Now I'm four

Someone once told me..

2010-11-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

Someone once told me that I would find it "interesting" living in a house with two women.

"Pah" I said.

What did they know. Everything seemed fine to me until...

...my 8yr daughter has started exhibiting signs of EXASPERATION with me! How has this happened? Well the answer it pretty obvious and I need look no further than the only other woman in my household - my esteemed wife.

I have to admit though that I exasperate even myself. For example last night I was asked to complete the simple task of picking up Ribena and milk from the shop. Simple you might think. Apparently not.

Incredibly I manage to pick up milk and totally forget Ribena, even though the time between request and purchase was no more than 5 minutes. So when I received a text message asking me where the Ribena was in the house - I was at an event - I could quite understand why the women of my household get frustrated.

And to top it off this morning my daughter said:

"Daddy, how on earth did you manage to forget the Ribena last night"

Fair point.

Just William

2010-11-17T07:13:00.000-08:00

Well well.

My wonderful daughter has now filmed her first feature film. Can't wait to see it as all reports from her manager are that it is incredible.

She has spent the morning at a press launch for a new TV programme.

I would love to say she gets it from me but as I sit here working on my laptop I can't ignore the evidence against me...

2009-03-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

I was going to blog but MUST GO TO BED.

Bachelor life

2009-03-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm home alone now as mini-me and Cameron have gone off on holiday without me. This simply confirms another status I have of "bread-winner". I am left with my laptop and an empty flat whilst my family are swanning around in Spain. THANK YOU.

But on the flip side, anyone that reads my wife's blog will know that our daughter is in a CBEEBIES tv show called the Green Balloon Club, that I am a pushy dad but that I am also incredibly proud of our daughter.

I took mini-me to filming on Sunday. We went to Hackney City Farm which was great. It was full of lots of PLU's in wellington boots and push chairs that cost more than a small family car. We've all seen them - they have bright red hoods (the push chairs) and fancy wheels and exist in newly gentrified parts of London. Lovely place and clearly very well looked after by all the volunteers that, well, volunteer to look after it.

I don't usually do the chaperoning but this time I took the responsibility and went for the day to act as a gopher for the little one, ensuring that she was warm, not hungry and on set when needed. I think I did a good job actually and some people even said that to me although probably out of sympathy than anything else. But it was amazing to watch my little one take on a new persona in front of the camera. She is SO professional, responding to all the direction she was given, concentrating even though there were loads of people watching and generally being the consumate professional. GOOD JOB.

The fascinating thing about a having a child in TV is this. Most people are interested to know what it is like but EVERYONE who is not in it thinks you are pushy. However if I took her to football every week then everyone would say I am a father that takes an interest in their child. I'm intrigued by this. You look at all of the after school classes like gym, ballet, swimming, tennis etc. Particularly where I live they are always full with a 10 yr waiting list - and parents that send their kids to all those classes don't think they are being pushy. Anyone answer this??? Is it TV that does it??

Anyway a great day was had by us all and well done to the Green Team for another great song.

Quality time...

2008-10-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

Whooohoo, my daughter actually chose me to do something for her over my wife today! What a great feeling.

I usually feel like a complete waste of space, unable to perform the most basic of tasks like tieing shoe laces. But this weekend I was invited in to the inner sanctum that is my favoured ones bedroom and asked to move a box of dollies in to the bathroom where apparently a full blown school was in operation. Not only that, I performed the task so well that I was asked back to move a second box - what greater validation could there be for my box-moving prowess...

Today, mini me even declared for all to hear that "I want Daddy to hold my hand when I am on the scooter". Now we're talking. This task is usually the sole domain of my beloved wife who takes on the mantel of a waterski boat and pulls mini me in to town on a regular basis with me ambling along in the background. NOT TODAY!!!

I was like a SunSeeker I was so graceful, towing my daughter in my wake. Nothing could stop me, not even an attempt by my wife to reassert her position as "Head Tower" half way through the walk. I saw off her weak attempt with ease, confident in my new found position of "Cool Daddy".

And what drove this whole thing I hear you ask? Well like all Dad's I've been struggling to get "quality time" with the family and so this weekend, I made a real effort to be the one that was on hand to help the daughter or give her a bath or whatever it took. The payback was almost instantaneous and extremely gratifying.

I now have to ensure that I maintain my position which is pretty bloody difficult from behind a desk with my fingers stuck to a laptop - but I'm damn well going to try!

