While the following stories are basically true, allowing for a moderate degree of poetic license, all the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The Bike

Colin, my eldest boy, received a new bike for his fifth birthday. Up until then, he had been riding a tiny little bike with training wheels. This new bike was twice the size – the salesman said he’d be able to grow into it. It also didn’t have training wheels, as my wife and I felt that it was time for him to learn to ride without them. That also allowed us to hand the smaller bike down to Andrew, Colin’s three-year-old younger brother.

Initially, it was moderately successful. The boys, with the candour that is so prevalent at that age, named the new bike, “The Falling Down Bike,” due to the number of crashes that Colin managed to achieve.

It was after one particularly bad fall that the new bike was relegated to sitting on the veranda. Colin wasn’t hurt seriously, but he had taken a very nasty fright. Whenever he was asked after that, he opted to ride his scooter instead.

All of this changed after his sixth birthday. Now that he was a school kid, outside influences were changing him. He decided he wanted a motorbike.

After looking at the prices for a motorbike, armour plating for the rider, a helmet that would do an astronaut proud, and leathers in an appropriate fashion style, and then staring at a bank balance that any third-world country deeply in debt would be happy to see, but anyone with a mortgage would cringe at, defensive actions were called for:

Colin was informed that he couldn’t have a motorbike until he learnt to ride his push-bike.

This resulted in sudden change of heart. The bike that had been masquerading as a garden ornament for twelve months was retrieved. In one solid two-week period of riding every day, often more than once, Colin learnt to ride his bike. In honour of this the boys renamed the bike. It was now “The Easy-Peasy Bike.”

Dreading the repeated request for a motorbike, I prepared additional requirements he’d have to meet. We live at the end of a long driveway, most of which is uphill. I was ready to tell him that he’d have to be able to ride up that hill before he could have a motorbike. As his current bike didn’t have gears, I was confident that this would give me at least a year’s grace.

I was surprised when, instead of the anticipated request, Colin remarked that he wanted to go riding along the road with his daddy. I felt this was so cute, I passed it on to his mum, my wife, Janine

She decided that this was an excellent idea. She’d been wondering what to get me for my birthday, and now that problem was solved: she’d get me a bike.

Now, she knows what my bike riding skills are like. I never learnt to ride when I was young. I can sit on a bike and do a credible job, but she was there the last time we went riding. It was up at Falls Creek during one summer before we had children. We had hired bikes for the day. Everything had gone well until she decided to ride along the narrow trail next to an aqueduct – a stream of water that ran down to the Rocky Valley dam. Being a skilled rider, she was pedalling slowly, taking in the scenery.

Being an unskilled rider, I wasn’t used to riding that slowly. The bike wandered from side to side of the narrow track until I lost control and ended up in the water. Janine thought this was hilarious. In the ten years since, I haven’t been on a bike.

After all, if she really loved me, she wouldn’t put me through the torture of learning to ride a bike. Especially in front of my six-year-old son, who is already a better rider than me.

Paying no attention to my pained expression, she rang her parents to check if they’d bought me a present yet, and if they hadn’t, to suggest that they give her some money towards the bike instead.

My father-in-law had an old mountain bike that was still in good condition. My brother-in-law had bought it at a sale several years previously, but it hadn’t had a lot of use. They offered to give me that bike for my birthday present.

So, off to the in-laws it was, to see this instrument of torture that I might be given as a present.

The bike was in quite good condition. Colin and Andrew were very excited, and looked forward to seeing it in action. Trying to avoid the inevitable, I pointed out that my only riding helmet, dating back to the time when I was learning to ride a horse, was back at home, and it wasn’t wearable anyway. It has been several years since I last rode, and in the meantime some enterprising bird had decided to built a nest inside it. It had been just the right size. She had even laid a number of eggs, last time we checked.

My plans for delay were thwarted, however, when the in-laws produced a perfectly good, if slightly old, riding helmet. So, armed with a new bike and helmet, we headed off home.

This is where I learnt how cruel Janine could be. With Colin ready to ride rings around me, and Andrew gleefully riding around on his miniature bike with training wheels, Janine got out the video camera to capture for posterity my first bike ride in more than a decade – knowing full well that the last bike ride I’d taken had ended up with me soaking wet.

I decided that this was really a nefarious plan to knock me off. By videoing me, she had the evidence that would indicate it was only an accident, and if I didn’t crash, the heart-attack from over-exertion would finish me.

That was my other concern, and one that I knew I couldn’t raise. I had been complaining for months about being overweight and unfit, and that I needed to start doing some regular exercise again. Bike riding was not one of the things I’d been thinking of. If I tried to say anything, I knew Janine would just bat her eyelids at me and comment that not only was this good exercise for me, but it was also a good father/son bonding thing.

I managed to get through the next thirty minutes without losing too much pride. Janine chuckled several times as I found myself in the middle of a bush, or stopping to inspect a tree trunk at close range, but I didn’t really crash – at least by my definition.

Being passed by a six-year-old, pedalling flat out, augers well for the Australian Olympic cycling team in the future, but it does nothing to help the self-esteem of an overweight forty-one-year-old. There were things called gears on my bike that should have allowed me to correct that, but each time I tried to use them, I lost concentration on what I was doing and crashed. That wasn’t helping, either. Despite all the drama, I was smiling when I finished.

That’s when I learnt my sons may not like me. Either that or they have developed a cruel streak.

Now, “the concrete” is their name for the car park of the local high school. That is where we used to take Colin when he was learning to ride “The Falling Down Bike”. It is also the scene of the crash that caused an almost twelve-month break in that bike being ridden.

Janine, who I was beginning to suspect truly did want to knock me off, though this was a wonderful idea. So, after a short break, during which I tried to relearn how to breath and walk again, we drove down to the school.

Calmly announcing that she thought we should only stay for an hour, Janine settled back into the car to read a magazine. I was flabbergasted. An entire hour of riding? It would be either a fatal crash, or a heart-attack that finished me off, that was sure. At least my life insurance was paid up.

Gritting my teeth, I made it through that hour. The “fun” was brought to a sudden stop when Colin decided that Daddy was going too slow and crashed into me. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing. There was the faint suspicion that Janine had bribed him to hit me so she could claim the insurance. Luckily for me, Colin hadn’t worked out that not only am I twice his height, I’m also more than four times heavier than him.

So, I carried one tearful boy back to the car. Andrew, the abnormal four-year-old that he is, immediately became upset. Not only was I not carrying him, but I’d left our bikes behind. This was distressing him. I had to take a minute to explain that I’d be back to get the bikes, before I was allowed to carry Colin the rest of the way back to his mum.

I thought that was the end of the bike incident, but I hadn’t allowed for the rebound ability of your typical six-year-old. As soon as we were back home, Colin was pestering me to go riding with him again.

Using the not-unreasonable excuse that I had to start cooking dinner, I managed to beg my way out of inflicting any more injuries on myself. My bum was already numb from the instrument of cruelty known as a bike seat.

The next morning, as I clambered stiffly out of bed, I remember thinking that a motorbike isn’t that unreasonable a piece of equipment – it doesn’t need pedalling. We don’t really need to eat for the next couple of months….

A Special Day

I have just completed one of the most arduous, torturous, frustrating and challenging tasks known to man:

The challenge started on the day before. With my usual flair for planning things well in advance, I waited until the Saturday morning to have a discussion with Andrew. Colin had already bought a Mother’s Day present at school, as well as making something in his class. Andrew, naturally enough, didn’t have anything to give his mum.

So, while Janine was out doing the weekly shopping, I sat down with Andrew and informed him we had to get Mum something for Mother’s Day.

Now, because of a previous discussion with my youngest son, I knew exactly what he meant. The conversation in question had been during the phase when we were trying to toilet train him. After numerous attempts and various methods, we were at the “bribe” stage.

“If you go to the toilet properly for a whole week, we’ll get you a new train engine for your train track,” I told him.

Showing the skills that would make a top-class union negotiator proud, he immediately fired back a counter-proposal:

“Daddy, how about you go the toilet properly for a week, then you get the train and you share it with me?”

