An essential guide for every new parent (ish)

I felt it was time I shared. Shared my vast experience of almost 15 days of twin fatherhood. Shared the minutiae of detail that can substitute Nightnurse when spoken out loud and shared my scientific analysis of how to be a new Didsbury Dad.

WWHD: my canyon-deep experience of bringing up Didsbury Son in the way of the slouch has given me a deep understanding of post school pre-bed television. You have to remember to keep those dark thoughts inside. Think don’t say or… What Would Homer Do?

Learn to use the kitchen: For most right-thinking dads washing up and a superficial tidy with radio droning in the background trumps any technical parenting hands down. Then glide up with wrinkled hands and up to date 5Live for a glory goodnight kiss and cuddle; magical and without pointless questioning about something unfatomable.

Pick your homework carefully, what you volunteer for at 5 years old may stick. Offer to help with all the non specific subjects that are not compulsory after year 8. It’s long term planning but it works.

With the preliminaries over I have decided to set up master classes for Didsbury Dads. There will be twin, sibling and male classes and each attendee will get a complimentary copy of my opus “Mooching aimlessly with Didsbury Son”.
Each class will be long enough to avoid a vital chore at home whilst not being so long that it upsets Didsbury Wife/Girlfriend/Partner. They will take place under the entrance porch of what was La Tasca.

1. 20 Credit module – knowing your place when out and about. In your head as you push your pram next to smiling wife, you are the proud father and doting guardian of a pair of reasons for every other pedestrian to poke their nose in and make a banal comment. To some other women you are now invisible. That unhelpful middle-of-the-night axe to grind. They will come and coo over Didsbury Wife and Didsbury Twins praising their own martyrdom. The level of conscious ignoring is quite a feat and can only be repeated by a Didsbury Son looking in his room for a protractor.

2. 20 credit module – understand the environment. The Internet is useful for many things beyond football and inappropriate searches. It is awash with support forums for women before, during and after pregnancy. This enveloping resource can be a tyrant, a comfort, a stick to beat you with and an early warning system. Take notice of the minutiae; take care of which way the wind blows and heed the clues. If you are told pointedly that some partners aren’t making meringues for their new babies and dusting properly get the oven on low, beat those egg whites and reach for the feathers -it’s cleaning time

3. Other Men: twins can be emotive. Years pre Didsbury Son and Didsbury wife without progeny to parade has taught me that my bundles of joy may be troublesome for someone somewhere. Be like the philosopher and take your happiness and your sadnesses with equal measure and enjoy them inwardly and indoors. You should also try not to to respond to comments from other men such as ” I didn’t know you had it in you”. It isn’t a compliment. It’s the equivalent of “Have you lost weight?” letting someone know you remembered them as fatter than they are.
This male minefield can be fun and can be a joy to share as well as giving you the chance to settle old scores.

Next week – back to being baffled by cupcakes, spoiled for a choice of barbers in the village and getting ready to mourn the demise of Linen on Albert Hill Street as it gets ready to shut its doors at the end of the month and fly like a pixie out of the village.

Welcome Giddy Goat, goodbye Summer Holiday

The more things change, the more they come back as Barbers, Charity Shops and Coffee Shops (Shskespeare).

As the Pixie fled Albert Hill Street to re-open with (thankfully) the same staff and 90% of the same stock as Linen, so it is Rumpus we shed a tear for as Louise bids farewell to staring at the front of the Post Office counting the illegally parked 4x4s. Bye bye Rumpus, hello Giddy Goat Toys. Same idea, different people and with twins on the way I have a feeling I’ll be there plenty. I liked Rumpus. With that at one end of the village and the brief but intense Razma Reads at the other we had the independent balance that Costa, Croatia and Caffe Nero’s Red Green Blue coffee colour chart has. brought to Wilmslow Road. Bear with me, by now even I have no idea where my mind has wandered to but there is reason.

This week is one that all parents anticipate and count down to with the enthusiasm of a teenage New Years’ Eve party; back to school day. Didsbury’s 107 Barbers from Chalky White on Fog Lane to Bohemian Rhapsody (made up name*) on Burton Road were full of sulky Didsburylings getting their short smart school haircuts. The cupcake emporiums were then full of mothers looking to appease their shorn offspring and MCS stores on Didsbury’s Eastern border was a picture of parental hell and soon-to-be-pupil unrest.

Anyone who sees buying school uniform as a pleasure is either stupid or role-playing. It is school shoe tiring, tie-teaching, grey sock searching misery that drains hearts and wallets with equal vigour. Didsbury Son is actually pretty easy; but by Tuesday we had still failed to track down gym shorts and our will to live was ebbing away.

I had been to John Lewis, M&S, Asda, Tesco and Decathlon chasing the elusive grail of stain-free suitable shorts. This depressing chainstore crawl had me praying to breakdown. At 4.59, leaving Didsbury Son head down in Pokemonland I stepped in to MCS School Outfitters. The queue stretched around the shop, the sunken cheeked queue ees mouthed hopeless pleas to me and the smell of sweat and fear engulfed me. It was as though Didsbury had been invaded and the refugees were making sure they had the right PE kit before they fled.

I turned around, mentally wrote a note for Didsbury Son’s teacher and counted down the hours to my first fantastically solo coffee since July.

Sometimes parenting means looking without your glasses on.