This week I mainly filled an entire skip with rubbish every evening. If I'd known just how addictive and cathartic this process was - I'd have hired a skip years ago.
Old mattresses, rubble, a sink, bits of wood that Chris was going to burn on our barbeque this summer (but Sarah banned us), half broken chairs, a chipped piggy bank. As I've said to my friends many times over - my DIY speciality really lies in the demolition end of the DIY market. And even then - I'm not that great.
This explains why I ended up taking a hammer, then a power drill and finally a rusty half-blunt saw to the wooden Ikea double bed that had been the cause of at least 8 known incidents of "bed corner toe" - which is where you walk into the bed in the middle of the night and stub your little toe against a bed frame that is a typically Swedish, quirky eight inches longer than a standard double bed should be. I'm sure no one usually complains that they're sleeping with something that's Swedish and 8 inches too big - let alone my wife. But in this instance - it's been the source of a multitude of obscenties and "F*ckin' bed!" moments in our household. So good riddance to the evil feckin thing!
As I saw the frame in half and jump up and down on the boards with my considerable strength and bulk (ahem) - the wood splinters up and gashes my arm nastily. There is blood and I end up doing the manly thing and cleaning it out using the alcohol rubbing gel by the sink (kills 99.9% of all bacteria!). I am now bleeding and enjoying some masochistic DIY pain. I launch the bed into the skip and head to work.
That night I return from work and show Declan and Fintan my DIY war wound. I can't help myself - and tell a small white lie.
"Daddy had a fight with Darth Maul in work today..." I say casually.
The kids look at me wondrously (I think).
"Really daddy? Really really? You're not pretending?" asks Fintan. Fintan's no push over - this smells a little too rum even for a five year old.
"Yeah really - look - look at all that blood and the scabbing and the bruising," I say. "Do you want to touch it? That's where the light sabre hit me." (I get away with this - although if they'd been more astute - they'd be wondering if a lightsabre would inflict this sort of injury - there's no obvious signs of burning or cauterisation around the wound whatsoever).
"Did you kill Darth Maul daddy?" Declan asks me with a serious look of consternation on his face.
"Do you want daddy to have killed Darth Maul?" I ask - hedging my bets.
"Yes" - I say - "Well - maybe..." I'm not sure if telling my two year old that I brutally slayed a Sith Lord during my day at the office is really that good for his mental wellbeing.
"Well - maybe I just injured him...I think he ran away." I add.
"No daddy! You killed him! You killed him!" Declan is now adamant on this fact.
Fintan comes over and whispers.
"Did you really kill Darth Maul?"
I am torn between briefly being a Jedi Knight with some Kudos - or back to being just an ordinary bloke who went to the office, ate a spicy Mexican tuna sandwich at his desk for lunch and didn't really do anything more dangerous than watering his cactus (the spikes can really prickle if you water too close).
"No - No I didn't Fintan..."
"Oh. Ok."
Later in the week when I walk in the door - Declan is upstairs on the landing with a lightsabre. "Daddy - did you kill Darth Maul with a blue or a green lightsabre?"
"Blue lightsabre I say..."
And so the lie continues....
Luckily yesterday we were more down to earth. At the World Museum in Liverpool. I end up colouring in a dinosaur mask during the "dino workshop" and chronically underestimating exactly how realistic the new dinosaur exhibition would be for a two year old. I guess a giant thirty foot animatronic T-Rex roaring at you would leave you somewhat in fear for your safety. So - we didn't dally there too long. A quick session looking at Nemo in the aquarium and things were back on track.
I should have known - but it was the Samauri swords that had the kids interest most piqued. As these were the closest thing in the museum to lightsabres.
At one point I stupidly picked up the replica stone age hunting axe that neanderthal man used and gave it to Fintan to play with. Then Declan made a grab for it.
"Let's put that back shall we? Look - over there - there's a giant meteorite - let's try and lift it!" Meteorites are stupendously heavy. I can vouch for that now.
I have no idea how the baby girl is going to fit into this whole macho arrangement - of axes, swords and general boisterous mayhem. I have a distinct impression that within weeks - every pink toy in the house will have been surrupticiously commandeered from the nursery and into the boys rooms to be used in one of their games of toy soldiers.
I can only imagine...
We finish the weekend with the Lion King theme tune on full blast - you know - the one that opens with "AHHHHHHH ZABADAWINGAAAAAAA.....!!!!" and then Simba gets lifted up by the monkey. And hammering on the African drums I bought the kids a few weeks back. We are finding a good rhythm and I run into the playroom to grab some maracas and a tambourine (I am the Linda Macartney of the ensemble) and we belt out a few more. I lose the kids at "Under the sea" from the Little Mermaid and decide to wrap things up (well - Sarah reminds me that it's the kids bedtime and banging on a drum and shouting isn't good for getting them nice and relaxed for bed).
I am still holding out a faintly ambitious hope of buying a Hammond Organ for the house (just imagine the sound on one of those things!). But - this may well be something that requires delicate negotiation (and possibly some hint of extreme musical recording talent within the family!)
I'll keep you posted...
Posts
