Nappy Time

Unlike last time, this entry will most certainly not be fluffy in the slightest.

In fact this entry will be Exhibit A in the trial of My Horrible Parents vs Teenage Little Miss K. Reason Numero Uno of 'Why My Parents Hate Me And Want To Deliberately Embarrass Me At Every Opportunity'. Worse than those baby photos showing ample evidence of her gender that we will bring out to horrify future boyfriends. Oh yes. It's my job, as her father, to do this.

How can I put this delicately? Despite a very effective digestion and a healthy diet, Little Miss K can be a little bit vocal during her evening evacuations. And when I say 'a little bit vocal'... Imagine a woman bearing down during the latter stages of labour. Or maybe a bear on heat during mating season. A whale communicating with their mate across sixty miles of open ocean, perhaps? My God, she is noisy. Little Miss K has an exhibitionist streak three miles wide; she is having a poo and she is proud.

This all started when the weather started to improve in May. Little Miss really enjoys pottering about in the garden. On one particular spring evening the gentle breeze and late afternoon sun must have been conducive to her bowel movements, so rather than toddle back indoors to do her thing she held onto one of the pergola uprights and let rip. Literally. Imagine her little red face scrunched up in intense concentration. Her knuckles white from her tight grip on the pergola. Finally the coup de grâce: the relief on her face, followed by a grin and the announcement 'NAPPY TIME!'.

We must have rushed outside to see what all the fuss was about. A tiny light bulb probably lit above her head and she thought a little thought. To wit: 'This is what I must do if I want my nappy changed now!'.

She is showing no signs of stopping this, despite our active discouragement. We have to carefully time our return from days out to ensure that she doesn't happen when we are in public. However we can't always control who hears her nightly performance.

One time during the hot spell in July, next door were having a very civilised barbeque in their garden. Over the fence came the sounds of tinkling glasses, cutlery on plates and polite conversation. Little Miss was playing in our garden digging holes in the mud and gravel with her little spade and bucket. Then, her moment arrived. It lasted five minutes. Five, long, excruciatingly embarrassing, mortifying minutes. When the 'NAPPY TIME!' all clear was sounded, there was the sound of cutlery being picked up again and giggles.

Oh dear.

Eating Out

Like most new parents, we were completely unprepared for the stark reality of kiddie wrangling. When we were DINKYs, we would spend our weekends doing all those things that we wanted to do but couldn't when we were impoverished students. If we wanted to take in a film, we could. If we wanted to try that new restaurant, we could. If we wanted to sit in a cafe, drink coffee and read the newspaper all afternoon, we could. Go on impromptu city breaks to see old friends? Why, of course! We had the financial muscle and the time to do what we wanted, when we wanted.

The trouble with unlimited freedom is that unless you have unlimited ideas on how to use it, this freedom gets, well, boring. So we decided to have one last big holiday and then have a child. And just like in a cheesy Hollywood movie script, we went on holiday a young couple, had lots of fun cuddling koalas and chasing Goth kangaroos and then we came back parents.

Three weeks after Little Miss was born, we tried to have a meal out together as a family. She slept the whole time. We enjoyed our meal - pizza if I remember correctly - and we vowed to do it again. How naive we were. As any fule kno, small children and polite restaurants simply do not mix.

The irony of all of this is not lost on me. Back in the days BP (Before Parenthood) we would stop for a bit of lunch and ask for a table as far away as possible from the war zone on table 5 caused by the close proximity of one or more toddlers with food. Now we don't have that option. Our daughter is the one with the spaghetti sauce and ice cream face mask and the sad little pile of half masticated bread under her seat. And she may look utterly adorable to us wearing her dinner but our fellow diners may not appreciate her sartorial flair. We still try to eat out but rarely the pros (potentially delicious food) outweigh the cons (small child who would much rather be anywhere else).

Recently my brother and his girlfriend agreed to babysit while we went out for a meal at a Chinese restaurant - our first as a couple for many months. Little Miss K was in bed asleep so it was hoped that we wouldn't receive That Call telling us to Come Home And Sort Things Out. Five minutes after our arrival my mobile rang.

'How do you get the television to work?' asked my brother. This is not such a stupid question since our home entertainment system is complicated enough to defeat someone with a Physics Ph.D. I told him to press the 'TV' button, followed by the 'AV' button, then the 'Sat' button, dial the number of the channel you want and finally shake the remote muttering 'work you stupid bugger'. The sound of white noise was swiftly followed by Coronation Street. I asked if they had had anything to eat yet; pizza had been ordered. 'Don't let the delivery man ring the doorbell otherwise Little Miss will wake up and want some,' I warned. I could sense the blood draining from my brother's face.