On no, she's actually growing up

2008-09-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just wonder where the time goes. I've just had an extremely adult conversation with my daughter on the phone and it makes me feel sad that my little girl is growing up so quickly and that I see more of my laptop than I do of her.

Is this really how it's meant to be?

For goodness sake Daddy...

2008-09-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

So this is acually very scary. My daughter has clearly been studying the best way to handle me by secretly watching my wife and the result is that I appear to have inherited a mini-version of the "trouble and strife".

Only last week, the mini one rolled her eyes at me and in an exasperated tone said "Come on Daddy" referring to something I was supposed to have done - in usual man fashion I had nodded but not computed and the task remained incomplete. I have also noticed the mini one glancing at the older one (notice my avoidance of the word "bigger") prior to reacting to anything I've just said. For example, if I attempt to offer advice to said child, she quickly glances at Mummy to see if the advice is acceptable and then either:

a) reacts in a positive way if Mummy's face looks happy or
b) starts crying and walks out the room if Mummy looks like she wants to throttle Daddy for interfering with the upbringing of our joint off-spring.

As the years pass I can see a situation where they both shout at me for not putting away my washing or wander around after me telling me to clear up after myself and that they are not slaves. Come to think of it, I better go home or they'll both be cross with me for staying too long at work...

Shamed in to blogging

2008-09-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

Right, my wife has shamed me in to blogging again but in the same breath told me not to blog unless it comes naturally. This means I'm going to post a blog and then come back and carry on writing about fatherhood tomorrow when "it comes naturally". Good night.

I'm fed up with politicians

2008-04-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

Whilst I'm on a roll, I'd like to say how fed up I am of politicians and politics as a whole. Whatever happened to being voted in to do the best for the country. Now you might not like him, but I admire Ken Livingstone - why I hear you say? The man has balls. I may not agree with everything he believes in but he does an excellent job of being unfettered by political norms.

He personally believed in a congestion charge and everyone else was up in arms. He went ahead because he had a view that it would be better for London, even though the majority was against it. The result has been a reduction in traffic levels and an increase in revenue. There are more busses, more cycle lanes, and generally public transport is getting better in London. According to the Independent,

"At the end of the last decade, London suffered some of the worst congestion levels in Europe. The introduction of the congestion charge had an immediate impact, reducing the amount of traffic in the heart of the capital by about 15 per cent.
About half the drivers who left their cars at home took public transport instead, with the rest getting a lift, using motorbikes or cycles to get to work or avoiding the area altogether. Transport for London (TfL), which administers the scheme, said the overall amount of traffic fell by 21 per cent between 2002 and 2006. The result is that 70,000 fewer vehicles are on the streets every day than before the charge began.
Meanwhile, the number of taxis has risen by 13 per cent, bus and coaches by 25 per cent and bicycles by 49 per cent, confirming significant changes to London's transport patterns over the past five years. TfL says the extension of the charging zone to the West has produced a fall in traffic in the area of between ten and 15 per cent."

My point here is that the man has conviction. He believes in an idea, whether you think it is good or not, and is prepared to run with it and be judged on the outcome.

I wish our country was run like this. There are definitely issues with immigration and violent crime. What does the Goverment do - they launch another initiative targeting the outcome, not the root cause; they tinker with existing policy.

Take teenage crime. The answer is not to bring in tagging or to launch education programmes about the danger of knives and guns. The reason that there are so many problems with unruly teenagers is that they are bored. Plain and simple.

Why are they bored? I believe that a return to the concept of centrally funded youth clubs, a greater emphasis on extra curricular activity, a focus on developing teenage mentors - all of these things would help bring down crime. I witnessed first hand last week five kids in our local branch of Curries. It shuts at 8pm and I was in their looking for a TV. It was almost closing time and they were hanging around looking at DVD's and generally loafing. Every CCTV camera was trained on them and all staff were primed for action. One of them said to the others "I'm bored, let's go hang-out at Tesco."

And therein lies the problem. Whilst we keeping staring at the manifestation of the problem, we miss the problem itself. I'm in sales and I train my team to find the problem. If someone says to me I need X then I want to understand why they need X. They think that the fact they don't have X is the problem. WRONG. X is the solution to a problem they have.

In the same way, the solution to this problem is not to confront the outcome, but to stop it happening in the first place.

Imagine this if you can. You are 15 years old and one of your mates texts you to ask to meet up. They want to hang around outside some late night shop and get some booze. If that is the only alternative to sitting at home watching TV with your parents then you might be interested.