While I didn’t doubt that I’d be able to complete the suggested task successfully, it really didn’t meet the over-all objective of getting Andrew toilet trained. I did, however, fire an email off to the Federal Trade Minister in Canberra and offered my son’s services in trade negotiations, but so far I’ve had no response. I’m sure the Free Trade Agreement with the USA would have turned out more to Australia’s advantage if they’d taken up my offer.

So, when Andrew suggested getting Janine a train engine for Mother’s Day, I suspected he really just wanted another one for himself. I decided to test this theory:

“I don’t think Mummy would like a train engine. How about we get her some chocolates, instead?”

Now this was a complete lie but, relative to a new train engine, I could accept it as being the truth. Rather than discussing it at that time, I elected to wait until we were actually at the shops before trying to get him to choose a suitable present.

Now Saturday mornings is when the boys have their swimming lessons. The only chance we’d have to do any shopping would be if we left early, and bought any present before swimming. This was the first of my challenges for the day. Andrew, for reasons known only to himself, likes to get up soon after 7am. Colin, who I believe is in training to be a teenager or university student, likes to sleep in for as long as possible.

We managed to get both of them up, feed them breakfast – a task that often needed more effort from the parents than would normally be required – and out the door in time to do some shopping before the swimming lesson.

Now, while all of this was going on, I struggled to think of what to get Janine. After all, when you have someone who already owns a pair of Venus Flytraps, what more do they really need? Okay, technically one of those plants belongs to Colin, but as Janine is the one who swats the flies and feeds them to the plants, she has some stake in being able to say they are hers.

My plan was that we’d park at the swimming centre, wander over the road to the shops, leave Janine at the coffee shop, while I took the two boys and bought a present.

Why? I had no idea. The notice on the front door said that it was supposed to have opened thirty minutes before we arrive, but the door was firmly shut.

Not wanting to fall at the first hurdle, I quickly came up with another plan. Sending Janine off with Andrew to the toilet, I took Colin to the newsagent and got him to pick a Mother’s Day card. This was deceptively easy. In hindsight, it was just a way of lulling me into a false sense of security.

When Andrew came back, running ahead of Janine, I grabbed the opportunity to show him a card and ask him if he’d like to give this one to his mum. He just nodded – he’d seen the toy collection and had more important things to think about.

After purchasing the cards, and hiding them away so Janine didn’t see them, I left Colin to entertain my wife, and took Andrew into the supermarket with me.

“Come on,” I told my four-year-old son. “We’ll have to get Mummy some chocolates.”

I had decided that chocolates were a simple, though not particularly imaginative, present. With less than twenty-four hours until Mother’s Day, coming up with a better idea was beyond me.

Scanning the store signs, I found the aisle with the chocolates. It was also the aisle with the breakfast foods.

“Andrew, while I’m sure Mummy would love that, I think we can find something better for her than a box of chocolate-flavoured breakfast cereal.”

“Look, cars!” he said, looking on the opposite side to where the target presents were located.

“No, Andrew, we are not getting you any more cars,” I said patiently. “We’re supposed to be getting something for Mummy, remember?”

“An ambulance, a bus, a fire engine, and... what’s that, Daddy?” he asked, ignoring what I’d just said.

“It’s a police car,” I replied, as I gently turned him around and pointed him towards the boxes of chocolates. “Would you like to pick one of these for Mummy?”

I was ready to pick one myself – Janine would never know who really selected it – but Andrew came through with flying colours: he picked the nearest box.

Before he could be distracted by any other offerings being presented, I whisked him off to the checkout area. There was a tense moment while Andrew was eyeing off a six-pack of cinnamon donuts, but I managed to ease him past them without a request to purchase anything.

Safely out of the supermarket, I collected Janine and Colin and we headed off to complete our normal Saturday morning schedule.

Despite the momentary feelings of angst when Andrew didn’t seem to be treating the present buying seriously, I felt I’d overcome all obstacles and was ready to enjoy the rest of my day.

Colin proceeded to pester me all afternoon about going to “The Concrete” so he could ride his bike. Eventually, with much hesitation as I knew he’d be asking me to ride with him, we headed off. By that stage, it was late afternoon, so we kept it short. I didn’t mind riding too much that day, though my bum was still sore from the week before. Janine had had the bike serviced during the week and I could feel the difference.

After about forty minutes of riding, I pulled up next to the car and quietly agreed with Janine that we’d finish in ten minutes. Just then, Colin and Andrew rode up.

I smiled. He didn’t know how long ten minutes were, let alone twelve. He just knew which was the bigger number.

“How about a thousand?” Andrew continued, clearly on the basis that if I’d agreed to twelve minutes so quickly I might be squeezed for some more.

He lost on that one. Which just proves that even experienced wheelers-and-dealers can’t always win.

We went home soon afterwards, and I started to get dinner ready. As it was just a case of reheating the leftovers from the night before, plus some chips and fish-fingers for the boys, this wasn’t an arduous task.

“Colin, stay at the table until everyone has finished eating,” Janine said when Colin tried to leave.

“But I have to go! I need to wrap the presents for tomorrow!” he replied, starting to get distressed.

I had completely forgotten about the gifts he’d brought home from school. Somehow, I’d assumed that they would already be wrapped.

The next thirty minutes was an exercise in parental torture. That’s the kids torturing a parent, not the other way round.

Colin had written on his card for his mum earlier in the day, so while I started wrapping presents, I gave Andrew his card and suggested he draw on it. Retrieving the box of pencils, crayons and textas, he happily sat down to start on his masterpiece.

Meanwhile, I started the present wrapping saga. I knew from earlier conversations that Colin had three presents – one for his mum, and one for each of his grandmothers.

I gave him a card. “Here, why don’t you write on the card while I wrap the present?” I suggested, reasonably in my opinion. I should’ve known better.

“Try another one, then, Andrew,” I replied, trying to keep my frustration from my voice.

“Daddy, what goes next?” Colin asked me, showing me a lovely “m” he’d written on the card.

“I thought this card was for Nanny,” I said. “Nanny starts with a ‘N’.”

“Oh, no! What are we going to do?” Colin asked, starting to panic. “It’s all ruined!” he continued with a creative mixture of despair, frustration and anger. Even if he didn’t do it, you always heard the stamping of the foot that should accompany that phrase.

There is nothing more traumatic in life that finding out that you’ve written the wrong thing on a Mother’s Day card. Colin taught me that lesson.

“Calm down, Colin,” I said soothingly. “Here, write ‘Nanny’ on the other side of the card, and I’ll work out what to do.”

After writing “Nanny” on a scrap of paper for him to copy, Colin cheerfully started transcribing the word. In the meantime, I was panicking. What could I get him to write that would use that letter “m”? I thought about suggesting he just colour over it, but I knew I’d just get a disgusted look in return, with some sort of statement saying that it’ll still be ruined.

“Daddy! This one is broken,” Andrew stated, shoving a pencil between me and the present I was still trying to finish wrapping.

“The pencil sharpener is in the box,” I pointed out. “Why don’t you sharpen it?”

This continued for longer than humanly possible. I saved the situation with the first card when I came up with the phrase, “Mummy’s Mum,” and I explained to Colin that’s who Nanny was. When he asked me to write that down, I decided to leave out the apostrophe – he was having enough trouble with writing the letters; punctuation wasn’t really that important.

Throughout all of this, Janine had been taking a bath. She told me afterwards that each time she heard the frustration in my voice, she just ducked her head under the water so she wouldn’t have to listen. I just replied, “I love you, too,” and kissed her lightly. Her turn will come: my birthday wasn’t that far away....

“Daddy, can we give Mummy breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day?” Colin asked me.

I looked at Janine, who returned my gaze serenely. It didn’t take me too much time to work out who’d put that thought into Colin’s head. That had to be the most disgustingly selfish thing I’d ever witnessed. Now I wasn’t going to get the credit for suggesting it. My one chance to pretend that I knew what I was doing: ruined!

By the time the boys had had book reading and were off to bed, I was exhausted. This was only the day before Mother’s Day. I still had to co-ordinate two willing, but completely unskilled, helpers, and make my wife breakfast. I had already decided that I wouldn’t let the boys carry the cup of coffee – that was just asking for trouble.

The next morning, I got up early. After starting the coffee brewing, I went looking for the tray that Colin would use to take breakfast in to Janine. After searching for several minutes, I humbly returned to the bedroom.

