It was 3.42 on a Friday afternoon as I lay
flat on my back in what was the remnants of my man cave surrounded by duplo,
cars, balls and other assorted toys. The tv was blaring a song from Play
School. I blinked my eyes and above me loomed H with a trail of thick yellow
snot oozing from his left nostril and a wooden hammer in his hand.
“This is it.” I thought to myself. The
bitter taste of defeat stung the inside of my lips.
“He’s beaten me. I’ve had enough. Where’s
BWM? Come home and save me!” I screamed silently to the world.
I needed to move or I was going to wear the
hammer in H’s hand. I could see his hand twitching upward and I braced. His
hand held still though and he dropped forward putting both his knees into my
ribs and flopping on top of me for what turned out to be a sooky-la-la cuddle
with his dad. I reached for a tissue and he raised his head but the booger was
gone – no doubt somewhere on me.
No longer could I feel defeated. Here was
my son at the end of the week exhausted and wanting to cuddle into his dad
because he was sick. We’d been to the doctor twice in the week and I hate
taking him to the doctor. I’m not sure if H hates it? Although he does scream
the house down before turning around and attempting to open the surgery door so
he can leave (lucky he’s not quite tall enough yet!). From that point on he’s
usually all charm until the doctor goes near to him again. Then the screaming
starts anew! Yes, I hate being a Dad who is going to the doctor with his son.
I must admit I truly hate seeing my son
sick. He’s had swabs that have said he’s had a flu virus and rhinovirus (a
cold) as well as conjunctivitis. His nose has been a constant eruption of snot and his eyes weren’t much better for a couple of days. I know that him
getting sick means he is growing his immune system and he’ll be better off for
it in the long run. It doesn’t mean I can't hate it.
While I’m on my train of hate here - I really
hate seeing my son ignore his food when it’s presented to him. I’m not talking
fruit or vegetables. This is a kid who helps himself to the fruit
bowl if we accidently leave it within reach and vegetables disappear from his
plate and into his mouth as if by magic. No it’s his proteins. He’ll pick away
at his chicken nuggets, sausages, fish fingers and such like. I’ve even watched
him pull stuffing out of ravioli so he can eat just the plain pasta. I'm a man and I want to see my son eat his meat! I know
he’ll get there but I still hate it.
On the subject of hating things – I’m
really not a big fan of losing. After a loss I’ve been known to be moody and
grumpy for hours, days and weeks at a time. And that’s just after a game of
scrabble with BWM! It’s even worse when my rugby teams lose as we did on the
weekend (although a couple of them still scraped into the finals I still hate
the fact we lost the games. Making it worse too was the one team which won
missed out on the finals by not getting a bonus point – that’s definitely
something to hate!). Needless to say there will come a time in my son’s life
when I’m going to have to teach him how to lose. I won’t hate doing that but
I’m definitely not looking forward to it.
Finally though I’ve saved my biggest hate of
all for the caboose of the hate train. The one thing that I really, Really, REALLY
hate about being a Dad! It’s the fact that I’ve had to break a lifetime habit
of leaving the toilet seat up. Quite simply I hate having to put it down
all the time!
Now I’ve had my dummy spit I know it really
isn’t that bad. If that’s all there is that I dislike about being a dad then
in the words of my mate The Dunph (who stole the quote from the Simpsons) “You’re the
richest man I know.”
*I originally didn’t want to use ‘hate’ in
this blog post. However, the sub-editor in me wanted to get people hooked with
the headline so I struck out dislike, aversion, distaste, repugnance,
abhorrence, displeasure and all the other synonyms I could find and went with
the four letter word. Isn’t the headline all about
getting you to read it anyway!
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