A Tale of Two Sisters

February is a tough month in our house, both the female offspring have birthdays, and both have long lists of demands. Some, a few of mates over for a party, were easier than others, Slinky the Dog from Toy Story, to grant. All in all they both ended up happy, and my wallet ended up lighter.

Dawn turned 16, a number guaranteed to send shivers down the spine of any Dad. My little girl has turned into a woman whilst my back was turned, the signs were all there, but I had obviously chosen to ignore them. She was always a bit of a tomboy, but now the smell of dead insects and mud that were ever present when you opened the door to her room, have been replaced by perfume and burnt straightened hair. There is so much opened nail polish in her room that I am surprised she is not stoned out of her nut on a permanent basis. I must admit to sneaking up there whenever the kids have driven me up the wall. Five minutes breathing those fumes and I emerge happier and slightly giggly every time.

As her 16^th approached, I felt myself searching for a mid life crisis or three. I was starting to feel really old, standing on the abyss of father of the bride speeches and giving people and money away. I swear that in the two months leading up to her birthday my hair turned 8 shades greyer. It had gone from ER George Clooney to Oceans 15 George Clooney in mere weeks (please note I only said his hair, I don't want to be sued for misrepresentation). When I bemoaned this fact to my Mum she helpfully pointed out that I wasn't as grey as her yet, she knows how to find a silvery-grey lining in every cloud.

The party went without too many hitches, the next door neighbours had been bribed and apologised to in advance with a bottle of wine, so that was them dealt with. As parents it was our duty to hide upstairs and ignore any banging, crashing, or inappropriate loud music. What we actually did was hang out in the kitchen listening to our old 12" record collections. The loud level increased with every bottle of wine (there was four), until the kids booted us upstairs at 2am, unable to hear their own music, or what they pass off as music.

In a huge leap of faith we allowed a mixed sleepover. They are a comparatively good group of kids, and I did include the morning after pill and a course of mercury in the party favours bag. Sod the consequences, at least I looked like a cool Dad for letting the party happen. I think they all acted in a trustworthy manner, but I won't really find out for another 9 months.

Katy on the other hand is 5 going on 15, a child that is always on the feral/precocious see-saw. She absolutely loves watching what she calls 'Piggy Come Dancing', I'm not sure if the renaming is due to her growing sense of irony, or the fake tan colouration of the contestants. I watch with pride as she copies their dancing, a picture of cuteness. Pride turns to horror as she pushes her little brother out of the way and threatens to "rip off his head and poo down his throat" if he gets in her way again. Yep, you did read that right, it's my fault really. I once jokingly threatened to pull off her arm and beat her around the head with it. All this did was prompt her into hysterical demands for more threats. Caught up in a 'she thinks I'm funny' fever, my threats became more outlandish, including pulling off her head and replacing it with a football, and maybe the aforementioned poo one.

Anyway all blame aside, she is never going to be a middle of the road child, and I don't see a quiet or ordinary time in my future. Her birthday requests included that it snow on her birthday, and that I make her a traffic light jelly. With a bit of timing and patience the jelly was doable and a roaring success. The snow however was a tad more difficult. How do you explain to a five year old that there are things you can't do? You don't, you lie and hope for the best. You also do a tribal snow dance for her in the days leading up to her birthday. A snow dance is fairly similar to a rain dance, just with jazz hands added at the end. Someone must have been looking down on me, probably the God of pure dumb luck, but lo and behold it snowed on her birthday as if on cue. My status of SuperDad had been cemented, even the eldest looked at me with a mix of suspicion and awe.

The cherry on the cake for her was when she saw the tent I had set up in her bedroom, she is desperate to go camping. A beer tent may not be the most appropriate thing in the world for a child, but I have come to the conclusion that nothing is quite appropriate in our house, and long may it stay that way.

The weirdest thing of it all is that whilst the thought of Dawn being 16 makes me feel old and Katy being 5 makes me feel young, the complete opposite is true when visiting their respective schools. Maybe it's the fact that at Dawn's school I am one of the youngest parents and at Katy's I'm not? I had set out at the beginning for there to be a moral to this story, it's just that I seemed to have lost it amongst the way. Maybe it's that feeling old is just a question of who is looking at you? Or maybe it's just as simple as enjoy your kids whilst they still let you. Either or, I have decided not to worry about it, well not for another year at least.

A toast to my Mother in Law on her 70th

I first met my Mother in law at a Toga party at Kirkdales, a pub I later went on to buy. She would always like a good natter, and was very quick to point out to me that in her day they were just referred to as 'parties', and that togas were just everyday wear. I have always felt that having a birth certificate engraved in marble, was quite a thing.

'Mummy Veronica' as she is known within the Kirkdales community, has always been a lively character. 'Vivacious Veronica' is a tag she oft likes to bestow on herself. In fact it was on hearing of her exploits on various Night buses on the way home from numerous Salsa clubs at 5.30am, that first sparked my interest in my wife, her daughter, Patricia. I figured that with those genes and those jeans, Trish would definitely be a party girl up for a wild time. Ten years of sitting indoors watching crap television on a Saturday night, has not entirely crushed those dreams. I like to live in hope.