With that subtle hint, I managed to get everything organised. Now all I had to do was wait for the boys to wake up.

Colin was up first. Given how excited he’d been the day before, that was not surprising. Andrew, the perverse boy that he is, decided to sleep in.

Deciding that Andrew didn’t really understand what was going on, and so wouldn’t be upset for missing out on some of the activities, I started getting breakfast ready. The coffee was already made – all I had to do was to make some toast. I had been dreading a request for bacon and eggs, but Janine had taken pity on me and ordered a really simple meal.

Colin was extremely proud as he took the tray into his mum, while I carried the coffee. After giving Janine the tray, and getting a big hug in return, Colin rushed back to his room to where he’d hidden her presents.

Janine was genuinely pleased and impressed with the presents she got. Colin had bought a small pen and pad at the school’s Mother’s Day stall, and had made a cardboard box in his class. Inside the box was a huge multi-coloured flower, made from tissue. He carefully explained that they’d run out of green, which is why the leaves of the flower were orange.

At this point, Andrew woke up. I carried him to the bed, where he gave his mum a big hug. I then gave him the present he’d picked the day before, so he could give it to Janine.

“Thanks!” he said cheerfully. We’d always insisted that our boys say please and thank-you, and the phrase “What do you say” now seems to produce an automatic response of “Thanks,” which is not quite what we’d intended.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” he echoed happily to his mum, who was just taking a bite of toast.

When she didn’t respond immediately, he chided her: “Say, Thank you,” he ordered.

“Thank you,” Janine responded with a smile, as soon as she’d swallowed what was in her mouth.

I stared for a moment, before spinning around and heading back to the kitchen. Given the potential range of disasters that could’ve fallen on me, making breakfast in bed for everyone else was a pretty minor one. I decided I wouldn’t argue, just in case it got worse.

When I came back, I stood in the doorway for a moment. My wife and the two boys were all in bed. Wrapping paper, envelopes and cards were scattered everywhere. The box of chocolates was already almost empty. Everyone was having fun.

I’m glad. I love Colin and Andrew deeply, but I didn’t think I’d survive another one. The night before had been stressful enough with two. Three would’ve driven me insane. Well, more insane than I already am, at least.

One Scary Night

The tortured words were forced out between ragged gasps as Andrew struggled for each breath.

Janine and I stared in horror at each other before returning our attention to the four-year-old on my lap. It was just after midnight, and Andrew was having what appeared to be a severe asthma attack. It had started maybe thirty minutes before.

After trying unsuccessfully to give him Ventolin while he was in his bed, I had picked him up and carried him out to the couch in the living room. I was hoping that I could soothe him enough that he wouldn’t resist having the mask put over his face. That was when he forced out the words that had horrified my wife and I. Our son thought he was dying.

It wasn’t as if I couldn’t appreciate why he was struggling. After all, if you have having trouble getting enough air into your lungs, the last thing you want is to have something put over your nose and mouth. It had been too long since his last asthma attack – he’d forgotten that the face mask and spacer contraption would help us administer the medicine that would help him.

Eventually, by holding his arms against his body, and restraining his head, we managed to give him some Ventolin. It made some difference, I thought, but his breathing was still tortured, as his whole body would heave with the struggle to get enough air into his chest.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Janine asked me, concerned for our youngest son.

While I cradled Andrew in my arms, rocking gently to try to soothe him, she hunted down that piece of paper we’d been given when Andrew had been first diagnosed as asthmatic.

“It says if he needs Ventolin more than three-hourly, or if we’re still concerned after giving it to him, take him to the hospital or call an ambulance,” I read out aloud.

Janine rang the emergency services. At one point, she brought the phone over to Andrew and held it near, so the person on the other end could hear him still struggling to breathe.

I saw her give a visible sigh of relief as she was told that an ambulance was being sent. She started to give instructions on how to get to our house, when she changed her mind.

“I’ll meet them at the corner,” she announced into the phone, before ending the call.

I agreed with her. We live down a private road, and it is not easy to find our house unless you have been there before, or have been given clear and written directions. After midnight, with an emergency on our hands, we couldn’t afford to have time wasted by the ambulance showing up at the wrong house.

While Janine headed out, I lay Andrew down on a floor and covered him up. While he was still struggling, he was also drifting off to sleep. I didn’t know if this was good or not, but his breathing was clearly audible, and I kept a careful ear on that critical sound while I cleared a space around him. I expected the paramedics to want room, and having toys scattered everywhere wasn’t going to help them.

Once I was finished I just sat next to him, slowly stroking his blonde hair as I waited... and waited.

We love living out in the countryside, but one major disadvantage was that the nearest hospital with an emergency department was thirty minutes away. Janine and I had quickly discussed it before we called the ambulance, and had vetoed the idea of driving there ourselves. It would have taken both of us – one to drive and one to sit next to Andrew and make sure he was alright. That meant we would also have had to take Colin, who had remained sound asleep through all of this.

When the ambulance arrived, the two female paramedics quickly and professionally checked out Andrew. That’s when we learnt that it didn’t appear to be asthma.

“It sounds like it’s more in his throat than his chest,” she remarked, glancing up to where I was hovering nearby.

“His brother had croup a few days ago,” I quickly stated, “but we didn’t think it was that because Andrew didn’t have a croup cough.”

Croup was a disease we knew well, as both boys had had it previously; Colin more than once. A throat infection, it manifests as laryngitis in adults, but in young children the swelling can restrict the size of the airway, and also causes a very distinctive cough, like a bark. Colin spent his first Christmas Eve in the emergency ward at the Royal Childrens Hospital with a severe croup attack. He had another croup attack the following year when we were on holidays in Queensland.

This time, Colin merely had the cough and no other ill-effects. His throat was now large enough that the swelling didn’t have an appreciable impact on his ability to breathe. I had assumed that Andrew was also old enough, but maybe not.

Andrew was taken out to the ambulance and had a mask placed over his nose and mouth. They started to give him oxygen, and then nebulised adrenalin – treatments both boys had had previously in hospital for both croup and asthma.

Janine went with Andrew while I stayed home with Colin. I was lucky he’s a sound sleeper; he never woke up through the whole episode.

It was now just after one o’clock in the morning. I didn’t see the point in trying to get back to sleep. I didn’t know if I’d be getting a phone call, asking me to bring in something, or just with a status report. Instead, I sat down at the computer, put the phone next to me, and connected to the internet.

My first job was a message to my boss, telling him what was going on and telling him I wouldn’t be in the next day. Checking my emails, I found a couple of issues that needed urgent attention, so I replied with an explanation of why I couldn’t do them, and forwarded them to workmates who might’ve been able to help. After that, I forgot about work.

I spent the next couple of hours chatting with a friend in the USA. Another father with children the same age as ours, I unloaded myself on him. I’m sure I wasn’t totally rational at that point, but just being able to tell someone helped calm me down.

At three o’clock, I rang the hospital. Andrew had been bright and cheerful in the ambulance, but deteriorated again once he was in the emergency ward. Three times they’d given him adrenalin, and he was fine – until it wore off. Janine told me that they were going to transfer him to the ICU at the Royal Childrens Hospital. This was not news to make me feel better.

I found out afterwards that this was normal procedure. Anyone who needs three doses of adrenalin in the Emergency ward is transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. If at all possible, paediatric patients are sent to the ICU at the Childrens, as they have the specialist staff not available at other hospitals.

While I had Janine on the phone, I settled the details of what I had to do in the morning. I would need to get Colin ready for school and then take him down to the bus. Janine had suggested just keeping him from school for the day, but I pointed out that it was going to be easier to have him at school, rather than having him tag along while I did anything else that needed to be done.

By five o’clock, I had made Colin’s lunch, checked and packed his school bag, and had sorted out the clothes he would be wearing. I was supposed to wake him just before seven. I then proceeded to pack a change of clothes for Andrew. He’d gone in his pajamas, but he’d need a change of clothes to come home in. Unfortunately, Andrew and Colin are close to being the same size. Rather than take the risk of accidentally taking his brother’s clothes, I packed about three sets of everything – between them, there should be at least one complete set he’d be able to wear.

