A night with the Monsters

"Monster trucks Daddy" "yes, we're nearly there" "Monster trucks Daddy" "yes, we're nearly there" and so it went for the one hour drive to watch the humongous trucks beat the 'Jeannie Mack' out of the 'ickle cars. On the way into the Rod Laver arena, after the customary half hour walk from the car park, Euey was feeling the excitement build upon his perch above me. I could feel his excitement reverberate through my shoulders, in more ways than one but I will settle on describing two of the more palatable examples. As we passed under a suspended rail track he screamed "train" when the masses of people heading to the 'ickle car massacre didn't respond to his announcement he tried again with "traiiiins guyyys" this got a few looks and smiles so he kept this up till my second tale in the making caught his sadistic eye. The portly guy in front of us had attracted a crowd of his own, a rather large cloud of flies. The guy wasn't too impressed with the attention he was receiving from these pesky's and was swiping violently and unsuccessfully at the swarm. Euey erupted with uncontrollable laughter, as if the whole scene had been set up for his amusement alone. He couldn't control himself, he could hardly breathe. The fly bait wasn't amused at Euey's attention but bit his tongue, I'm assuming because Euey was seven feet tall. Anyway we arrived after our onerous journey and wow was it worth the wait it was the best 15minutes of action in my whole life. After 15 minutes of giant trucks roaring and beating the bejesus out of stationary cars Euey had not moved a muscle, he had sat on my lap with eyes wide open, mouth slightly ajar, with a look of abject fear etched fear on his face. I asked him is it fun? No reply. Are you happy? Not even a twitch. Are you scared? Nothing. Do you want to go home? A whispered "Mummy" Do you want Mummy? A whispered "Go home". I took him outside, shared some chocolate and fizzy drink and asked him would he like to go back in and try again and he whimpered "home, Mummy" and off we went. Twenty five minutes into the trek to the car he cheerily asked "go back Daddy" I considered it for two seconds as I wiped the sweat from my eyes and massaged my aching shoulder and legs and promptly decided it would be in his best interests if I took him home to the loving arms of his Mummy and not back to the Monster trek. " Lets go home Euey I'll get you more chocolate" "chocolate Daddy".

An Unbiased Assesment

Our children are the most beautiful children in the world. The smartest, the kindest, the most generous, they have the best smiles, they are the tallest for their age, the best dressed, their poo's are odorless, their nose's self cleaning, they are the greatest little bundles of joy in the world.
Trust me I'm an objective Daddy.

Aoife The Subtle

I wish!
Despite the lack of development in the speech arena Aoife has no problem telling her Daddy to put a sock in it. When I block her arse shuffling path on the floor, for a little face to face chat, she will either engage, by getting all goo goo, by touching my face or just staring with a polite smile at my well intentioned ramblings. Alternatively she will put anything she can find into my mouth and proceed on her merry way.
This I fear is a characteristic I will have to accept as the years shuffle along.

Noisy Neighbour

I went to the movies the other day and settled down to watch my film with the customery $20 worth of cinematic cuisine. The movie began and almost immediately this bloke to my right started to repeat everything the Turtles were saying. He squealed at the not so scary bits and kept trying to tell me what was going on. He ate most of my popcorn and jumped onto my lap three minutes into the movie. He shat himself at one stage and had the audicity to seek my assistance in cleaning up the unholy mess. But my noisy neighbours most heinous crime was to turn to me 10 minutes before the end of the movie and say "finished". I walked out of the cinema with my sleepy, boneless, boy in my arms wondering if he would return the favour in 50 years time. Pleasant dreams Euey Boy.

First Laugh

23rd April 2007. No grandiloquence required. I heard my daughter laugh for the first time today and the experience added 42 wrinkles to my brow. Somebody let the Hitchhiker know.

Home Alone

The house is quiet. But it will never be really empty again. Sitting on our sofa with my laptop living up to its name I write about the hive of activity in the house while I sit here alone.

I can here Euey's frenetic flip flop flip flop coming towards me down the hallway, sadly without the ultimate divebomb on to my person. I can hear Aoife to my side, in her cot, winning the heart of a bulgy eyed bug, sadly I'm chaperoning a memory. I can hear Georgie in the kitchen humming Roy's "Only the ronery". Sadly I can't kiss her neck and tell her "I rove her"

My family are away for a night, only a night.

Time is not a constant, this has been one long day.

I eagerly await your return, you collective yumminess.

Aoife

Yeah, they know I'm the boss.

I am writing this one handed. Aoife is in my other one. You will have gathered by now that she is the most beautiful 2 week old that has ever existed but I'll wager you didn't know the following. She has made me cry 12 times since she was born. She has recently beat George on the flatulence decibel chart. She weighed 2.56 Kilos when we left the hospital but weighed 3.25 kilos 5 days later, she almost drank the old twin engine dry. When the mood grabs her she has the strength and endurance of a Wiggle, it's like wrestling and being beaten by a silk scarf. Her clothes fit her feet perfectly but hang off the rest of her body. Why am I the only member of this family with small feet? She smells like her mum. That's not loaded by the way, I love their smell. She is smiling right now, I know it's just wind but it is a preview of the real thing and if poet's can have a licence then why not daddies. Bye for now I'm in the middle of number 13.