Later, as we tucked into our toffeed apple, a thought struck us. The food had been good, the waiters friendly and we had enjoyed being grown-ups. Being the two of us again, just like we were two years ago. But there had been something missing. We had become so used to Little Miss K grinning at us through a beard of fusilli con spinaci that to not have her there seemed utterly wrong. True, we would have ended up leaving the meal half-way through for a 'Nappy Time' moment and probably earned the contempt of every other diner in the restaurant in the process (more anon). However she is our little girl and meal times are not the same without her telling you emphatically that the thing in her hand is a 'poon' and that she is 'all done' and to 'wa' hands' afterwards.

I know this has all gone a bit fluffy, but I will make amends.

The Mini-Shop

It used to be all so simple. Me and Mrs Koinuchan would realise that we were out of Columbian Blacktail Free Range Eggs or some such and I would pop down to the local supermarket and get them. The whole situation would be resolved within ten minutes and we could get back to doing whatever we were doing before we discovered our egg deficit. With the advent of Little Miss K any visit to any shop is a major undertaking - to the point where we avoid supermarket-based shopping whenever possible. If it wasn't for the miracle of Internet Supermarket Shopping we'd probably starve.

Eventually a visit to the local supermarket cannot be avoided. This usually coincides with Little Miss running out of her Fresh Organic Whole Milk Lovingly Procured From Ecstatically Happy Cows for her bedtime bottle. Miserable Cow milk doesn't cut it with her. She'll drink half and then wake up hungry at 2am yelling at us for Being Naughty. Happy Cow milk it is then.

We are already feeling flustered after wrenching a trolley from the mangled pile of twisted metal in the car park. Unfortunately our local large supermarket has a Tweenies Rocket Ride in the foyer. 'TWEEEEENIES!' screams Little Miss and she makes a bee line for the ride. 'Want Tweenies now!'. I scoop her up and calmly say 'Not now, later'. 'But.... TWEEEEENIES!' she pleads, going bright red. I point out the apples in the nearby fruit and veg counter. 'Oooohhhhh! Apple! Mela! Apple!' she giggles and toddles off in that direction. Nicely distracted, I put her in the trolley's toddler seat and we spend a stimulating five minutes identifying all the fruit and vegetables. Mrs Koinuchan, grateful for the relative calm, gets some apples.

Our shopping list was very short - spaghetti, bread sticks, Happy Cow milk and apples. It took us over half an hour to track everything down. Little Miss is easily distracted and this was a shop full of distractions. Unfortunately she also hates being in this seat. Much too soon we always hear the Dreaded Almighty 'OUT!' as she tries to get break free. Sometimes, especially if both of us are with Little Miss, it is just easier just to let her loose with one parent on rampage mitigation duties and the other actually shopping. This was one of those times.

Eventually we turned into the magazine aisle. Big mistake. We walk past the childrens' magazines. Even bigger mistake. Mrs Koinuchan picks up CBeebies Magazine. Abort! Abort! Little Miss' face lights up. 'Beebies! Stickers! Beebies!' she shouts excitedly. 'Want stickers!'

Well, anything for a quiet life. Little Miss gets her magazine and she holds it with a reverence previously reserved for likes of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Rosetta Stone. 'Beebies,' she states calmly and starts to look for the sticker sheet. We approach the checkout counter and then the unmitigated horror of the ensuing situation hits us. We will have to give the magazine to the woman on the checkout to pay for it.

We hear a ripping noise. Little Miss tends to get so excited by her stickers that sometimes the magazine is in a less than pristine condition even before we get it home. Mrs Koinuchan takes it and puts it on the conveyor belt before it gets completely ruined. Little Miss believes the world is ending and half the shop watch her working herself into a tantrum. So I take the nuclear option. 'Scan this,' I tell the checkout, passing her the box of bread sticks. I take the box, rip it open and give Little Miss one. 'Wed Tick!' she exclaims and starts to munch away merrily, CBeebies magazine long forgotten.

Behind us in the queue was a mother with a slightly older child in a pushchair. The child is slowly working his way through a packet of Hula Hoops. The mother looks at me and gives a wry smile. I know exactly what she is thinking.

One. Of. Us.