When I went into his room, I told Colin that Andrew and his mum were at the hospital, and that I’d be getting him ready for school.

“Now, I haven’t done this before, so I’m going to need your help,” I told him. “Can you help me get you ready for school?”

He tilted his head to one side as he thought seriously on the matter. “Cheesy rice,” he eventually proclaimed.

Luckily, I was able to translate this. Janine had mentioned previously that he’d sometimes had a packet of microwaved instant macaroni and cheese for breakfast. Find the packet, I checked with Colin before I cooked it. It was right: this was what he wanted.

“Okay,” I said, as I accompanied him into his bedroom. Pulling up the sheet and doona cover was a lot simplier than I used to do when I was a kid, but then he’d only six. We couldn’t expect a lot and getting him used to doing chores was a big reason we wanted him to make his own bed. For that strenuous task, we gave him twenty cents. As he grew older, he’d get more chores, and more money. For now, it was just a case of getting him used to the concepts.

After that, he got himself dressed. While he did that, I rang the Royal Childrens Hospital. I tracked my wife and son down to the ICU ward.

“We’ve only just arrived,” Janine told me, “and he’s doing fine. You’d barely know he was sick.”

“That’s good,” I said with honest relief. He was in the best place in the state if anything happened – surrounded by paediatric specialists twenty-four hours a day.

“He was so cheerful in the ambulance trip between the hospitals, he asked if they could put the lights and siren on,” Janine chuckled. “They indulged him, so we ended up going through red lights and everything!”

At that time of the morning, it wouldn’t have hurt and it helped keep up the spirits of a little four-year-old boy. I said a silent “thank you” to that unknown driver.

Soon afterwards, I got Colin into the car. Continuing my charade of needing his help, and so keeping him distracted from his missing brother and mum, I told him I didn’t know where I had to take him.

He sat in the back seat staring intently at first his right arm, then his left, before nodding to himself.

“Thank you, Colin,” I replied gratefully. I had suspected that was the way Janine would have taken him, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

“Now left at that street,” Colin ordered, pointing up ahead. I knew the bus stop was just near the end of that street.

Driving down, and getting ready to turn the corner at the end where the bus stop was, Colin suddenly yelled out.

I quickly stopped and reversed back to where Colin informed me, “Mummy always parks, here”.

Even then I did it wrong. As I helped him out of the car, Colin frowned at me. “Mummy parks her car this way,” indicating with his hands that she drove onto the grass and parked nose first to the footpath. I had parked parallel, instead.

“It’s alright, Colin,” I said soothingly. “My car is smaller than Mummy’s, and so I can park it this way.”

At that age, things have to be done exactly right, or it’s just not good enough. After taking a berating from my six-year-old son for “doing it wrong”, I walked him around the corner to the bus stop.

After he boarded, I couldn’t help grinning back at my smiling son, as he sat by the window at the front of the bus. I waved to him, and he waved back. This was the first time I’d seen him go on the bus by himself, and it was clear he was proud to show me how confident he was at doing it.

I then headed to the hospital: almost an hour and a half away. It could be done quicker than that, but I was hitting the end of peak hour traffic, and that made a huge difference.

When I arrived, Andrew was sleeping. His breathing was normal and he looked incredibly comfortable. Janine, on the other hand, looked exhausted. I gave her a hug of thanks and welcome. After getting an update on what was going on, I took her downstairs to the canteen for a coffee and a doughnut. I offered her breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry – a combination of stress, worry and general tiredness.

When we returned to the ICU, Andrew was awake, and starting to watch Chicken Run on a TV the nurses had wheeled around for him.

“Hi, Andrew,” I replied, as I leant over and gave him a cautious hug – trying to avoid displacing any of the wires they were using to monitor his heartbeat and oxygen absorption levels.

This story is dedicated to all the Paramedics, Doctors, Nurses and other staff that help children like Andrew everyday.

Life in Perspective

There are times when you receive a wake-up call; when life tells you to take another look at what is really important. We’ve just had one of those wake-up calls.

The Saturday morning had started out simply enough. Andrew woke up at 6am. That was unusual, but since he went to bed at 4pm the day before, it wasn’t unexpected. We don’t know what his grandparents do when they look after him and his brother, but whatever it is, they are always exhausted at the end of it.

He joined Janine and I in our bed and stayed, almost quietly, until 7am. Janine and Andrew then got up while I stayed in bed a little longer.

Janine was being graded on her horse, so she would know what level to compete in, which meant I would have to take the boys to their swimming lessons. This is something I quite enjoy. Living in a country where trips to the beach are a traditional part of the culture, learning to swim is the one activity we insist the boys do. We are lucky that both Andrew and Colin love to swim, though sometimes they are not keen on having lessons.

The trip to the swimming pool was quite uneventful – I only ran into two cars on the way there. Colin and Andrew drive pretend cars – that day Colin’s was black and Andrew’s was red – while I drive the real one. Naturally, being typical boys, their cars are faster than mine, which means they always get to the intersections before me. Unfortunately, being pretend cars, I have a tendency to not notice them, and will often run into the back of them while they were stopped, waiting to turn. This was one of my better trips; I’ve had times when I was running into their cars every couple of minutes.

“Where do you want to go for lunch?” I asked them. There were only two options, but it was part of the normal Saturday morning ritual.

They never say “MacDonald’s”, it’s always “Old MacDonald’s”. I suppose I have to accept the blame for that. The nursery rhyme, “Old MacDonald had a farm,” was one of my favourites when they were younger, and somehow, with a logic I can admire, if not quite follow, the fast food chain inherited the prefix.

The other option was “Hungry Jack’s”. I’m looking forward to their confusion when I can take them overseas and they discover that elsewhere it’s called “Burger King”. I was once told that that Australian company law originally prohibited two companies having the same name, and when the USA fast food chain expanded to Australia, there was a small store somewhere in the country with the name “Burger King” so the multi-national had no choice but to pick a different name. The laws have since changed, but the Australian version of the company name is still widespread.

I let the boys play in the playground while I ordered two kids meals for lunch. After they’d eaten, we headed home.

It was an uneventful trip. The boys were too tired to drive their own cars, so I didn’t crash into anything at all!

“I’ve got some shocking news,” she announced as soon as she saw me. She was visibly shaken.

“Jason was cutting down a tree, when it fell on him and severed his hand. They’re flying him to The Alfred.”

I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. Jason was her sister’s husband. A dedicated farmer, he has a property in country Victoria where they keep cattle. As I held her, I heard what little she knew. Her mum had rung only moments before I’d arrived home.

Jason’s right hand had been severed, or partially severed – she wasn’t sure – and the air ambulance was taking him to the trauma centre at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. His eldest son, Peter, a bright thirteen-year-old, had driven him back to the house, where Janine’s sister had rung for help.

“You just never imagine it could happen to someone you know,” Janine whispered, as her head lay nestled on my shoulder.

I agreed with her. While farm accidents were not uncommon, you never assumed it could happen to someone you knew.

We were both in a state of mild shock for the rest of the afternoon. I rang Janine’s brother to let him know what was going on. We then waited. Janine had to do something, so I told her to go out and play with her horse – something I knew would calm her down. When I spoke to Janine’s mum, she was rambling on about a missing video. I knew she was just trying to find something mundane to take her mind off the tragedy.

Before the end of the day we learnt that Jason was being operated on, and his wife and two boys were on their way to Melbourne.

It was now time to wait and see. The news was that the hand was still alive, so there was hope to re-attach it. It was too early to say whether or not the attempt would be successful.

We had no more news until the next morning. Janine rang her mum and spoke to her sister. Jason was in surgery for seven hours, and has another operation scheduled in a day’s time. While it is going to cause them endless complications – both financially as they struggle on just her income, and organisationally as they try to work out how Jason can continue rehabilitation while they live in rural Victoria – there is good news. Jason is able to move his fingers. The initial signs are good that he’ll regain at least partial use of the hand.

We worry about so many little things in our lives: how we could afford that special gift; what to do for our holidays; are our boys getting the education they need; how to stop the horses escaping from their paddocks.

What happened to Jason makes us rethink what’s really important. He’s alive. He’ll hopefully have the use of his hand. Everything else is minor in comparison.