They say Helen of Troy's beauty was such, that she started the Trojan War. She was 'The face that launched a 1000 ships'. Veronica was born in 1939 at the start of World War 2. 'The face that launched a 1000 kamikaze planes' does not have quite the same ring to it, and is definitely not mentioned in polite company.

Veronica is a keen church goer and an important member of that community. Seventy years of strict Catholic upbringing has taught her all the best ways to blaspheme. In fact her Salsa and Tango techniques are the Holy See's first weapon in his current fight to convert Anglicans to the Catholic way. Guilty pleasures indeed.

It is impossible to mention Veronica without referring to her children, who she has always taught to out-work, out-talk, and out-spell everybody else. Never have betterer lessons on the correct use and placement of apostrophe's been had. I consider myself learnt well. Her lesson of 'Never use one word if one hundred will suffice' is a family motto, and one they all hold dear to their hearts.

Three score and ten is a magnificent milestone to achieve, and has not been reached without a few red wine induced hic-ups. As Veronica herself would like to say, actually, I don't have room for that speech. So instead I say Congratualtions and Happy Birthday Oma.

You break it, you keep it

It was our son Mate’s second birthday this week. A very joyous, but lets be honest, boring age to celebrate. The first birthday is all exciting because it’s their first, and everyone takes an interest. The third birthday is always good for a laugh, as by then the kid knows the score and is really into his pressies, cake, and the whole day in general, but the second is a bit of a non-event, and what the hell can you buy a 2 year old anyway.

I remarked upon this to my wife as we were wrapping his present (just the one, what’s the point wasting money if he hasn’t got a clue, it will be the last ever time we can get away with it), and she strongly disagreed with me. I pointed out, that if this was not true, then how come we were wrapping his present with newspaper. Her curt reply included the phrase “because you forgot to buy any”, and some other, in my opinion, harsh, questions doubting my parentage. She was also not blown away by my “well it is the Sunday Times which technically costs more than wrapping paper!” defence either.

We started the morning with a glass of Cava for me and the good Wife. This was a tradition that had started the morning after I had been on a huge bender with the boys. The hangover was horrific, but heeding my Dad’s advice of “hair of the dog”, I had poured myself a beer to help everything along. The Wife came downstairs at 8am to see me drinking said beer, and was understandably disturbed. I informed her it was (imaginary) Uncle Pete’s birthday and it was a tradition in my family to offer a toast for a good day. I have had to continue the tradition ever since. This is also why Katy celebrates “Odd sock Friday”, much to her teacher’s confusion.

The rest of the morning came and went, he really did not have a clue but enjoyed playing with the newspaper. His Mum sang Happy Birthday every 10 minutes, just to drum into him the importance of the day, but in my humble opinion he looked just as non-plussed the 8th time as he did the 1st.

The next highlight of the day for him was going for a walk (well, being walked in his buggy) with his Oma. Oma is my wife’s Mum, and Oma is German for Grandmother (I think?). She’s not from Germany, but she feels that being called Granny makes her sound old, and so if you translate that to German, Oma doesn’t sound as old. Now I’m 38 next month, and the German for that is “Achtunddreiβig nächsten Monat” which makes me feel loads older and slightly scared, truth be told, so I can’t say I’m in total agreement with the theory.

Anyway, his other Nan and Grandad (call me anything, just call me darling), came over for lunch, and they gave him a toy that my Grandad (we called him MOG which was Nasty Child speak for miserable old git), had made me when I was 2. We had a nice lunch and a few beers, and that was pretty much it for the rest of the day.

Much later, after the kids had gone to bed, after the wife had gone up and resettled them, and after I had gone up again and resettled them, it was time to relax and reflect upon this most historic of days. My wife offered up the toast “Congratulations, we made it.” I obviously looked confused, for she continued “we made it to his 2nd birthday without breaking him, or our relationship!”

This was the most sage-like thing I had ever heard my wife say, and I must admit to being quite impressed. I was less impressed when, judging by the empty bottle I found, I realised she had been toasting herself out in the kitchen a fair few times already. Minor gripes (or grapes), aside, it did get me thinking on how far we had come with him. It also made me think about all the things we had broken in those 2 years.

In that time we have broken 3 car wing mirrors, 2 were knocked off whilst our car was parked outside our house, and 1, according to my wife, just fell off? I can just imagine bringing Mate home from the park with 9 fingers, and getting away with saying “one just fell off”, but don’t get me started. I have killed my entire crop of leeks, and potatoes, although in fairness they would have been killed at some time, but obviously being roasted to death would have tasted better. Two really nice houseplants have bit the dust, and one of them was a bonsai tree, whom I named Le Fi Guy. I miss that wee fella.

The children have not been without their mishaps too. We had the shampoo drinking episode with Mate. The “look no hands”, trampoline incident with Katy. Dawn is off breaking hearts somewhere, but until hers gets broken, I am adopting a head in the sand kind of attitude. There was an incident at London Zoo, but as the Wife does not know about that, it will remain between me, my sister, and an on-looking Lion.

So I guess my Wife was right to raise a toast, because with our track record, it is an absolute miracle he is still in one piece, kind of. So I raise a toast to all parents out there, especially those with a 2 year old. Well done for not breaking them.