Quantum Parenting

Quantum Parenting. Part 5 - Stark Raving Dad

Girls, as I pointed out before, always smell nicer, even if the boys have more showers…

90.            Small children cannot walk past a puddle without jumping in it.

Children will always find a puddle, especially if they are wearing non water proof shoes (I suspect that some tribes in the world use the child's natural predilection for puddle jumping to find water during periods of drought. If not, I may start hiring out my children as natural diviners)

91.            If you have just changed a very soggy nappy, your child will immediately fill the dry one with something far worse.

92.            A parent will always notice a spill immediately as it happens, rather that just before, which would enable you to move things out of the way (Jedi parenting has not yet been invented).

93.            If something hurts, girls stop and think and normally don’t do it again. Boys stop and think and then usually convince another boy to try it so that they can laugh at them.

94.       Or do it again themselves to make sure…

95.       All children look cute when they’re asleep.

96.       All children will at some point have fallen asleep in their tea.

97.       All parents will have a picture of it.

98.       Children are incredibly bendy.

99.       Kids can sleep virtually anywhere in virtually any position.

We have a picture of my youngest daughter asleep on picnic bench in the garden, lying on the seat with one of her feet tucked under her chin instead of a pillow. If I tried that I’d be crippled… or in the news… or both…

100.       Hungry, Angry, Teasy, Grumpy, Stroppy, Smelly, Giggly and Hot – The seven dwarves of “children stuck in a traffic jam”.

101.       Always have food, water and wet wipes with you. If you don’t you will end up in a traffic jam with dwarves.

102.       Letting your children sleep in the car is all very well, but when you get to your destination tired and grumpy (not necessarily dwarves), they wake up full of beans.

103.       All children at some point in their lives end up peeing on the side of the road with a disgruntled parent holding an umbrella. Boys, just for once, are better at this particular operation than girls.

104.       Demonstrating to a young child that spaghetti sticks to the wall when it’s cooked is not a good idea. It doesn’t work with Sunday roast…

105.       Or cereal…

106.       Children absorb technology, if you can’t work the DVD player, ask the nearest child.

107.       Bedtime is always too early.

108.       Explaining to young children that it's bedtime when the sun is still shining outside is nigh on impossible.

109.       Very young children find mirrors utterly fascinating (a bit like budgies).

110.       Babies will always prefer the box to the toy.

111.       Grandparents are cool, parents are not (although grandparents aren’t allowed to use the word ‘cool’ either, even if their generation did invent it).

112.       As a parent, one of the most annoying sounds in the universe is giggling from the back of the car.

113.       Kids of a certain age (somewhere between 7 and 11 depending on the child) will always get up late during the week and early at the weekend.

114.       Young children can sleep through virtually anything between the hours of 9pm and 5am. After 5am they can hear you turn over in bed through three closed doors.

115.       Dreams can cause the strangest reactions during the night.

We were woken one night to the immortal cry of “Hedgehog!”

It was repeated at several second intervals in the sort of screeched panic that has parents running across the hall before they’ve opened their eyes, expecting an intruder with a disembodied head and chainsaw.

It was only when I got to my youngest daughter’s bed that I twigged what she’d said, but found her quivering in one corner pointing at the gap between her bed and the wall and muttering “hedgehog” repeatedly. It wasn’t until I physically stuck my hand in the gap to prove to her that I didn’t have a small spikey mammal pinned to my hand that she stopped, smiled at me and instantly dropped back to sleep. Weird child… needless to say, we were awake for some time afterwards.

My own recurring nightmare as a child was of a disembodied hand floating around the house (some of you might recognise this in a short story I’ve done). One night I dreamt that it arrived above my head and was about to strangle me. At this point I awoke and being slightly worried I reached up to check and found a hand hovering above my head… I’d gone to sleep with my head on my arm which had gone dead, and had grabbed my own unfeeling hand with my other.

What was more scary was my own baby brained father staggering into the room with a golf club in response to my own screams of fright, expecting a disembodied head and a chainsaw wielding nutter…

And this one I have stolen but it’s too true to leave out.

116.       Families are like chocolate bars, mostly sweet but with occasional nuts…

(In the case of my family I think occasional may be an understatement.)