Now imagine if they had a choice. Getting pissed or going indoor climbing, learning to use a recording studio, making a film, hanging out with friends in a sociable and safe atmosphere. When I talk about a youth club above, I don't mean an uncool place where you wouldn'tbe seen dead. I mean a place that offers a better, more fun experience than a bench at Tesco. After all, don't forget that these are kids and underneath the bravado, they all still enjoy a good adventure and doing interesting things with people they like.

How to fund it? Use the National Lottery. Create a national programme designed to put a centre in every major town and large village. The cost will be big no doubt, but what is the cost of youth crime in this country and what price do we put on the life of another teenager.

Back from the Dead

2008-04-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Is anyone there - I doubt it. I'd started to build up a little following of readers on my "Dad Blog" but having not written it for probably over a year, I can't blame them for deserting.

Anyway, I'm now busily engaged with trying to balance my new job at a very cool company called Huddle and being a dad. Huddle is currently winning the battle as I'm seeing the daughter for about 10 mins a day which is not ideal!

Loads has happened since I first started this blog but the main thing is I am now officially a pushy dad (when I have time) and my daughter has a part in a TV show. In a few weeks she is meeting Gordon Brown and David Cameron.....as you do. I'm busy priming her to give Gordon a hard time about the issues with Britain as a whole. Lots of my friends are ringing me up with questions I should get her to ask.

I'm also due to be a best man in a couple of weeks and am sitting looking at the worlds funniest speech ever - I promise it is. Andy at work took the piss out of me today so I am now using Twitter but can't imagine that anyone will ever follow me and my wife turns 30 this weekend - all in all a crazy time as you can see.

Anyway my current woe is that everytime I say something wrong to my daughter she starts crying and runs to Mummy. This usually envolves me being shouted out by both even though my intentions were entirely good. It also usually happens when I feel like I'm actually being a good dad. Only last weekend I was playing in a tent in the house and we were laughing and joking when suddenly I held her foot in the wrong way and it all ended in tears. What can I do?

That's generally the problem. The issue is that I have done something extremely minor in the wrong way - the result is a deluge and storm of tears, wildly disproportionate to the actual thing that caused them. But then I guess little girls can copy their mothers once in a while.

We are not alone...

2007-03-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

Oh the joys of modern technology. I'm writing this on my phone whilst sitting in what can loosely be described as the “Green Room” at Sylvia Young’s Theatre school. For those that don't know, Green Rooms are typically well kitted out luxury places where celebs chill out after/before an appearance. Bollinger is usually free flowing and little canapés are placed within easy reach of the peckish.

Not this one.

The only reason that this has a right to be called the “Green Room” is because it is actually green. The shiny walls have been decorated in two tones: bile and bogey. The plastic furniture is green and looks like Del Boy and Rodders sold them a job lot from a now dismantled BR station - perhaps Staines. Everything is bolted to the floor and Bolinger is replaced by oversweet tea, canapés by hot dogs and cheese toasties.

Anyway, now the scene is set, I wanted to talk about imaginary friends. On the way here this morning, mini-me informed me that we were not alone in the car. To say this unnerved me is a mild understatement. I have always had an unfounded belief that through the eyes of innocence, children “see” a lot more than adults. By the time you reach your teens, you brain has been infected by the paradigms of others and so you lose the ability to see the world as it actually is.

Today, my traveling companions were Emma and Molly who are apparently mini-me’s sisters. Molly was sitting next to me in the passenger seat (there was no car seat available for her Officer) and Emma was in the back (again on a normal seat). Having waved my hand around in the front seat to satisfy myself that there was nothing tangible there, I asked my daughter to explain what Molly looked like.

She then proceeded to describe a small child, down to the last detail including her hair colour, the colour of her eyes, what she was wearing etc etc. I was also informed that Molly was pregnant, was four years old and had recently returned from a holiday in Africa where she is at school with her Mummy and Daddy. Emma was given an equally detailed description although she was tired from playing football that morning. This gave rise to a number of questions:

Why weren’t Molly’s parents keeping a closer eye on their daughter?
If she was in the car with me, where were they?
Had she flown back from “Africa” by herself?
Had Emma won her football match?

I spoke to another father about this and he says his daughter regularly has in depth conversations with her “special” friend on the telephone – sometimes for up to 15 mins! Thinking back to my childhood, the only imaginary friend that I had was more of an enemy dreamt up by my Grandmother. I think he was called Michael, he lived in my bedroom and whenever I didn’t behave then Granny gave him all my sweets and presents. Little ba****d.

At last...

