Single Dad

Sorry, me again

8013/20954

Colleen Rooney is stealing my bit

Catie was spending the day with her friends at a spa today so I had the pleasure of looking after my own children all fucking day. Which obviously was incredible and life-affirming and filled me with nothing but joy, but it's also like a living Hell where it's not that warm and you have to stop demons hitting each other in the head and you'll be in real trouble with Satan if one of the demons dies.

I am not calling my wife Satan. Though I was getting close to that by 6pm.

Mainly it was just incredibly exhausting. Kudos to anyone who has to look after kids alone all the time and especially if you have more than two of them.

In difficult times I've always tried to view my kids as persistent hecklers. You have to retain your cool and not let them get to you, or you have lost. I do not always succeed, but managed relatively well today, but by the evening I felt like I had done 12 rounds with a 58 year old Mike Tyson. Battered, but still standing and won on a points decision.

I don't want to embarrass my kids so will call them Kid A and Kid B to protect their identity, but early on Kid A had annoyed Kid B by pretending she was going to steal some of his money. Kid B had responded by hitting her in the head. I hadn't seen any of this, as I'd been brushing my teeth (first mistake - you can't do anything for yourself) and didn't know if Kid A was seriously hurt or not. Kid B is smaller and younger than her so you wouldn't expect him to be able to hurt her, but then again if he'd hit her with his safe he might actually have given her brain damage. So you have to balance all that up, whilst trying to restore order as two crying children try to tell you their side of the story, without taking sides.

Somehow order was finally restored, but I don't think it was anything to do with me.

We walked the dog and then brought her home and headed into town where there were some Christmas festivities going on and the Christmas lights were being turned on. We had some lunch and had a look round, but things hadn't really kicked off yet, so we bought some books and some Minecraft Top Trumps and some sweets (I made them use some of their own money) and headed home again. I had had a pizza for lunch and felt bloated and sick and resolved to never eat pizza again. Let's see how that resolution goes, but I do feel I might be done with my erstwhile favourite food.

Child B had selected a book about the life story of Taylor Swift. Then he got another one from the same series about Mozart. I was impressed that he knew about the latter person at all and later asked why he'd chosen it. It turned out he had no idea who Mozart was and had just selected it at random.

Child B was also very excited to be able to purchase a Feastibles bar in the sweet shop. Internet personality had told him that it was the best chocolate in the world and I don't know why he would lie. And it was only £5 a bar. Happy to contribute to Mr Beast who must be broke given all the money he spends on his videos.

Child B was like Charlie fucking Bucket on the walk home, waving the bar around, shouting about having his first Feastibles bar. He wanted to go to the playground to show it to all the kids there (that he wouldn't know) but I managed to stop him doing so and getting his head kicked in or at least his chocolate bar stolen.

I played Top Trumps with Phoebe and tried to keep up with the football. But we needed to do the evening dog walk and Catie wasn't back yet, so we all headed off again. We could hear the party in full swing and looked down on the town from the top of the hill and marvelled at the lights. The kids decided they wanted to go back to the square to see if they could see Santa.

It was much busier now, though Ernie (sorry Child B) met a giant panda who luckily didn't try to eat him. Though if it had then that would have lightened my load a little. The boy was so excited by this meeting and gave the panda a big hug.

We got to the town square which was now so rammed that it was impossible to get in. We decided to cut our losses and head home, but it says something about this town that its citizens are so keen to celebrate this kind of event in such numbers.

It was about this time that the antics of Child B were a bit much for me (combined with the crowds and the noise and the tiredness) and we pushed through the throngs to get home, stopping only for a second hug with the Panda. Who was going to give me a hug?

I got through the day though without too many more tears (until I beat Child A at Top Trumps) and managed to feed them and keep them occupied, without too much iPad time. And we were all tired enough by a late bedtime that that was relatively easy too.

I didn't bath them though and Child B has been in his pyjamas for two days and three nights (as it was mufti day at school for Children in Need), but fuck it. You can't win every battle. I managed to have a bath in pink Lush bubble bath when the kids were down. One day of solo parenting and I was destroyed. A fifteen minute break at any point would probably

Non-stop silliness, fighting, singing, crying, eating, terror and laughter. And the arrival of these two humans is the best thing that has happened to me in my life. Which shows you how terrible the rest of it has been.

I think this was one of the best days of my life.

I've really had a bad time haven't I?