Children are both disgusting and awesome, and so are dads. When you mix dads and toddlers you increase the awesome as well as increasing the disgust. It is a potent and dangerous cocktail, and one that I am abusing to the max.
While A-Rex lies there constantly sharting, Feliciraptor is learning all the skills needed for a starring role in an Adam Sandler film. Much to the chagrin of Mommy-G and assorted relatives one of my daughter’s favourite phrases is now:
It’s just a fart.
I’m moving jobs, again, and putting the financial well being of our household at risk. It may be the case that I’m getting a (significant) pay rise but I’m trading that for job security. I’m off to join the world of contracting.
It suits my itinerant nature, I can be like The Littlest Hobo or The Hulk moving from town to town offering my help and wisdom before moving on. Maybe tomorrow I’ll settle down but for today I’ll take the rewards. What’s the worst that could happen?
Other than having no job?
Mrs V wants a holiday, don’t we all, and the thought of flying off to a Greek Island is very tempting (but not possible at the moment). To be able to jump in an aluminium tube and jet off somewhere warmer is now a common occurrence, but when I was younger it was a lot more exotic.
Sounding classier than it actually was, Britannia Airways was the package holiday charter aircraft of choice. If you were on a BY flight you were likely to be going to Spain or Greece. This was not a code you would really find on the boards at LAX or JFK. If you were on a Britannia flight you were going on a Thomson’s holiday (mainly due to the fact they were owned by the Thomson Group).
We’ve officially had our first failed Snowpocalypse of the year, the whole of the UK was warned about the impeding doom from some cold water in the sky, and it sends everyone into a tizzy. We start to panic at the mere mention of a flutter, and start to prepare our survival bunkers.
One flake is enough to send the shivers through a Brit, murmurs and rumours of “is there enough food” spread and settle more heavily than the frozen precipitation. We have had some light snow, and it is the end of civilisation. Needless to say the country’s reaction is the same as it is every year.
It’s hard work in the morning, it’s dark and cold outside but inside it’s dark and warm. This does not make it easy to get up and out from under the duvet, so it becomes harder and tougher to wake up in the morning. It’s not just me that is affected either.
The Feliciraptor is also struggling with the lack of sunlight in the morning. I will go in to wake her up and even though she is seven she acts like a teenager and just rolls over. Rolls over in that “go away I am refusing to get up” way, and accompanies it with cries of “back to bed” when I pick her out of her bed.
Self-deprecation is a British past-time, we don’t really go in for trumpet blowing. As a native of those Isles I follow this national stereotype like an ardent tea drinker. There are very few times I stand up and say I am good at something preferring to sit down and let others take the credit.
I must be good at some things, if I was a complete failure I’m not sure I would be in such a good place in life. What if I wasn’t so humble? Maybe I should take the opportunity to tell the world what I am good at? Do I have a unique ability or skill that I want to shout about and get my horn out for a blowing?
The simple answer is no.
Dirty nappies, bottles to wash, uncertain stains to clean. As a parent, I had plenty of those and was happy the day arrived I no longer had to deal with them. The only item of parenting detritus I have conflicting feelings over are the specific items of child paraphernalia I have amassed a copious amount of.
Child artwork.
I have scribblings and paintings aplenty, pasta and food pictures galore. You want glued boxes I got twenty, but who cares, I want more.
The holiday imposed exile from work has ended, and I need to get myself back wanting a day behind a computer. Over the past fortnight I’ve got out of the habit in many ways, from getting dressed in the morning to having to click a mouse all day long.
One aspect of work that I have not done while at home is to pick up a pen. I’ve had no need of a biro to jot a note nor a fountain pen to sign my name. This is just as well as my handwritten word is worse than my typed.
I am spending a long time on the stairs, not going up or down but trying to make an angry little man stay on one step. Looking at pictures of him from years past it is scary just how much he has come along from the lump of DNA to a strong-minded 4 year old.
It is in those moments where you are dealing with a screaming child that you realise every moment is just hurtling by. It does not seem all that long ago that we were fighting the same battle with the Feliciraptor.
It’s the first week of January which means it is the traditional time to break all the resolutions that we all set a few days ago.
I am always confused why people determine that they will change their lives based upon the arbitrary date chosen to start a new calendar. Is there a difference to your willpower from the 31st December to the 1st January, what is it about the changing of the year that makes people decide that this is now the point at which they are going to the gym or to sort out their lives?
Viva Ergo Sum 