2007-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this post from Matt Asay. I'm sure many of us can empathise with the pillow moment...

Mothering Sunday - 18th March (UK)

2007-03-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

Right, time for fathers to unite - not in a dress up as spiderman kind of way - but in order to solve one problem:

What should I give my wife for mothers day on behalf of my child(ren)?

Over this post and the next few, I hope that between all of us that read this blog, we will come up with some great lists to help each other. If you have an idea, just post it as a comment and I will pull them all together. Here are some starters:

Flowers - www.interflora.co.uk
Red Letter Days - adventure, spa days, cooking courses and more
A Fortnum & Mason hamper
For something more compassionate look at Save the Children
Tree to my Door looks pretty different
A more sophisticated present of perfume and other stuff
This website can help you find something - Find me a Gift

I've spoken to some mothers since yesterday and some more thoughts based on what they would like to receive:

A poem written and decorated by the small person
A picture they create
A hand made card

I've found a great site that can help with all the creative stuff (ideas, instructions etc). Here's the link.

The clear caveat here is that you will need to actually get out all the creative stuff, spread out in your kitchen and create with them. If you are anything like me then this all sounds rather off-putting but on the "International Bonding with my Children" scale, it ranks very highly.

More ideas soon.

By the way, anyone interested should look here for what Mothers Day is actually about.

Just a short post...swearing

2007-02-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

My daughter has started calling me a "big Strawberry Banana" and won't stop.

What have I done to deserve this tirade of abuse I ask myself? Even today, she was at home with Cameron and she called me specifically to insult me. It didn't stop there. Her friend who I've never even met came on the line to let me know that I was a giant chocolate elephant.

Of course I responded with a stream of foul-mouthed language

"Well at least I'm not a gigantic carrot covered in cheese" I retorted

Unfortunately the unknown one took this personally and started to cry. At which point my wife came on to the line and properly let me have it - in adult speak that is.

The problem that we face as marginally younger parents is that some of my friends forget they are in the presence of a child and let the odd word slip out - words that often rhyme with duck or pit. As yet though we have not heard any of the words repeated back to us. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before my angelic daughter calls me a "ducking little pit" without a real understanding of what she has said (mind you my wife calls me worse).

Food glorious food...

2007-01-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Right. It's a Saturday evening and the in-laws have just been round for supper. I've had a few glasses of wine, inspite of my self-imposed alcohol free month. It actually only took two weeks for me to break my promise as a client took me to a Gary Rhodes restaurant in the city and plied me with fine wine and Champagne. It would have been rude to say "no" wouldn't it?

Again I digress (and I'm seriously worried this is becoming a problem for me) so back to the fatherhood angle of this blog.

Ever since the birth of mini-me, we've been worried about how much she actually eats. In my limited and rather inexperienced view, I believe that children fall in to two camps:

1. Those that eat huge volumes of whatever you put in front of them.
2. Those that don't.

I would say that mini-me is a category 2 child. A typical day will start with me rising at the aforementioned un-Godly hour of 6.45am and making tea and juice for the house females. Around 7.30 I start to feel hungry and so deem it polite/necessary to ask the daughter if she too, by some miracle might be peckish. Quick as a flash and without fail, the reply "I'm not hungry" is pinballed back my way. I find my head saying "you will eat this food" but as a slave to my daughter I find it impossible to stand up to her so a rather weak "OK darling" droops from my lips. At this point I sally forth to the kitchen to munch Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or Readybreak (do you remember the BMX rider ads?) to prepare for my day. Around 8.30am, Cameron gets involved and coercion is used to ensure the little one nibbles some dry toast - I kid you not. Last week she actually asked for some toast without butter.

Towards mid-morning when Daddy's blood sugar levels plummet and I get ratty, I again suggest a light snakkeral to the kid but yet again she throws it back in my face and Cameron uses some clever mother technique she inherited through evolution to ensure food passes the lips of our only child.

Lunch time is no different although I do remember once in the Summer of 2005 when she accepted my offer for food and we ate a sandwich together - ahhh those heady days.

Blah blah, this pattern goes on and to be honest I'm not entirely clear how our daughter doesn't get blown away on windy days. Mind you I guess I'm no paper weight myself but nonetheless it does concern me that the genetic need for food that most humans inherit seems to have passed her by. Having questioned the wife, mini-me's typical daily menu consists of:

Three bites of toast
Mango smoothy
Mini yoghurt drink
Quarter of a sandwich
One chicken nugget (home made)
A chip (home made)
A fimble tree (asparagus!?)