Insomnia

I admit that this topic is not particularly 'modern' by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is of vital importance as I sit here struggling to get wake up enough to want to look at that exciting design document and plod through that source code one more time. I'm starting to develop a tolerance to espresso coffee too. That can't be good.

Last night, like most nights, I had about five hours sleep. I'd like seven or eight. The last time I went to bed and woke up feeling almost human was the night before my daughter was born. That was nearly 22 months ago. When she was very small she would wake up a couple of times every night demanding milk and the occasional nappy change. She couldn't help it - she was a newborn and that's what newborn babies do. Now, many months later, she is regularly sleeping through the night and still I can't sleep properly. She has conditioned me into a living hell of self-induced sleep deprivation. And I am not happy about it.

Every night is the same. Little Miss goes down at about 8 to 8.30pm in her bedroom, next door to ours. Me and Mrs K go to bed a couple of hours later. Mrs K, bless her, is fast asleep and making appreciative sleeping noises within five minutes of the lights going out. I just lay there, eyes closed, begging for oblivion. Then I hear a thud, followed a squeak and a sleepy crying noise. So I investigate.

I am convinced that Little Miss K sleep crawls. When Mrs K settles Little Miss, her head is on the pillow and she is under her duvet. When I check on her, the pillow is upright at the other end of the bed, the duvet draped over the bars of the cot and she is lying uncovered at ninety degrees to where we left her. And, without fail, she is fast asleep muttering under breath about Tinky Winky and Noo Noo.

So I stumble back to bed, stubbing my toe on the bedstead in the process. And lie there trying to ignore my poor throbbing foot. Eventually I start to drift off and... Thud! Eeek! Wahhhhhh! Snuffle, snuffle Tubbies Noo Noo (yawn)... I'm wide awake, darling daughter is sleeping again and Mrs K. is completely oblivious. Repeat until 3am or the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, whichever is sooner.

As most parents will attest, small children have two deep sleep settings - snuffling piglet and catatonic. Snuffling piglet will keep you awake in the short term, but at least you can shut that out when you are sufficiently tired. Catatonic is another matter. Every night, roughly around 4am, I wake up suddenly and feel compelled to check on Little Miss because I've not heard anything for a couple of hours. I sneak into her room and there is a morgue-like silence. I start to panic. Is she dead? Should I try to wake her up? Will my wife kill me if I do? Then there is a loud snort and the snuffling piglet is back. I'm relieved but utterly despondent. Yet another half hour of strange noises to put up with before my poor exhausted mind finally switches off.

At roughly 6am there is always a thud, followed by a louder squeak than normal. This is the nursery version of the morning chorus and always comes two hours too early. On a good day we then get 'Mamma!', 'Daddy!' and 'OUT!' until zombie Daddy or zombie Mamma stagger into her bedroom and release her from her cot. If we are unlucky we will get 'MILK!' and/or 'TOAST!' too which results in zombie Daddy stumbling down the stairs in a vain attempt to locate the fridge before lacerating his bare feet on Mr Potato Head's glasses.

Little Miss K is almost old enough to have the bars removed from her cot. Right now, she will wake up and squeak, and you can at least pretend that she will resettle herself, even if you know that that is as likely as Bill Gates appearing in a BDSM video with Anne Widdecombe. As soon as those bars are removed, every morning will be begun with a herd of thundering wildebeest and a clip round the back of the head with 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Board book version, natch.

Can't wait.

Big Cook Little Cook

Roughly two years ago, I was happily oblivious to CBeebies. Most people without kids are. For the benefit of those fortunate individuals, CBeebies is a BBC television station filled with programmes for the young. We are talking Teletubbies, Balamory and The Tweenies here.

My daughter discovered CBeebies when she was recovering from chicken pox last winter. The poor thing had a high fever and itchy skin and she was too unwell to play. Watching television or the odd song/game on the CBeebies website seemed a harmless enough thing to do. She watched maybe half an hour twice a day - we were controlling it and she seemed happy. The downside was that as soon as she got better, she wanted to watch CBeebies ALL THE TIME.

Luckily it doesn't take much effort to persuade a toddler to want to read books and play silly games, especially when Playdoh and fingerpaint are involved. Still, we have watched some of these shows, purely in the name of (ahem) research.

On the whole the BBC aren't doing too bad a job spending the licence fee. Balamory is a fantastic show, featuring just enough catchy music and sexual tension between PC Plum and Miss Hoolie to keep this sleep deprived dad more than happy. The back-chat between Tigs, Mukka and Dogsby on The Shiny Show is a minor masterpiece of surreal farce. And the Noo Noo on the Teletubbies is obviously the brains of that operation.

