THERE are so many moments to cherish with kids, and also so many times when you are so very, very bored. Like these:
Pushing your child on a swing, in which momentum and kinetic force combine to turn seconds into hours
Waiting in their room for them to fall asleep when you’re not allowed to scroll your phone because it keeps them awake
Listening to them talk about Roblox, Minecraft or Fortnite, wondering what part of your stupefied face says ‘Tell me more, my angel’
Walking down the street with a toddler examining every fascinating new paving stone
Doing f**king phonics with the Oxford Reading Tree
Reading their favourite bedtime story that you’ve read so many times you quote it to strangers
The wipe wait, because there’s nothing like hanging around with loo roll in hand ready for a child to finish shitting to remind you of what you’ve become
Washing laundry, the job that never, ever ends
Harvest Festival; the hymns, the poems about autumn leaves, the Bible story by Year 6, then watching every single child in the school walk slowly down a long church aisle to place a tin of beans on a table
Sports Day, where after a while you’ll be so bored you don’t even notice your own child triumph at the egg-and-spoon
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, all the snacks: making food has become so very, very dull
Watching them put their shoes on badly, like dicks, resisting shouting ‘Hurry the f**k up’
Playing an interminable boardgame they’ve drawn and devised that doesn’t have any rules except they win
Preparing pass-the-parcel for their birthday parties, ie wrapping the same parcel 12 bloody times
Waiting for the shitty animated movie they’ve chosen for Movie Night to finish so you can start drinking. F**k it, Elsa won’t know. Start now.