In fact the other day, she uttered the immortal quote "Mummy I'm hungry"

to which my wife replied "are you"?

to which she replied "I know, I've never been hungry before"

Even on car journeys when sweets are more permissible, we have to persuade her to eat a bite of chocolate lolly. She must be the only person I know that will eat no more than two or three Maltesers from a packet before handing them back. I know we should be happy about this but Maltesers are nutritious....right?

So what do we do about it? Someone most know. Food is not the issue here. She does eat - JUST NOT WITH US!!!!! Do you think she senses our weakness via some clever woman aerials? Do you think she can tell that, given my guilt complex, I will offer about as much resistance as a tracing paper umbrella in a rainstorm? I figure yes to both of these and so I have spent some time researching this and thinking through some approaches. Readers (if there are any) the answer is based on the psychology of proposition making.

Let me explain. When a supermarket displays an offer, ask yourself how they display it? Do they say "Get one free when you buy one"? Do they make the offer of the thing you will get PRIOR to asking you to do the thing they want you to do? Nope. They ask you to take an action first BEFORE giving you the outcome you want i.e. Buy one, get one free.

I'm ranting.

Think of it this way: if you eat this sandwich (i.e .buy one) then I'll take you to the park (get one free). This is the approach I have been taking and hey bloody presto is works.

We can now confidently get our daughter to eat a full lunch with no tears or upset. The only cost to us is a visit to the park or similar. Yippeeeeeeeee! This is great news as I can now ensure my daughter eats AND do cool things like visit the park which helps me with the topic of a previous ramble - guilt.

In my book, everyone's a winner.

Good night y'all.

Pushy - me? Never...

2007-01-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

I take mini-me every week to a drama and dance school called Sylvia Young’s in London. Some of you may have heard of it. It tends to produce such international stars as All Saints, Emma Bunton and that band with three spotty adolescents that pretend to be sort of Green Day like. I can’t bloody remember their name but they jump around the stage a lot whilst thrashing their guitars in a sort of wood chopper motion. I now I sound really old but they are really crap so I don’t mind. If anyone knows their name then let me know.

Anyway, back to the point. The most amusing thing about this place is that all the parents have aspirations of one sort or another for their kids. They go and learn skills like tap and jazz dancing, drama and singing and so clearly there is some goal here. The reason it is amusing is that everyone there, including me, is desperate not to be seen as the pushy parent and we all spend a great deal of time in back-slapping reassurance that it’s the others, not us. But if we weren’t pushy to some degree then would our offspring ever do well in life? Wouldn’t we be leaving them to the lottery odds of random success – maybe a one-off appearance on “Darren Day’s driving school on UK Crapping at 5am on a Tuesday?

Look at Tiger Woods. If his father hadn’t handed him a golf club as he emerged from the womb, he might not have become the legend he is today. If his father hadn’t cared enough to take him to the driving range every day, spend his money on kit and generally push Tiger forwards then it is quite possible that he would have been working in some mundane “for life” job and retiring at 65 with a pleasant pension and a wife called Janine or Angela instead of the incredibly fit bird he now has.

Another global icon, Emma Bunton may not have…actually forget that bit.

What I’m interested to understand is why WE are doing it. I have to be honest that at this point I am not particularly clear. Do we want our little one to be a singer, an actress, a dancer or just well coordinated with good posture and a clear voice? Am I a pushy parent or is everyone one and some just more overt than others?
I mean, if we were really sensible, we’d enrol her now at “Mini Investment Bankers” on a Saturday morning where they study such fun things as the ROI of apples vs pears or what valuation Big Ears places on Tina Doll’s ice cream parlour. At 14, talent scouts from Goldman’s would turn up and audition the children for future roles. They would receive sponsorship packages and further coaching. At 21 they would sign their life away for 10 years and at 31 they would retire with about £450m in the bank, and enough to support their scrounging, pushy parents who had the decency to get them there in the first place

Musings of a guilty man

2007-01-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

For anyone that has returned to suffer some more at my hands, and assuming that you care, last night was definitely better. Mini-me actually slept through until 7.15am and yet again informed me this morning that I am "the best Daddy in the World except Mummy" which I guess means I am still no. 2 in the pecking order but nonetheless cleverly reinforced my position has her slave. Why am I under the control of a four year old for God's sake?