It’s Not Polite

It was a week before my wife’s birthday. I took the boys into town to buy their mother birthday presents and cards, while their mum went off to do the weekly grocery shopping.

With my recent experiences of Mother’s Day behind me, I knew this was a task fraught with peril, but I gamely stepped up to the plate and headed out the door. Of course, the alternative was to put up with a year of forlorn looks from Janine (she’s too polite to constantly complain). The boys wouldn’t be so kind to me, as they love giving presents, so there wasn’t really a choice.

As there were several shops we needed to visit, I parked roughly in the middle of all of them.

Now, I couldn’t fault Andrew, as every four-year-old knows that the only place to buy presents is at a toy shop. With Colin quickly agreeing with his younger brother I had two choices: tell them no, and start the shopping trip with a couple of sullen kids, or tell them yes, but insist on being able to veto any of their selections. I took the sensible option.

“Okay, but Mummy may be a bit old for some of these things. Let’s see what we can find, but there are lots of other places we can look, too.”

We entered the shop and the boys had a good look around. After I’d suggested that their mum may be a bit old for a toy make-up kit, Andrew lost interest. Colin found some cards, and I let him pick one for a birthday card.

“There’s nothing inside,” I answered. When his face dropped, I quickly added, “but that means you can write whatever you want inside!”

He seemed happy with that answer, and with a quiet sigh of relief, I gave Colin the money to pay for the card.

The next stop was the hardware store. I had another chore to do there, but Janine had clued me in on what was likely to happen. As usual, she was one-hundred-percent correct.

“Look Daddy!” Andrew exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the garden hose fittings. “Do you think Mummy would like these?”

Why he likes looking at hose connections, I don’t know. I’d never noticed it before on previous trips, but Janine said he did exactly the same thing when they were looking for presents for my birthday.

“No, Andrew. Why don’t we look over here for something to get her,” I replied, point to the other end of the store.

I’d read Diary of a Wombat to the boys the night before, and a scene from the book had given me an idea. Not exactly a romantic present, but for the boys it was the joy of giving that was key.

They looked at me, and then what I was pointing at. Their puzzlement was obvious.

“Do you remember the story last night? How the wombat tore up the welcome mat? Why don’t we get Mummy a welcome mat for the back door?”

My attempt at enthusiasm was partially successful. Colin decided it was good idea, while Andrew wandered back to the hose fittings. At least he was happy to just look at them while I paid for everything.

While the mat was something we could use, it was really just to distract the boys while I bought the other things we needed. After putting it into the car, it was time to buy birthday cards from myself and Andrew, and some wrapping paper.

You’d think I would’ve learnt my lesson by now, but no. Andrew started looking at totally inappropriate cards. Not the adult humour ones – the ones for birthdays in the one to ten age range.

Andrew loves numbers. With no intention of picking a card, he just started going through all the numbers written on the cards.

I decided to leave him for a few minutes while I found a card I could give to Janine. It didn’t take me long before I picked one, and I headed over to where Andrew was still busy.

“These cards are for young boys and girls, Andrew. Mummy’s older than that.”

I made a mental note to explain to him at some stage that it’s not polite to ask a lady’s age. The middle of the shop was not really the place to do that, though, so I took what I thought was the easy way out.

“Mummy’s [this word has been deleted as a matter of national security: Editor*], but there are no cards for that age, so you’ll have to pick a different one,” I explained, feeling proud of myself for finding a way out of the dilemma. I knew Andrew was fussy and wouldn’t pick a card with the wrong number.

“Yes, there are,” came this voice floating down from the front desk. “They’re up here near the counter.”

This wasn’t even a pimply-faced youngster without appropriate social training that I could blame. This was a mature-aged lady who really should’ve known better. I was ready to kill her. While I struggled to work out what to do, Andrew wandered down and found the appropriate card. There was only one card for that age.

After many minutes of patient persuasion, I lead Andrew down to where there were some more appropriate cards – one’s without an age listed.

“Do you like this one, Andrew?” I asked, after showing him a number. I took the nod of his head as an agreement, and I relaxed at having overcome that major problem.

With that out of the way, I had Andrew and Colin pick some wrapping paper. By this stage, I was ready to accept anything up to and include Toy Story paper, or even something less appropriate, but somewhere along the line, the two boys had learnt that some things were for boys and some things were for girls. I don’t know where they learnt that, because Janine and I have both been careful to try to avoid gender stereotyping. They picked a couple of rolls of plain pink paper “because that’s a girl’s colour.”

The next stop was the chemist. Janine loves taking baths, and aromatic bath oil was an easy present at any time. With the help of the assistant, we found two matching large bottles – one green and one red. Clearly trying to lull me into a false sense of security, the boys each picked different bottles; I’d been prepared for a fight if they picked the same bottle, but they were being kind to me.

After accepting an offer to have the bottles gift-wrapped, I collected the boys and we headed home. Janine was still out shopping by the time we got back. Andrew and Colin were very proud of their purchases and insisted on carrying their bottles into the house. While mentally cringing at the tears that would follow if they dropped and broke them, I let them go. It wasn’t my place to deny them the simple pleasure they got from carrying the presents.

We put the bottles into a secret hiding place (the drawer under Colin’s bed where we always put the presents that are from him) and wrapped the rest of the presents.

“Okay, why don’t we write on the cards before Mummy gets home?” I suggested when we were finished. The boys quickly agreed.

I gave Colin his card, and he immediately start to write his name. I then gave Andrew his card and brought out mine.

“That’s not my card!” he insisted as he looked around. “Where’s my card?” he asked, tears beginning to fall.

“I thought this was the card you wanted,” I said, as a feeling of helplessness started to seep through me. “Look, it’s a lovely card!”

I looked at the clock. The newsagent would be closing in twenty minutes. I gave up and admitted defeat. There was no point trying to argue; you just can’t win with a four-year-old.

“Okay, everyone. Back to the car. We’re going back to the shop to get Andrew’s card.”

This is a fairly recent trait of his – always wanting to know whose at fault. Most of the time, it wasn’t a big deal. Then there were times like this....

It is amazing how often I’m forced to admit that. It’s not even always my fault, but it seems that when he won’t accept that it is no-one’s fault, I’m the one who ends up taking the blame.

“I bought the wrong card,” I explained through gritted teeth, as Andrew picked the right card and brought it to up to me. The shop assistant had the audacity to smile.

“What happened?” she asked. “I thought you would’ve been home well before now.”

“I bought the wrong card,” I explained, again. “We had to go back to get the right one.”

Well, at least that’s something the boys admire about their dad. It might not be the most noble of callings, but being a duffer isn’t so bad.

Checkmate

We were at my sister’s house for our monthly family get-together. As Janine’s birthday had been during the previous month, we were obliged to attend. The boys enjoyed going to my sister’s house, anyway, as there were lots of toys there that they only saw once a month, at best.

Dinner had been quite successful. The boys ate their usual big dinner – a single sausage roll each. Given the attraction of new toys, eating always comes a poor second in their list of priorities. They only ate at all because we insisted. Their preference was to skip dinner and keep playing.

After dinner, while the adults had a leisurely conversation over coffee, the boys and their cousins disappeared to other parts of the house.

It was only as we were getting ready to leave did I track them down. I found Colin with his seven-year-old cousin Mark. Mark was teaching Colin how to play chess.

Naturally, I watched eagerly. I’ve always enjoyed chess, though I haven’t played a serious game for more than a decade. I’d been wondering if the boys were old enough to learn, and it was apparent that the answer was “Yes”.

With a little assistance from his dad (“Move that bishop there, Colin. Now move your queen over here,”) Colin eventually won. He didn’t know he’d checkmated his cousin, as he had no idea of the idea of the game.

Colin’s method of working out if he was winning was interesting. If he’d captured more pieces than the other player, he was winning. It didn’t matter if they were pawns or queens – it was the number that counted.

It was now past time to go, but there was no way Colin had been prepared to go until he’d finished his game.

He was tired. It only took a minute of firmly telling him that we were going before he gave up. Now, if it’d been Andrew, it would’ve taken at least five minutes of complex negotiations, but his elder brother is more amenable.

“No, Colin. Tomorrow, I’ll play with you. I promise,” I answered, sealing my doom.

