January
After the latest lockdown announcement, Louise and I tried to recapture some of our positivity from last Spring. Let’s make the most of being at home with the boys and, in years to come we will look back on this with great fondness, won’t we? Besides, there is light at the end of the tunnel this time. The stag do I’m due to go on in the summer may yet go ahead. I vowed I would manage the work and childcare balance with efficiency, abstain from the daily 5 pm glass of wine (and larger 8 pm glass(es)), and get in shape. Is Joe Wicks starting again? If so, great. Clap for carers is back, you say? Deal me in, where’s my new pan? We will get through this. No problem.
A couple of days later I was trying not to drop a screaming, squirming Jacob while skidding around on a treacherously icy path in a pair of too-big wellies. The wind was swirling, it was hammering down, and Joshua was refusing to move, screaming “GO AWAY, RAIN!” into the bitter January air. To motivate him, I said he could go on my phone when we got back to the car. This is supposed to be a last resort, but it has moved rapidly up the pecking order these past few months. When we arrived at the car, I struggled to get a thrashing Jacob into his seat before handing Joshua his reward.
"Not working! Your fault, Daddy!"
Joshua currently thinks everything is my fault, I am boring, and I smell. On the other hand, he routinely tells Louise she is a beautiful princess. A couple of weeks ago, he said, “I love you, Mummy. Let’s get rid of Daddy.” Very Freudian. He’s definitely going through a mummy’s phase. This has been the case for 3 years now, though.
In fairness the dead phone was my fault as I’d drained the battery playing a football free-kick app which is, I’m fairly sure, aimed at children. Joshua was livid and, despite having spent the entirety of our walk saying he wanted to be in the car, now refused to get in, grabbing onto the roof handles to propel himself away from his seat. Aside from toddlers doing this, what the heck is the purpose of those handles? In the end, I had to use force to bundle him in, a tussle which left me questioning whether he is strong for a 3-year-old or I'm weak for a 34-year-old. Bit of both, I concluded.
Jacob, reasonable as ever, decided it was an ideal time to take a poo. As I was trying to change him in the front seat with hands I couldn’t feel while Joshua berated me and my “stupid phone” in the back, I considered whether this was the least fun five minutes of my life. This title has some strong competition; a gang of teenagers once stole a crate of beer from me near my house then, just in case being mugged by people considerably younger than me wasn't enough, asked for a bottle opener so, in a very miserable bar shift, I opened my former beers with a novelty bike-shaped keyring opener and handed them out to my GCSE-aged tormentors. When I walked off, one of them chucked a bottle at my back. Bad five.
Midway home, I realized I’d forgotten to pick Jacob's nappy up from the pavement. I considered leaving it, but it was at the top of someone’s drive and I didn’t want to be accused of committing a hate crime. There is enough tension in the world at the moment, isn’t there? Driving back to retrieve a soiled nappy and remembering a work call I’d failed to make, some of my previous optimism was waning.
Wet weather fun (we got 10 minutes out of this…)
By the time we got home, we had, at least, been out for an hour, which is the minimum requirement when trying to give Louise a break. Anything less is an insult. We ate some cottage pie, some of which was hurled at the wall by Jacob, then started on the toughest hour of the day; the post-dinner, pre-bath time purgatory. Regardless of what has gone on, I am done in by 5.30 pm but, in one of parenting’s crueller tricks, this is when children are at their most rampant and the clock hands move achingly slowly until it is an acceptable time to turn on the TV. Joshua charged around, demanding we fly a magic carpet to dinosaur land while Jacob rifled through the kitchen cupboards, chucking pots and pans on the floor. Still, when Louise went upstairs to put some washing away, I thought I could loosely monitor the situation while grabbing a quick go on my football free-kick app.
“What the hell, Andy?” she said on her return.
I looked around to see Jacob had emptied a packet of wet wipes and was shoving them in his mouth, and Joshua was nowhere to be seen. She’d been gone sub-3 minutes.
“What’s that whirring?”
We followed the noise to find Joshua stood by the washing machine, looking pleased with himself. He had put the TV remote in for a spin. It was drenched and broken. Obviously.
“I’m so funny, Daddy!”
No TV? What on earth are we going to do now? I poured a large glass of wine. Who were we kidding? This is going to be a long few weeks.
***
Thanks for reading! Please take a second to like my Facebook page here or visit my Instagram account here!