Whilst going through all the things that happen to me on a daily basis, I realised that the one over-riding emotion that I often suffer with regard to my daughter is guilt. Does anyone else feel that? I feel guilty that I work long hours and do not see enough of her and the time that I do get to spend at home I want to not only see her but also to fit in a game of golf or go to the gym. The former of course takes up a huge amount of time and so can result in a whole day away at the weekend whilst the latter is just about OK. That said I think Cameron is sick of me wandering around in my tight gym t-shirt (designed for maximum muscle exposure) and demanding that she feels my muscles and comments on how much they've grown. That's another story I guess.

But seriously, am I alone in my guilt trip? How long will it go on? 18 yrs, 25 yrs, until my deathbed (sorry I'm popping my clogs as I didn't see you enough today/yesterday)? The other matter is of course how nice my wife is about my golf habit. If only she was nastier then at least I would feel like I was winning something rather than choosing to leave my family at home on one of the two days in seven that I get with them.

I'd be really interested to know how other fathers deal with this. Maybe you don't and I'm alone with my conscience. One thing I have started to try and do is to get up with my daughter (subject to the 6.30am rule - see previous post) and read to her or watch one of her favorite films with her but then I suffer from further guilt around "over-exposure" to the TV.

Then again maybe I just worry too much about everything.

Curtain clinging

2007-01-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

Well last night was interesting. My wife (let's call her Cameron Diaz for ease) and I have agreed that in order to stop my daughter getting up at 4am every morning and coming in to our room, I am going to supervise the enforced removal of said child to her own bed whenever she deams it necessary to come in to our room before 6.30am (still too bloody early but beggars can't be choosers).

The scenario is one I'm sure all you fathers out there recognise:

You're woken at an un-godly time of the night to the high pitched scream of your child in to your ear as they endeavour to wake you from your hard earned sleep. This morning my daughter was demanding a "huggy" which is not a nappy but her way of asking for a hug. I promptly rose from my sleep to offer the pre-agreed (with Cameron) options -

"either you can walk back to your own bed or I will pick you up and carry you" I said through gritted teeth.

Clearly I had touched a nerve as she launched heself at Cameron's head and locked on with the force of a soviet air-to-air misile with agression issues. Amidst huge screaming I uncurled her fingers from around my wife's neck and started the dangerous journey to her bedroom. I must admit that I had completely underestimated how much of a spirit my daughter has received from us both. I made the mistake of passing too close to the curtains and she latched on to these as if her life depended on them.

Once these were removed from her vice -like grip I was able to get her back to bed. I won't go in to all the details but needless to say I was up for another 15 mins as she negotiated with me for juice. In the end we compromised and I agreed to fetch her a small cup of "nice water, not the nasty water" - whatever that might be. Evidently I chose correctly as she finally settled down and went back to sleep.

This morning however all was different. As I left for work, mini-me informed me that I was the "best Daddy in the World" and that she loved me. In one move she had me back and wrapped around her little finger.

Women learn young these days....

Fatherhood for the younger man

2006-10-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to right this book after a conversation with my barber. He was busily removing most of my hair (I had only asked for a trim but what the hell, none of them ever listen anyway) when we started talking about children.

“What is the part you find most difficult about being a Dad?” I asked him.

“That part when you are in a busy town centre and they start screaming for no apparent reason and they won’t shut up. It’s so embarrassing” he replied.

At this point I felt compelled to clarify that we were talking about our kids and not our wives and once I had ascertained that we were indeed talking about the same topic, I realized that there must be so many fathers out there who have experienced the same.
Before going any further, it is probably worth giving you a little bit of my background so that you can understand what qualifies me to write this book. At time of writing, I’m a 29 year old (the dreaded thirty is only weeks away), married man with a two key women in my life – my wife and my daughter. This of course excludes my mother but I’ve explained the previous statement to her and she now understands…
My wife is 28 years old, although she insists on telling everyone that she is 27, and we have been married for just over 2 years. Unbelievably though we have been together for nine years. Like any couple, we have our ups and downs but generally speaking we are best friends and have a great life. My fantastic daughter is nearly four years old. She informed me yesterday that she is “actually three and ¾’s Daddy” which is right – she is. Credit for this book really must go to her as without her coming along, I would not have had the experiences on which I am about to draw.
This book has been written for all you new (ish) fathers out there. You who feel frustrated that nipping to the pub becomes a mission involving push chairs, bottles, toys, books, first aid kits and a teddy called Rabbit. You who feel entirely alone and that the Lotus Elise you’ve been eying up in the car showroom is now consigned to the annals of your history that never was, two seats too small for your new life. Well this account is written for you. Its aim? To let you know that there are others out there who can empathize with everything you go through.

If you want to know more, let me know...