Chicken Tikka spicy breakfast curries and my transmogrication into the ultimate DIY couch potato

It's been a great start to the New Year. I'm working for myself - free from the shackles of corporate evildom. I shall be a benign and fair boss. Like Solomon - wise beyond my years and my door always open for a friendly chat.

I start as I mean to go on. And early in the New Year I head down to Staples and buy a comfy chair for my office.

"Do you want us to assemble it for you? - it's only a fiver?" a nice lady asks me.

"No...no...I think I can manage it..." I chuckle. What does she take me for - some sort of DIY neanderthal?

And then I think of the bouts of swearing and cursing that will follow. The frantic search for the lost Alum key - the kids running off with the crucial screw at the crucial moment.

So I change my mind. I choose a particularly fine lazyboy chair in the show-room and sit back with my ipod on full volume. I listen to icelandic warblings courtesy of Sigur Ros and look over to the man from the Staples backroom who is busy assembling the chair on the shop floor in front of me.

This is actually fantastic fun. Every now and again I offer him helpful pointers like I'm some sort of DIY expert who regularly builds small outhouses and log cabins in his spare time. And if it wasn't for my pesky back - gone again - of course I'd assemble it myself.

"Yeah - those bits are always a bit fiddly aren't they?" I encourage him as he grunts and grumbles to himself.

There is definitely great satisfaction in sitting back watching someone else labour for your benefit.

And at a fiver - it's fairly good value entertainment. I might just head to Ikea to watch someone assemble an overly complicated flatpack bathroom.

Meanwhile - back at super crazy madhouse mansions (AKA "home"). Things get off to a good start this morning.

Sarah is getting her haircut and I'm in charge of the kids. I get them dressed and feed them breakfast whilst I tuck into a hearty meal of last night's reheated Chicken Tikka masala on toast - with cheese spread and ketchup.

This seemed like a good idea at the time but minutes later I'm drinking a litre of milk straight from the carton and pumping sweat furiously.

A few milliseconds later I'm on the toilet reassessing my choice of breakfast, when in charges Fintan. He's worked out that if he rattles the bathroom door until it falls off his hinges then he can get in.

He's holding an etch-a-sketch.

"Daddy Daddy daddy - look! Look! I've drawn four dinosaurs. But which have the same tails? Which ones daddy?"

"Fintan...Fintan... jesus Fintan...I'm sitting on the toilet. Fintan. Can this wait a minute?"

"Er...no daddy. Which one? Which one?"

"I dunno I dunno...that one?" I point wildly at the red squiggle with the big teeth in the corner.

"No daddy - look again!...It's that one," he whispers to me.

And then his brother wades in...

"Bottle daddy? Bottle?" he grins at me and waves an empty bottle in my face.

"Guys Guys Guys! Will you please let me just go for a crap in peace!" I tell them.

Declan promptly sits down as if in protest and claims the bathroom for his own. No one ever told me about this before I had kids. No-one. Where is this in the rulebook?

Finally - finally I realise that nothing is sacred - nothing is holy. Nothing and no place is safe from the avenging marauding masses of the children. They can morph through walls, snap CD's in two at a moments notice. Smash bowls randomly against the kitchen floor and turn lights on and off until all the fuses in the house blow and we are plunged into darkness.

So we head to Shrek Forever After at the cinema and the kids and I gorge on a sugar high of epic proportions. This is heroin for kids - a nose bag fulla cola bottles and jelly babies and pink shrimps. I find myself strangely moved by the final scenes of Shrek. It's like an Ogre based fairy tale remake of "A Wonderful Life".

I look at the kids and remind myself to enjoy these moments with them. Before it's too late. Although - it would be good if I could promote my book more, finish the sequel, win a few more work contracts and take over the world. But for the moment I am content with this. More than content.

I break away from Lego Star Wars on the PS2 to write this blog. Fintan is telling me:

"Calm down dad. Calm down dad. If you calm down you can do it." During a particularly challenging scene. Role reversal has finally set in. I find myself roaring at the tv and cursing the bloody game as I take the controls fully off Fintan and try to complete the mission. In the end I hand them back and Fintan completes it on his own.

Humiliating or have I created a child prodigy?

My wife already knows the answer...you're a feckin' eejit. That's what it is!