Please

Please let me out!

Euey has learned how to communicate the concept of please, if not the word. We have somehow managed to teach him that a quick shrug of his shoulders with the left one going up and the right one going down, accompanied with the vocals of "gung" means please. You have to sing it to appreciate it. Try it it's truely bizzare. Where did it come from? Who knows but I would hazzard a guess it came from his mothers side. Not right in the head that lot.

A reoccurring trend I have happened upon with my son is his ability to turn a negative into a positive or, if you like, wrap a scornful father around his little finger. An apt example springs to mind. Christmas 2006 Euan at 18 months had prematurely reached the terrible two’s. In one of his destructive sorties he discovered a newly positioned and fully decorated Christmas tree. With pathological haste he proceeded to undress our perfectly attired tree. I called out his name at a socially unacceptable decibel. He stopped for a moment but started again with renewed vigour, seeming to remember the “bark worse than the bite” theory he had recently embraced. I tried again but this time I called his name in a low drawn out voice accompanied with my index finger performing the generic ‘come here’ gesture. This was new, I had his attention. He tried to copy me but managed to move all the fingers except the index finger in the correct way. The index finger stood frozen. He laughed at his own inability to imitate me and then focused again on my finger and I could see the cogs turning as he figured out the instruction I was trying to relay. He got it and laughed his odd socks off as he came running and launched himself into my arms. The tree wasn’t interfered with again that night but thereafter he kept approaching it and pausing before he touched it to wait for the initial finger instruction, once received, he would give a cheeky look and feint touching the tree anyway. This was my cue to sound angry and intensify the finger wagging to which he would crumble and come running meekly for a cuddle. Who was pulling whose strings? He got the fingers wrong but I was well and truly wrapped around them nonetheless, fait accompli I would suggest.

Euan & I - 1 year old

Eggs - Euan 14 months

I went to the fridge this morning to get some milk for my son’s breakfast. I took a bit longer than was safe or practical because as I attempted to close the fridge door a hand, followed swiftly by a head and ultimately a tiny body, rounded the door and blocked its path. He looked up and smiled. This bought my 14 month old sparing partner enough time to deflect me from my counter move of physically moving the nimble obstacle himself. He pointed to the eggs and said “Ga”? At this stage of our relationship he already had me trained to recognise this command as “What are those things Dad”? I was like a Rabbit staring at the proverbial! I couldn’t explain verbally what the eggs were! But I needed to start breakfast soon as my departure for work was imminent. He’d communicated quite clearly with me that this was more urgent than sustenance! I was snookered. The only way I could satisfy my own conscience was to show him what they were. I took the eggs out of their former haven and asked my conqueror to follow me. We found a suitable area in the middle of the kitchen floor and sat down. I placed an egg in his outstretched hand. He turned it around again and again and for good measure again. Not a lot to it, he suggested with a disappointed look. Then it happened. His pressure increased and the egg collapsed in on itself. Now, this was something altogether different. The shattered shell was a wondrous work of art. The broken yolk, an astonishing aesthetic infusion and the egg white a delightfully welcoming messiness. After a moment of intense pleasure the resulting pulp lost its hold over him. He stared at me, smiled that smile and asked in a clear and definitive voice “Ga”? So I did my duty and went for another, while pondering how many eggs this quest would take and if brunch was an acceptable time to start work.

Beard - Euan 13 months

I walked into our living room this morning and Euey, contemplating which toe-nail to chew, sat up and looked at me with a confused look. Then he pointed to my face and made a couple of unintelligible sounds, but the tone definitely suggested a question. For a second or two my face probably mirrored his confused look. Then I realised the only thing that was different about my face was that I had trimmed my beard. It wasn’t a drastic change but it was apparently enough to make Euan question my appearance. I will make a mental note to be more careful around Euey from now on as the actions of an adult, can be a touch confusing for a tuned in toddler.

Angry Frowns - Euan 14 months old

I was sitting on the floor with Euey today; we were revisiting an old friend, a book, called ‘Birds of Australia’. As I was pointing out the Frogmouth was actually an Owl, Euey started to tip the water he was drinking onto the floor. Completely out of character I responsibly asked him to stop. He appeared to catch the irony of this and gave me a cheeky grin. Unperturbed, I deflected this frontal attack of my sensibilities by frowning at him. He looked at me curiously. Detecting an atypical win I intensified the frown and believe I even looked a touch angry. His eyes widened and I took what appeared to be an opportunity to cement my looming victory. “Don’t spill the water, please” I demanded. His face slowly changed, but not as I had expected. Now he was frowning and looking a touch angry. We had reached an impasse, the tension intensified, the silence got louder and then without ado it ended. We broke into simultaneous laughter. Then we stopped and started the frowns again followed by the look, of anger that is, and came full circle with the crescendo of laughter. This continued for a long while.
While this pantomime played its course the water had stopped spilling.
An inadvertent success for sure but I’ll claim it anyway, it may be my last for a while.