However, one show is just so piss poor that my frontal cortex tries to half throttle me to prevent any unnecessary agony. The premise of 'Big Cook Little Cook' isn't necessarily a bad one - get kids to want to cook and eat healthy food. However, the execution of the show is just... awful. There are two cooks who run a cafe. One is normal sized and is called Ben. The other one is approximately 20cm tall and is cruelly named 'Small'. Apparently they run 'the best cafe in town'. You could have fooled me.

They can only serve one customer at a time, inevitably some poor sod from a nursery rhyme. When they eventually get round to serving them after singing songs, telling stories and generally mucking about, they produce fussy, terrifyingly god-awful nouvelle cuisine. For example, if they were entertaining Mother Goose, she would be presented with an egg on toast decorated with two black olives (eyes?), a sliver of red pepper (mouth?) and something random made out of fruit (wings?). I'm not sure what children are supposed to make of this. No parent would ever actually volunteer to make this stuff, with or without the 'help' of a passing child.

Anyway, this is not the worst thing about the show. Oh no. The actors who play Small and Ben are obviously doing it for the money after realising that their day job (stand up comedy double act) wasn't keeping them in day-glo undies. Every day they grind through this show, singing the same rubbish songs, saying the same lame catchphrases, grinning empty eyed at the camera and they haven't even got the decency to send themselves up. And my daughter loves this show! Arrrggghhhhh!

And it would have been so easy to make this show great. Julian Clary should play an even camper Ben, preferably after exhuming his old Joan Collins Fan Club wardrobe. Imagine what he could do with 'And remember, the oven is hot hot hot!' Jack Dee would make a fantastic world-weary Small. I can see him now whizzing around on that wooden spoon telling Ben to get his own bloody butter.

Ah. Dream on.

The MP3 Player

Back when I was in my 20s in the 1990s, when marriage and parenthood where things that happened to other people, I had a serious CD buying habit. I religiously bought Q, Vox, Select and the NME and bought anything and everything that looked interesting. This had two major consequences - 1) I had too many CDs that bordered on the unlistenable and occasionally profane and 2) a large overdraft. My girlfriend (now wife) soon knocked that out of me. The discussion went like this:

Before we moved in together:
'Cool record collection.''Yep.'

After we moved in together:
'Where on earth are we going to put all these CDs? Don't you dare buy any more!'

Fast forward nine years. As soon as Little Miss Koinuchan discovered that CDs make a loud satisfying crashing noise when dragged off a shelf the consequences of a mis-spent youth searching through the racks at HMV and Virgin were banished to the loft. I ripped everything worth hearing and boxed everything. But yet I can't bear to throw, sell or give any of them away. Even Mark Keds doesn't give a fraggle's cuss about The Senseless Things anymore, so it doesn't make any sense that I do.

Anyway... My daughter is starting to show an interest in music, admittedly in Parentally Approved Kids' Music Off The Telly. This means that my beloved MP3 player, previously the domain of all things loud, atonal and distorted, is starting to be over-run by nursery rhymes and jaunty little tunes from CBeebies. This has had several unfortunate side effects:

1) Every single car journey is soundtracked either by Josie Jump exhaulting us to jump a little higher or by darling daughter yelling at us to play it again a little louder.

2) My MP3 player now plays nursery rhymes at random. It's jarring to be driving drifting along to Mogwai when suddenly 'Jumping Jack' or 'Old McDonald And His Wretched Farm' suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

3) My daughter may discover some of the more outre things that I may occasionally listen to. Exhibit #1: Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name'. There is something wonderfully therapeutic about yelling 'Fuck You I Won't Do What You Tell Me!' as you are pootling along on a busy motorway boxed in between two lorries, a caravan and a milk float. Less so if your little daughter is sitting in the back and you see her big round eyes get a bit bigger and a lot rounder in your rear view mirror. You just know she is going to start singing 'Duck Glue Won't Smell Me' when you get home and you will be in Big Trouble.

I have a recurring nightmare that one day I will be doing the school run with half the neighbourhood's kids in the back. On will come this song and they will start singing along, my daughter singing loudest of all. I will drop them off and their parents will know. 'You've been playing That Song again, haven't you?' they'll say. 'It took us two weeks to get 'So Fucking Special' out their heads and now you have exposed them to 32 'Fucks' and a 'Motherfucker'. '

'What kind of idiot are you?'

Josie Jump it is then.