By the time we arrived home, Andrew was already fast asleep, and Colin was barely conscious.

“Will you play chess with me?” Colin asked me drowsily, as I took him out of the car.

One thing that occurs with kids as they grow older is their concentration span improves. The ability to keep their focus on one thing for an extended period of time is critical for school. I’m happy to say that Colin’s proven his ability in this area beyond reasonable doubt. Now, if he could just learn to remember the answers he’d been given, life would start to become easier.

The next morning, Colin remembered that promise. I took shameless advantage of his enthusiasm to make him eat a good breakfast. All I had to do was to tell him that we couldn’t play until he’d had his breakfast. Andrew was also keen to learn so, after they’d finished eating, I had two eager young boys watching as I dragged out my old magnetic chess set.

“I’m going to call it a castle,” Colin stated. His brother quickly agreed.

“That’s okay,” I replied. I think almost every young kid starts by calling it that.

“I’m going to call it a knight,” Colin said. “And I’m going to call this one a horsey,” he added pointing at the other knight.

I raised my eyebrows at that. I’d never considered calling the same pieces different names.

“And I’m going to call this one a knight,” Andrew said, pointing to his second knight.

Okay, I can live with that. Rather than two knights, or two horsey’s, they had one of each.

After explaining the knight’s complex movement, I quickly went through the other pieces. They seemed to understand, though I expected to have to keep correcting.

“Black is the best,” Andrew told his brother. He seemed to sincerely believe that. Each time he seemed to be in front, he’d remind Colin that black was the best colour.

I took a minimalistic approach to helping. I let them choose what they wanted to move, and then only intervened to help them with options available for that piece. At one point, Andrew was all set to checkmate Colin, but didn’t realise. Colin didn’t realise either. It was another dozen moves before Colin finally moved his king out of danger.

The game extended for quite some time. While I’d explained about trying to capture the opposing king, Colin seemed more interested in just capturing as many pieces as they could. Andrew just wanted to get his pawns down to the eighth row, so they could be changed into something else. I didn’t push them in their choices, so they had pawns promoted into knights (or horsey’s – I never quite worked out which), queens and bishops.

Eventually, Andrew ran out of pawns to promote. He was down to his king, a rook and a bishop. He kept asking me if he could change his king into something else, and was very disappointed when I told him that it couldn’t.

By this stage, Colin was down to his king and a single pawn. Without a lot of effort, he got the pawn to the end row and transformed it into a queen. Soon afterwards, he captured Andrew’s rook. I knew, even if they didn’t, that that meant that Andrew couldn’t win.

“I don’t want Colin to win!” Andrew interjected, throwing himself to the floor, sulking.

“Now, you are attacking his king. What do you say?” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“I want to win. I don’t like losing!” Andrew snarled back, tears starting to fall again.

I looked at Andrew’s teary face. I then peered across at Colin’s trembling lower lip.

I knew when I was beaten. I wasn’t even playing, and I’d been well and truly defeated by a masterful tactical assault from the two young competitors in front of me.

I did the only thing possible. I arranged for the game to end in a draw. That way no one lost.

William’s Birthday

“Daddy, William’s sad because no one has given him any presents and today’s his birthday.”

I looked at Colin, puzzled. While it’s possible that there’s something that Janine hasn’t told me, I was sure that I only had two son’s: Colin and Andrew. I quickly considered the animals. The horses had recently had their birthday, which they share with every other horse in the world, and I know the dog’s birthday is sometime in December. I can’t remember the cat’s, but his name is Mike, not William.

I quickly scanned the room, hoping to see a friend of Colin’s who was visiting, but the only person in sight was Andrew, who was busy building a runway for his latest plane. I made a mental note to send a thank you letter to whoever invented Lego.

“Well, we’ll just have to get him a present. What do you think he’ll like?”

I went to the fridge and removed a fridge magnet in the shape of a lizard that we’d received from a fast food store at some time in the past.

That was when I got to see William. Colin pulled him out from behind his back and asked him.

“William says that’s not a toy, it’s for the fridge,” Colin announced pontifically. “He wants a toy for a present.”

I looked around. What does one give a two inch piece of plastic in the shape of a shark for a birthday present? I considered looking on the internet for suggestions, but somehow I doubted I’d find anything useful.

My eyes fell on a small figure on a skateboard – another fast food toy. The way I saw it, William could eat the rider, and then go use the skateboard to travel around the house. It’s not that I have anything against skateboarders, but in the total scheme of things they usually come second to birthday presents for plastic sharks. The thing in their favour is the fact that there aren’t too many plastic sharks that demand birthday presents.

“He says yes, Daddy!” Colin informed me cheerfully, and headed off to play with his friend and the skateboard. I decided to keep my distance, so I could honestly answer, “Sorry, officer. I wasn’t there when the shark ate him. I didn’t see it happen,” if the need arose.

I returned to what I was doing, which was preparing dinner. I had decided on Fettuccine with a Meat Sauce. This was mainly because it was something I knew how to cook, and it was what I usually made on the weekends. It was quick and easy; the boys won’t eat it, but as the eternal optimist I had hopes that one day they would eat my cooking. Just in case, I also decided to make some Garlic Bread and cook some pasta shapes, as I knew the boys would eat those.

“William’s allowed to have more than one present, Daddy. Can we get him something else, too?”

Thinking that it hadn’t been too hard to find him something the first time, I blissfully answered, “Sure,” and started to look around.

It only took a second before my gaze fell on a small feminine figurine that had come from a Kinder Surprise.

I returned to my cooking, happy that another parenting crisis had been averted. I was about to learn otherwise.

“Hmmm. How about this one?” I asked, putting a small monster figure in front of William.

“Well, we’ll just have to get him a bigger one,” I replied quickly, walking quickly, almost running, to the car box to find something of a more appropriate size. Grabbing what I thought would be a reasonable vehicle for a shark, if that was at all possible, I returned to the table where a despondent William was waiting.

Colin put William in the new car. It was a better size, but he still didn’t fit. Colin just peered up at me. From the look he gave me, I knew I only had minutes, possibly only seconds, before I’d have a major disaster on my hands.

A vehicle was clearly the wrong present to give to a plastic shark. I abandoned that line and flung my eyes desperately around the room. With a surge of hope, I saw what could be my salvation.

For Christmas, Colin had been given some special modelling clay, though it was like no clay I’d ever seen before. One thing about it was that after it dried it, it was bouncy. At some stage in the past someone, I suspected Andrew, had taken a cookie cutter and shaped some of the clay into a star. We didn’t discover this until it had dried out, so there was this blue rubbery star sitting on the windowsill.

I turned away, mentally crossing my fingers, when the voice I was dreading was raised behind me.

“But you can bend it,” I pleaded, showing Colin and William how flexible the star was. “You can even squeeze it!”

I looked at the windowsill and saw something else that had been made from the modelling clay. This was my last chance. I picked it up and turned back to Colin and that damned shark.

Colin examined it critically. He gave it to William, who then kicked it across the table.

“William says this is the best present, ever!” Colin declared triumphantly, and then disappeared with William and the ball.

I gave a sigh of relief and returned to the kitchen. As the sounds of Andrew singing “Happy Birthday” to William echoed down the hallway, I made a note to myself to put a candle on a cupcake for after dinner. You can’t have a birthday without a cake.

Soon afterwards, Colin returned to the kitchen. I stopped stirring the chopped onion I was cooking and with terror in my heart, I turned to find out what he wanted.

“Daddy,” he whispered, “William is going to sleep on the star. He needs you to sing a lullaby.”

I stared for a moment. William was supposed to have had one extra present. The bed he’d rejected, he was now using. I had been outwitted in the present department by a two inch plastic shark. I suddenly started to dread what was going to happen when Christmas arrived.

I was surprised. I’d told him several months ago that I used to sing that song to him as a lullaby when he was a baby. He had remembered that. With a smile I nodded and started to sing.

I was just getting to the part about noble kings and princes, when Colin shushed me. “William’s asleep,” he told me quietly.

I nodded and returned to where the onion wasn’t quite burnt. I shrugged. Janine and I were the only ones who’d be eating it, and she’s generally happy with anything she doesn’t cook herself.

“The noise you just made woke him up,” Colin stated, before turning away and leaving the kitchen.

