Time for a memory

Today I’d like to re post the story that got me into all this. This is the tale that I just had to tell people about, the one that got me blogging. It saddens me that it lurks unread among those very first unnoticed posts, and so here it is.

I’ve re-edited and written it to show, hopefully, that my writing has improved. The original is here. This may seem a bit of a lazy cop out, and I apologise to any of you who have actually read it before, but I genuinely got into writing because of this true story, and it means a lot to me to have it read…

The day my toddler turned into a teenager:
The freezing-cold, damp, February air, couldn’t ruin the joys of being a father that were still naively strong within me. At this time I still fully believed that I was the best thing to happen to parenthood since Professor Robert Winston first decided to don a comedy moustache; sadly, all that was about to change.

Today was the day my toddler became a teenager.

We hadn’t really had a big issue with the ‘Terrible Twos’ as such; oh Daniel was tricky, but using all the standard parent tricks seemed to work just fine. Our repeated success in the handling of minor toddler strops had lulled us into a comfortably secure illusion of parental prowess.

Everything was running smoothly, until we had child number 2 and Jamie, AKA ‘the baby’, made Daniel turn to the dark side.

The idea, on that cold day, was simple enough; a nice, fresh air walk around one of those open farms. The walk would offer plenty of exercise and stimulus for child, baby and parents alike, Professor Winston would be proud. Also we had my In-Laws visiting, so it was a chance to impress them with how well we were coping.

I quickly impressed everyone with my knowledge of which animal noises matched which animal. My fatherly powers were on fine form.

Then it happened.

Daniel and I had become cut off from the rest of the party, the ladies were off somewhere with the baby, and ahead in the distance was my father-in-law (a man who had already stated that his first job, should he ever win the lottery, would be to “pay Glen off”).

Daniel was standing there looking at the sheep and annoyingly he was chewing his coat lapel. We had been trying to discourage this attack on this nice new coat for a while, and so I knew that now was the perfect time to settle this matter, once and for all.

I asked him to stop sucking his coat, he ignored me.

I told him to stop, he ignored me.

I gave a very clearly defined instruction to stop, he ignored me.

With hindsight, this was probably the point to give it up and worry about this trivial issue later, however hindsight was sadly not available at the time.

I told Daniel that if he couldn’t look after his coat then I would take it off him. Daniel’s eyes wobbled uncertainly – it was only a flicker, but it was a start. This nice warm coat was already his favourite, and I’d found his weakness, I had him.

However, after a moments pause he went straight back to sucking the coat.

RIGHT THAT WAS IT!

I swiftly removed his coat and held it aloft, he had to know my threats weren’t empty after all, the look on his face said it all; I’d won. 33 years of life experience had led to this point, and it was all worth it.

Daniel was about to apologize and beg to have his coat back, he would never suck that lapel or disobey me in any way shape or form ever again! My wife and her parents were about to smother me with praise for sorting out this dire crime, I was to become a true hero.

Forever more I would, finally, be the Man of the house. I felt drunk with the moment and so it was that I made my mistake. High on my own brilliance, I said, “if you promise not to suck your coat any more you can have it back.”

Daniel looked at me, thought for a moment and then simply said no.

What was that? Did he just say no?

Daniel shrugged his shoulders, shouted, “I’m not cold!” and walked swiftly away from me.

Daniel continued to boldly stride on towards his Grandpa, who I could see was looking absolutely bemused as to why on Earth I’d just removed Daniel’s coat on such a cold day. There was absolutely no way it was warm enough to be out without a coat on, any idiot could see that. Now what was I supposed to I do?

What do dads do in situations like that?

I doubled my pace to walk alongside my son and ordered him to put his coat back on, he ignored me.

I told him to put his coat back on, he ignored me.

I asked him to put his coat back on, he ignored me.

All the time we were closing the gap towards his confused Grandfather.

I begged Daniel to put his coat on, promised him sweets and said that he could continue sucking the damned lapel if he liked. At which point Daniel turned, smiled and put his coat on. Looking straight into my eyes he stuck the lapel firmly in his mouth, his work was complete, his father was broken.

And so my son had become a 3 year old teenager, and he has only really continued to abuse me since. I have read every guide book; scanned every blog and watched Oprah with a notepad and pen in my hands, but still he beats me at every level. Perhaps this is the real problem.

Maybe we have become too locked in this war of discipline, where the determination to win an argument has overridden the importance of what the issue was about in the first place? Pick your battles well is my advice, because most of them just aren’t worth it.

Worse still, the baby whose birth heralded my parental demise, is every bit as feisty. Just this morning I was awoken to the sound of Jamie banging his toy drill on my head and demanding Coco-Pops.

Maybe I’ll be a good Grandparent?