Dave the Dad 18 - Xmas Marks The Spot
Tom loves a good present........actually he loves a middling one. And a poor one. Any present really. Let’s qualify that. Anything wrapped, or in a box, that is mildly new. We have a corking bit of video footage from Christmas morning. Tom stands against his toy box, wrapping paper floods the room, glistening, honking, beeping, flashing, thumping, whirling gifts at his feet, on the sofa, everywhere. Tom is riveted, fascinated with the wondrous creation he holds in his own two hands. He stares at it as though he can’t quite believe its existence. Think Bogart in The Treasure of Sierra Madre, think Travolta in Pulp Fiction, think Indy in Raiders and you get the picture. Indy is closest actually for the treasure he is tapping and then unwrapping is a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. To be honest he’s not even unwrapping it; he’s continually putting the wrapped chocolate in the box and then emptying it with a thump onto the toybox. Brilliant. ‘Hey Tom, look! A train track!’ ‘Wow Tom look! A Ride-On!’ ‘Holy Mother of Mary Tom look! A farmyard!’ What do we get? ‘Not now I’m taking out a shiny bit of round paper before sticking it back into a box. And then pulling it out again. Continually. It’s fab!’
At least he was happily occupied. I would say this Christmas - our first where Tom has had a major role as last year he largely sat there sucking Jane’s finger - started well. The first fifteen to twenty-four hours were pretty nigh on unbeatable. Gorgeous tree, two and a half week holiday looming, lots of good cheer and Rolf Harris on the CD player. C’mon, beat that. Even Tom’s new product testing of every key in the house couldn’t dent the ambience. Pretty simple routine he has: get a bunch of keys, jam them into any available lock (as per mummy or daddy) and then place your entire weight on the remaining keys in an effort to extract. If key/lock/doorframe break then obviously something was amiss from the very start. Ergo: the end justifies some extremely violent, flinchingly dangerous means. What did we ever do without him! Kept keys intact for one.
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Then we went back to my parents’ house on the Saturday. We had planned the following: Saturday, visit parents; Sunday, visit other relatives; Monday-Friday inclusive, offload Tom onto as many people as possible. Of course I’d been telling people that Tom was quite a handful what with his running madly around, his love of climbing, his running wildly around, his love of animals, his running foolishly around and his obsession with doors. It wasn’t as though we gave no warning that the workload had increased now we had a laterally mobile kid but perhaps my folks (three kids, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren under their belts) underestimated Tom’s energy. He certainly seemed to have more than my dad who knackered himself out throughout the whole of Saturday trying to keep up with his grandson and then promptly had a heart attack on Saturday night as though to prove how tired he really was. He’s always been a bit attention seeking but this took the biscuit. Cut a long story short; dad had a lovely rest in hospital surrounded by foxy nurses and we looked after Tom as he ran around madly, wildly, foolishly in and out of every new door he could jam his chubby fingers in.
Still, no harm done and the best thing for us was the revelation that despite his clear lack of understanding when it comes to anticipation and consequence Tom had a fantastic Christmas. He loved the lights, the trees, the irregular refuse collection, the fact that you could walk around a corner and see, unexpectedly, a twenty-eight foot snowman. This is Brighton remember. And obviously the unwrapping. He didn’t get stressed when the turkey, which had been soaking overnight in a delicious and subtle blend of aromatic herbs, slipped from his mum’s hands and fell into the cat tray. He didn’t feel low when his father topped a particularly marvellous game of Trying To Stop Tom Stuffing All His Fingers Into Dad’s Mouth by being violently sick half the night. He didn’t get angry that ITV’s main competition to the BBC appeared to be repeats from 18 years ago when he could balance precariously on a chair and wave at startled passersby in the street. Neat, yet oddly alarming trick this. He also does it to entertain himself in the morning when he stands in the corner of his cot, yanks back the curtains and stares out into the street, waiting for perfectly innocent people to wander past. He then knocks the window and waves. Personally I’m surprised by the amount who respond, especially when you consider the percentage of people passing through our street who appear to think that occasionally using a bin might send them to Hell.
Probably the best thing about Christmas with Tom though was that it re-awoke our excitement in the Christmas shopping routine. Just when the Internet starts to offer that possibility that you need never enter another shop you take your toddler into one and you see how thrilling it all once was. The meandering South Lanes of Brighton, stuffed with shoppers and tinsel and hats and buskers and Santas and bells and dogs wearing berets, and then Potters toyshop, a fantasy fairyland where all your dreams come true. One short stop for a Babychino and, piece-de-resistance, mum’s trip to Marks and Spencer’s in search of new bras. Another fantasy fairyland where all Tom’s dreams came true and a fair few of dad’s were enlivened by a little extra Yuletide lift in one or two key areas. Wunderbar indeed!
January 13 2007
(Dave's column is a little bit later than usual as he has been 'suffering' from some kind of 'winter-lurgy' - we're assured it wasn't man-flu!!
Dave Fouracre aka "Dave the Dad" is a regular feature writer here at thebabywebsite.com.
Read more about his hilarious experiences as a Dad. |
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