Keir Royale

Back to work for me.
Another day off for the children.
And that means back to sole supervision of the children for Blog Fodder - without the handy intervention of school to take the strain.

You may have heard of Slack Dad.
I think Blog Fodder has taken his parenting methods to heart. And I have evidence…

Today, having enjoyed 10 uninterrupted days with the children, and now feeling slightly guilty that I found them irritating on many occasions, I arrange to meet the 3 of them in town for a late lunch (me) and a final beady-eyed trawl through Woolworths (them).

The first thing I notice is that their hair has not been brushed. I try to let this slip, as it’s not the end of the world.

But then Blog Fodder slips away to spend five uninterrupted minutes circling Woolies’ denuded shelves in search of unwanted items at knock-down prices.
He leaves me to take the children for a milkshake. I glare at Hannah’s knotted spaghetti-string hair.
I can’t help myself.

“Did you brush your teeth this morning?” I ask.

“No,” they are unfailingly honest about teeth, “Daddy didn’t tell us to.”

Even they are becoming experts at blaming their father for their own failings.
I press on, unable to hold back.

“And what did you have for lunch?”

They look at each other, they look at the floor, they glance at me until they can bear it no longer and then they give in.

“We haven’t had any yet.”
“Daddy didn’t have time.”
“He only gave us ten minutes to get dressed, brush our teeth and get into the car.”
“So we couldn’t brush our teeth.”
“He said he’d take us to McDonalds.”
“He said not to tell you.”

I look at the menu. It’s just a cake shop - no broccoli, no carrots.
I look at them.

“And we watched 2 films on telly this morning,” adds Ben, trying to feign outrage.

I think about all the children whose school holidays are filled with improving activities, and I sigh.

“You must be hungry, do you want to choose some cake?”

Having recently metamorphosed into a civil servant, it’s sometimes hard to remember that this is what I now am.

Or, at least, that it’s what I spend my working hours doing. I do try to maintain some kind of out-of-hours life.

And now my daughter has shone a piercing beam of light onto my new life.

She was explaining to me the functions of her latest creation… multiple space vehicles made from carefully folded coloured paper, which all interlink and fire off rockets at Baddies.

“This is where they fire their rockets from,” she told me, “and this is how they fly as fast as light.”

And as she zoomed them around the kitchen, she explained why they needed to fight: -

“They’re working for the Civil Service War.”

An interesting take on my new life.