The uses of magic

Being a dad can be frustrating sometimes. Johnny now watches CITV more than the BBC children's channels, and I've been getting polite but continuous requests for the much advertised Bey Blades. And he brings back reading books as homework from school every day - plus two for the weekend - and that's been turning into a mutually dreaded ordeal.

So I was thinking I needed to take a step back and come up with a better way. So I drew a pentagram on a scrap of paper, numbering arms from one to five, and inscribing the initials "BB" in the middle. I then explained to Johnny that each time he read his homework book without flopping or wailing he'd get a sticker on one arm of the star, and when he'd got one on all five arms, we would go out and buy a Bey Blade. He was horrified by this quandary and resourcefully suggested several alternative ways he could earn the stars, which I politely declined.

I would just like to record that by the time we got to the fourth and fifth homework sessions he was snatching the book out of my hands, refusing to let me read it through first, and confidently and proudly reading it aloud. (And today will be shopping day)

Am I proud of stooping to bribery and succumbing to commercial advertising? Not really, but I don't care about that. Johnny's education, and our relationship, are more important, and I'm pleased I worked that out. Could I have come up with a smarter solution? Well, yes, I'm sure and any suggestions gratefully received. Meanwhile, I will gratefully continue to learn whatever it is those who teach learn from those they teach.

A thin line between triumph and tribulation

Johnny needed a bath yesterday morning - but he wasn't in the mood. At all. So I (ready to catch my train) got called in, and found him sitting on the sofa, uninterested in either persuasion or authority.

My efforts simply make him whine and wave his fists, but he holds off from hitting me (good start). I resist the probably futile and counterproductive temptation to drag him upstairs and offer him a hand to thump instead, providing some helpful martial arts grunts to add to the action. Several thwacks later and I see a smile, then hear a little "OK", so light I almost miss it.

Parenting, eh? Memo to self - rule 1: be there. Autopilot won't hack it.

And let's celebrate the occasional triumph - the tribulations can look after themselves...

To love is to fear

Such sad news about the death of David and Samantha Cameron's little son, Ivan. It's hard to imagine the horror of hearing such a diagnosis for your son, the hard slog of caring for and loving him, the sorrow of finally losing him.

And time, of course, to consider all the other hidden heroes, quietly getting on with it like Claire Bates, whose very personal response to Ivan's death is almost unbearably moving.

Johnny and Jake rock out

Improvement on a certain video - the "Dad-dancing" has been replaced with something cooler. Behold: Johnny on the deck, best friend Jake on the sofa!

Update: 2007-10-17 - got video link working
(video shareable under this CC licence)

Third time lucky

I took Johnny to the swimming pool at the Brixton Recreation Centre for one more try after two unsuccessful visits, where despite his love of bathwater he'd clearly found the whole swimming pool environment rather alarming.

Unlike our first visit the training pool was open this time, albeit after a ten minute wait for a lifeguard to appear. This is good - it's warm and has metre-wide, shallow steps going into it, perfect for aquatic toddlers to get used to the water. But Johnny wasn't impressed by any of this, and when I tried to lower his feet into the water he scrambled up my tum until he was clinging limpet-like to my shoulder.

I was almost ready to give up when I had the ridiculous idea that maybe I could get him used to the water without prising him off my shoulder, so I lowered myself onto my back with my head and left shoulder sufficiently raised to stop either of us from drowning, and waited for him to get bored. Jake's mum Melissa waded by and helpfully did a bit of splashing for Johnny, then he did some splashing with his hand, then he sat up on my chest and did some kick-splashing, and at last he slid off and waded around the knee-high top step.

With trumpets playing fanfares in my head, I lent him my hand to step out of the pool and back again, and then for stepping onto the waist-height second step and back a few times. Finally, when I was all ready to quit while we were ahead, he decided to step down to third step -up to his chest - and up again.

Two very satisfied individuals left that pool with smiles on their faces, one of them with his head full of notions about the importance of combining logic with spontaneity - until a post-pool Melissa punctured it all with her observation that we had made a fine sight, Johnny on me, me on my back, like the ship's cat on an upturned hull.

In praise of Babytype

My favourite new utility is Babytype, which makes your computer into a wonderful baby-proof activity centre - every key pressed pops up an image and makes an entertaining noise, rather than sending emails to employers and old flames or reformatting the hard disk.

The only flaw was that I kept having to dive across the sitting room to start Babytype whenever Johnny approached the keyboard, which he can now just reach. So I asked Raize software if it could be turned into a screensaver, and got the following helpful answer:

First, you need to go to the directory where you installed BabyType. The default location is "C:\Program Files\Raize\BabyType." In this directory, you will find several files. One of the files is named "BabyType.exe".

Select the BabyType.exe and then select the Edit|Copy menu item. The select the Edit|Paste menu item. This will create a copy of the file which will be named: "Copy of BabyType.exe".

Next, select the File|Rename menu item and change the name to: BabyType.scr

Then finally, select the File|Install menu item and Windows will install the program as a screen saver.

I would like to say that this works perfectly, that the sitting room PC is now goes into Babytype after 5 minutes without use, and that the reply was sent on Saturday night, which is pretty damn impressive for a product that currently costs a mere $19.

Great product, great attitude. Thanks!

Of Barbies and burqas

Interesting comment by Ophelia Benson on what religious fundamentalism and the commercial sexualisation of ever-younger girls have in common. Have I become a feminist without realising it?

Of course, the complexity always seems to re-emerge under a different bit of the carpet. Even at eighteen months we see our firstborn as "all boy". Naturally we both hope for him to grow into a happy and fulfilled man, so maybe we take even more pleasure in those sides of his character which we hope will help him become an alpha male (such as the fearlessness and joy with which he clambers up his cot and somersaults over the edge onto the sofa) than we would if he was a girl.

And marriage itself teaches you a lot (especially those innocents who've never lived with a partner before) about the reality of the differences of the sexes. But then it teaches you a whole lot about the realities of individual difference, and about adjusting to them.

As with religion, I think I respect sexual difference because it's an indivisible property of individuals - it's when you turn that around that things seem to start going wrong.

Adventures in Johnnycare

Eva's doing an online test for her OU course in accounting today, so I've taken the day off to look after Johnny. After a pizza at Franco's in the Brixton Arcade (officially called Eco nowadays, but us old-timers like the old name) it started raining, so I took him to Adventure World in the Brixton Rec.

Adventure World is great - a safely padded three-dimensional maze of slides and ball-pits, ramps and rope-bridges. So in we go, happily chasing each other round until we find ourselves going down a ramp. Johnny's technique is rudimentary - he basically goes spread-eagled and slides down until one foot hits a padded rung, at which point he starts spinning until he hits the next one. He stops half-way down, turns his face up, opens his mouth, and "Waaah!"

Well, he knows he's stuck but he isn't in full meltdown yet, so I lift him by both hands and let him slide until both feet are square on the next rung. Down goes his bottom, up go the feet and he slides to the next rung, and so on all the way down. Have I traumatised him? He immediately heads down the next ramp, this time just holding my wrist with one hand as he confidently bum-slides all the way down.

Ah, the magic and rewards of having a toddler - the growth in skills, the growth in confidence - and it's pretty cool seeing Johnny learn stuff too.

and now for something completely different

Not sure this should be on the blog, but here goes...



Family life, raw and unedited. Enjoy.