Another week older and another week wiser. That goes for both me and the King of the house. It is scary how quickly he picks up on things.
He is fairly obsessed by the Disney version of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ I am pretty sure that last week he watched it 5 afternoons in a row. The first time you watch it, it is brilliant. You are delighted to watch a film that you grew up with. Unfortunately, this particular one doesn’t have that many hidden adult jokes in there, but it was a huge step up from Bananas in Pyjamas. Unfortunately for me (and I am sure Lis has it a lot worse) whenever I hear the name ‘Garcon’ now I break out in a cold sweat and hope that when I turn around there won’t be a singing beefcake on the TV.
What he has worked out, though, is that he gets to watch a bit of TV after he has had a nap. He will tend to ask for TV at about 10am or so if we are just playing in the house or in the back garden. If we go out then he will ask for it as soon as we get back. This request will be met with the same response, ‘you can watch some TV after your sleep.’ When he hears this he immediately goes to his bed and asks to go to sleep. Whether it be 10am or straight after lunch, he wants to go to sleep.
Obviously, when it is really early we manage to get him to do something else and have a play, but after his lunch it is hard to get him to do anything else – he wants to go to sleep to get up and watch TV, so into bed we go. Lis and I then have the fantastic job of getting him to nap.
At night he is great – you sing Rock-A-Bye Baby to him a few times and he settles himself and goes to sleep. This is not the case in the afternoon. After a couple of renditions of Rock-A-Bye, it is quiet time, but you have to be in the room with him the whole time. Any attempt to leave will be met with cries and him sitting up in bed. Bearing in mind it is at his request that he is in bed – if we could drag it out he wouldn’t be in bed just yet as we know he isn’t tired! This will normally take a good 30 mins to get him to sleep – 30 minutes of pure pleasure!
The previous weekend it was Lisa’s birthday. I got her a night in a hotel so we could be child-free for 24 hours. We dropped big boy at nanny and poppa’s and away we went. It was only a local hotel so we didn’t really need to explore the area, and dinner was set for later that evening, so when we got into our room we looked at each other and said ‘what do you want to do?’
Two minutes later I was watching rugby and Lis was reading her book – it was pure bliss. We stayed like this for hours. It was so alien to be able to just lie there, not have to sword fight Peter Pan, or jump on the bed, or clean a nappy, or wipe a nose, or clean up a trail of destruction. The sheer tranquillity in that hotel room was bliss.
The next morning, we didn’t get out of bed until after 9am. It has been at least 2 years since that has last happened! We then had a leisurely brunch before heading back to the real world. When we went to pick up the beast, he was there with his older cousin in the sandpit fighting over who would have the rake – ah, we are back! Happy fathering
fatherhoodlaidbare 