I felt like hanging my head and crying. Nothing I was doing was working that day.

When Janine came in from looking after her horses, she asked me, “Shall we open a bottle of wine for dinner tonight?”

I nodded my head in quick agreement. “That sounds fine to me,” I answered in a massive understatement.

I just hoped that plastic sharks only had birthday’s once a year; once every five years would be even better!

School holidays have arrived. The time when parents have to not only manage to do everything they normally do, but also entertain a tribe of adorable, hyper-active, loving, demanding kids.

As with all parents, we tell ourselves it is only two weeks until Colin goes back to school for term four. I, at least, get to go to work during the week, but Janine is only working two days a week. Or, more accurately, she earns money working two days a week, and earns hugs, kisses and grey hairs working the other days.

Some inspirational person on talk-back radio came up with a brilliant idea last school holidays: nominate each day as a particular person’s day, and that person gets to decide what’s done on that day. We tried it during the holidays between terms two and three, and it worked quite well. The boys would endure doing other things with the expectation that their day would be coming soon.

Janine and I looked to see where he was pointing. It was the calendar we had on the wall.

“What is it you want?” Janine asked politely. From bitter experience, we’ve learnt not to jump to the obvious conclusion.

“I want one of those in my room, so I can mark off the days until my day,” Colin explained.

For once, it was the obvious thing he was after. We didn’t have a spare calendar floating around, and we’d need two anyway, as Andrew was almost certain to want one, too. However, we have a computer. There had to be a calendar somewhere on it, and if there wasn’t I could make one.

Finding one, we printed off the month of September. Right on cue, Andrew piped up.

“But look,” Janine pointed out, trying to placate him, “it has the month across the top and all the days marked.”

The light dawned. To a six-year-old, a calendar is not just a month and days. It is everything else as well.

“But those are Mummy’s things. This one is telling me when I need to get a haircut. That one is telling me when I need to have the horses’ feet trimmed,” she explained patiently. “Why don’t you put on yours the things that you will be doing?”

Colin was happy with this idea and he and Andrew disappeared into their bedroom. Colin reappeared seconds later.

“We need something to stick it up on the wall,” Colin announced, managing to imply that both of his parents were sadly lacking for not having anticipated that fact.

Janine, in the meantime, had been looking for the Blu-tack so we could do exactly that. She joined the boys in their bedroom.

“Colin wants to put down the date when he goes back to school, which is in October.”

When I brought the extra printouts into their room, Colin was interrogating Janine.

“Daddy has Sunday, you have Monday, Andrew has Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday you go to Nanny’s, Thursday is Mummy’s day, and Saturday is swimming,” Janine explained patiently.

What Janine failed to mention was that “Daddy’s day” is also the day when I get told about all the other things that need to be done. My ability to state what I want to do on that day is severely limited. The apologetic smile Janine gave me when she’d finished told me she knew the reality.

“Daddy, can we go to the swimming-pool-without-teachers on your day?” Andrew asked, with the directness we’ve grown to know and, usually, love.

The boys have a clear distinction in their minds between the swimming pool where they have their lessons on Saturday, the swimming-pool-with-teachers, and the other pool they go to. One they are made to go to, the other is for fun. They normally enjoy their lessons, once they get there, but sometimes it is a chore to get them ready.

“We’ll see, Andrew. It’s Daddy’s day and it’ll be my decision,” I replied, conveniently failing to explain the real situation.

It’s wonderful that at the tender age of four he has a firm grasp on his priorities.

It’s Only One Word

I enjoy writing. It is a hobby that keeps me amused and one that I love, albeit one that I haven’t been doing for long.

My wife, Janine, encourages me and is always the first to read anything I write. This arrangement has worked out quite productive, albeit with a small complication:

I have tried to argue with her that it is a perfectly legitimate word, albeit one that is a little archaic. She does not accept this, but argues that it is so old, it probably deserves to be retired to a museum.

“You’ve used this silly word, ‘albeit’, twice in this chapter,” she stated.

I looked at the printout where she’d circled the word with her pink texta. For reasons that I’m sure are logical, albeit ones that I can’t recall, she has always used a pink texta whenever she edits any of my writings.

Examining the sections she’d highlighted, it all made sense to me, and I thought “albeit” fitted the sentences perfectly, but Janine disagreed.

“But ‘albeit’ is a great word, albeit seldom used nowadays,” I protested.

“Now you’re saying it!” she exclaimed in surprise. “You’ve never said it before!”

I shrugged, as I worked desperately to come up with another phrase using “albeit”.

Now, I’m not that good at reading body language, but I suspected she didn’t like my use of the word “albeit”. I think it was the way she scattered the papers over half the room with a single fling of the arm, but it was hard to tell. She’s such a reserved person.

As I picked up the paper and re-arranged the pages back into the correct order, I thought about what she’d said.

It was only one word, albeit one that upset her. Should I just change it to keep her happy?

I felt like being stubborn, albeit in a meek and mild way. After all, Handel had written a hit song based on one archaic word. If he could do it with the word “Hallelujah”, albeit a long time ago, why couldn’t I do it the same with “albeit”? Then there was Yul Brunner, who, in The King and I, entertained an entire generation with the overuse of the word “etcetera”.

I forced my feet back to the ground, albeit with great reluctance. While I have marginally more hair on my head than the esteemed Yul Brunner did in that film, I knew I didn’t have a fraction of the talent of Handel.

Momentarily, I considered shaving my head. Would this make the use of “albeit” more acceptable?

Knowing Janine doesn’t forget things easily, I sighed with regret. If I tried to use the “albeit” again, the argument would just resurface.

So, to keep the marital bliss, I have deleted the word “albeit” from my vocabulary, albeit reluctantly.

The Fight

“Colin and I had a fight at the bakery today,” Janine said, while dishing up some food for herself.

I raised my eyebrows at both of them while chewing on my dinner. Colin turned to me.

I put my knife and fork down to listen. We’ve been trying to teach the boys manners at the dinner table, and that means trying to set a good example. Why, I’ve not managed to work out, but if putting down my cutlery when I’m not using them keeps Janine happy, then it’s such a small thing to do.

“It wasn’t when we were at Glenda’s,” he explained. “That was good. It was later.”

I knew he and Andrew had spent part of the day with one of his school friends. His social calendar is slowly filling up, with numerous invitations from various friends. The main problem is that living out in the countryside, he can’t visit them whenever he wants.

“Colin and I had an argument in the newsagent about what sort of sticky-tape to get for the presents,” she said through gritted teeth.

We had two birthday parties to go to that weekend, and the boys were becoming more active in picking and wrapping presents. While, personally, I wouldn’t consider the type of sticky-tape used to seal the wrapping paper to be a highly critical part of the whole present-giving thing, I’ve learnt enough to appreciate that to a six-year-old, it could be. After all, this is the boy who, when he was younger, would eat toast cut into triangles, but considered toast cut into squares to be inedible. Things have to be just right, or “It’s ruined!” to use one of his favourite expressions.

“I bought the sticky-tape that didn’t come with a dispenser,” she growled. “He told me that that wasn’t right. It was also the wrong colour.”

I shrugged. I’d seen the tape they’d bought and it was the normal yellowish roll. We’d had the clear stuff recently, but for wrapping presents I didn’t see what difference it would make. The younger members of the family had a different opinion, apparently.

“Colin was still sulking when I took them to the bakery and offered to buy them a treat. I asked them what they would like.”

Turning back to me, she added, “But he did say he didn’t like me and wasn’t happy.”

“Some woman there told Colin that she wouldn’t buy treats for little boys who said things like that.”

I sat, frozen. What was I to say? There was no hint in how she said it as to whether she was upset because someone was telling her how to manage her kids, or if she happened to agree with them.

I took the smart way out, one learnt from many years of experience: I put a piece of food in my mouth and started chewing. While I was eating, I wouldn’t be expected to say anything. That’s been a hard-and-fast rule since the time we had a couple of work friends around for lunch one weekend, and Colin had scolded one of them:

Janine and I had stiffened in embarrassment, but Melissa took it well. She agreed with Colin and we then had a discussion on how often adults do talk with food in their mouths. Melissa and Darren had been great about being told off by a five-year-old, especially for a couple without children.

