ski-ing and at times, in almost zero visibility.

Still, it was a very enjoyable break and I enjoyed the great company of some people I hadn’t even met before.

However I must say now I’m back, the morning warmth of my son getting into bed with me, rather than that of my brother-in-law and our morning bed buddies, has never felt better.

Please, don’t ask.