This week I have learned a valuable lesson. I have also learned my place in the pecking order of this house. The place where I sit in the intellectual standings; where I sit in the food chain.
One of the joys of a baby is the new found ability to explore numbers on a clock that you thought were merely there to make the thing a whole circle. We’ve had 3s, 4s, and most commonly 5s. I’ve been making good use of this additional time by slowly boiling my shizzle to the point where it evaporates in its entirety. One such cook up was this week, where it took at least 0.2 seconds for this old fellow to get outplayed.
Picture the scene… I’ve been sitting on the sofa dressed in nothing but my boxer shorts and a sombrero since about 4.45am. Since that time I’ve been singularly failing to entertain a very awake baby, whose latest trick is ripping out chunks of my chest hair whilst roaring like a lion. At 6.45am in bounds B, full of the joys of something I’ve not experienced, possibly ever.
“I want my TV on”.
“No. You don’t ask like that and anyway I’m watching the end of this fascinating documentary about how they cook baked beans inside the tin at the factory (I know! Bugger me science is amazing isn’t it?!). You’ll have to wait.”
BANG
Out come all his toys.
“Can I have my TV? PLEEASSEE.”
Damn him and his manners.
Then, a stroke of genius strikes me. From where I do not know. God, I was proud of myself.
“Well, in this house we compromise and we share. We can’t have your TV and your toys so I have a choice for you”.
“Go on”, he says. (He doesn’t, he’s not a detective in Midsummer Murders, taking the witness statement of a nosy elderly piano teacher).
“Well, you can either have my boring TV and play with your exciting toys or we can have my boring toys and your exciting TV?”
Quick as a flash… “We’ll have your boring toys then”.
Damn I hadn’t planned ahead (just like there is no consequence if I actually get to the number 3 and he hasn’t done what I want him to).
“Are you sure, they are really boring.”
“Yes.”
Ok…
So there followed a hastily constructed card game peppered with references to my History A Level. I needed a theme and I was short on baked bean knowledge. Yes, you guessed it, we studied German history 1923 – 1945. Don’t judge me, I refer you to the fact it was early. And do you know what, he ruddy loved it. For an hour and 15 ruddy minutes.
My particular favourite moments were when he ran round the living round chanting “DAS DUDS, DAS DUDS”, after my choice of card resulted in an addition to my already weighty Dud pile; and the moment Mrs DB fell off the sofa in fits of the giggles when I complemented his text book Operation Barbarossa manoeuvre.
On the basis that we’ve had to play it every pissing morning since, I’ll be flogging copies of “Anschluss”, in time for Christmas.
God, I hope he doesn’t ask the Austrian kid from pre-school if he wants a game.
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Dad's Barmy 