It has been noticed by several people that Colin takes a real delight in praise. All you need to do to get a huge grin from him is to say he’s done something really well. The flip-side is that he takes criticism very, very hard. Someone telling him off will upset him, and that’s usually when he tells me he’s had a bad day, even if it is only for a minor thing. His teacher once scolded him and some of his classmates for failing to put their library books in the container to go back to the library, and that was the only thing he could remember from school that day – everything else paled into insignificance after being told off.

“You really shouldn’t tell someone that you don’t like them,” she told him.

“But, Mummy, I didn’t,” he protested with a cheeky grin. “I only said that to you, and I’m allowed to because you’re my mummy.”

The display of complex logic left both Janine and I speechless. I’m dreading what he comes up with when he’s a teenager.

Phone Calls

I was already in a bad mood when the phone rang. I'd just received my third car insurance renewal notice, which had been paid a couple of weeks ago, but the stupid computer system at the insurance company didn’t seem to realise this.

“Hi, I'm Mary from the XYZ mortgage company. Can you spare thirty seconds to answer a survey?”

Well that one was easy. Normally when I receive a phone call from a telemarketing company, and that was clearly what this was, I usually just answer that sorry, I'm not interested.

I then proceeded to answer her questions. I may not have been as co-operative as I could've been, but I stayed polite. After all, it was her time that was being wasted. I was just filling in time before dinner.

It turned out to be a very therapeutic phone call. Most questions I could I answer easily and without a qualm. The way she responded with “Excellent!” no matter what I said was amusing. Others questions I had fun with.

“Now, how much is your place worth?” she asked, obviously so she could look at whether I'd be a good risk if they convinced me to switch my mortgage to them.

“Well, what about similar properties in your area? How much at they selling for?”

“Yep!” I said cheerfully. “We have a rural property with a house that dates back to the 1800's. There are no other properties like ours around here.”

“What would you think you could get if you sold it?” she asked, definitely sounding frazzled.

“No idea. I'm not a real-estate agent or a bank valuer,” I told her. “Anyway, it's academic. We don't intend to sell, so finding out how much our place is worth is a waste of time.”

It amazes me what some people think others should know. I have a friend who once lost a number of documents in a fire. When he went to an accountant to get some things organised, he was asked for his Australian Tax File Number.

“But surely you have your tax file number memorised?” the accountant asked in disbelief.

Now, I use my tax file number once a year, when I fill in my tax return. Apart from looking it up once when I start a new job, take out health insurance, or start a new superannuation scheme, I never use it. I’m firmly on my friend’s side on this one. No one in their right mind would have their number memorised.

Now, I could've been more helpful and come up with a figure for what our property is worth, but I really couldn’t be sure it would be accurate. Was it better to not give Mary a figure, or to give her one that might be wildly wrong? Regardless, it was more fun to not give her one.

The phone call finished up soon afterwards when I told her I wasn't interested in moving my mortgage. She'd taken up more than the originally estimated thirty seconds, but she cheered me up after my phone call with the insurance company, so I didn't begrudge her the time.

“Yep!” I smiled back at her. “She rang me, not the other way around. And, I was polite. Yeah, I could've given her some hint on our property value, but I honestly don't know what it is. Even the bank won't tell us what they valued it at when we asked them,” I pointed out.

Dinner went smoothly, or at least as smoothly as it ever does when you have a six-year-old who wants to try chopsticks. He managed to eat a reasonable amount (fingers are useful implements for eating with) and even had some small success picking up noodles with those two pieces of wood we'd given him. We kept suggesting he use the fork, but he wanted to eat like his mum and dad.

Janine had been shopping with Andrew. She told me afterwards that Andrew had seen them last time they'd gone, and this time she weakened and bought them for him:

Correction: “Mobile Fone” biscuits. That's what was on the packaging at least. I suspected that Colin had something to do with it, because I'd been told about the argument from earlier in the week.

“Mummy, can you please help me write out the words 'Phone Number'” he had asked Janine.

“I want to give out our phone number to Glenda so she can call me to say when she can come over to play,” he replied.

Things didn't go as smoothly as that. Janine wrote down “Phone Number” on a piece of paper so Colin could copy it – his normal approach.

“Phone starts with a 'f' sound, and you've got it starting with a 'p'. You've got it wrong, Mummy!”

Janine told me he'd been most indignant. He got even more upset when she wouldn’t change it, insisting that that was the correct way to spell the word. In the end, she won.

Now, however, all our efforts to help our boys spell correctly were being sabotaged by this packet of biscuits. I quickly ripped off the wrapping before Colin could see that he wasn't the only one that thought “Phone” should be spelt “Fone”.

While the boys grabbed their chocolate phone biscuits, I examined the wrapping. I was horrified to find even more examples of misspellings on this commercial offering: “u 2 will luv the gr8 taste”

I shuddered at what must be in the biscuits if that was the level of education of the people who did the wrapping.

I looked around to see Andrew grinning at me, repeating “Ring, ring,” endlessly.

I lifted up my left hand, stuck out my thumb and little finger, and pretended it was a phone.

I looked over at where Andrew was standing. He'd eaten one end off his mobile phone. I shrugged. Well that's one way to end a phone conversation.

“Mummy's phone is switched off,” Janine announced sagely. “She forgot to recharge the batteries again.”

I glared at Janine while I proceeded to take a progression of phone calls from the two boys. She was getting out of this too lightly.

Road to Ruin

There are many firsts in a person’s life: their first day of school, their first kiss, their first love, their first car, their first drink (hopefully not at the same time as their first car), their first house.

However, recent experiences lead me to believe that all of these pale into insignificance when compared to the complete and unbridled joy experienced when you first lose a tooth.

It started at 5:30am on a Saturday morning. Since I’d been out the night before with some friends, I was looking forward to have a sleep-in. In that slightly dazed state where I could hear what was being said without being able to consciously process it, I overheard the following conversation:

That’s when I switched my mind on. I mentally started to prepare myself for the invasion of a six-year-old monster.

“Mummy tried to pull it out with some pliers last night, but it hurt too much,” Colin informed me.

I looked up to see Janine standing in the door way. I think she saw my shocked expression.

I nodded. Being the daughter of a dentist, having access to useful things like forceps is a foregone conclusion. You never know when you want to pull someone’s tooth out, so forceps should be part of every home’s first-aid kit.

I opened my mouth while trying to work out how to express my horror that she used equipment for her horse on our son, but Janine got in first.

While Janine went out to look after her horse, without the forceps, Colin put on his serious face and looked down at me.

His concern was obvious. This was a major issue that needed to be addressed. Putting aside my plans for solving world hunger, which I have to admit were not very advanced anyway, I moved onto something more important.

“It’ll be fine,” I replied soothingly. “It won’t come out. Don’t worry about it.”

What else could I do? I couldn’t guarantee his tooth wouldn’t come out during his swimming lesson, but he needed reassurance.

It took a few more minutes of gentle persuasion before Colin accepted my encouragement.

The tooth saga continued when Colin refused to have any breakfast because his loose tooth was causing problems with eating.

Needless to say, eating a mango, while an incredibly enjoyable task, did not result in Colin losing his tooth.

Afterwards, while Janine and I enjoyed a fresh pot of coffee and a pleasant chat, Colin came up to us and announced he was going to try to pull his tooth out again.

Colin headed to our bedroom, where he could use the full sized mirror to watch as he performed amateur dentistry on himself.

“It’s only the skin holding it on,” Janine remarked. “It won’t be long.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea for him to be using those forceps?” I asked, getting anxious. I’m sure there’s a reason why dentists go through many years of education before they are allowed to pull teeth. While there have been many times when I haven’t been around to keep an eye on him, I had my doubts about whether or not Colin had been doing that level of training.

Colin came screaming out of the bedroom, with a smile only limited by the width of his face.

“Good on you,” I added, trying to muster some enthusiasm for a small white piece of something that could, I suppose, pass for a tooth.

Janine rang her parents. When they answered, she handed the phone to the boy of the moment.

I was going to jump in and tell him to say “please”, but Janine held me back.

A few minutes later, Colin hung up. “I’m going to see if I can pull another tooth out,” he announced as he headed back to our bedroom.

“Let him go. He won’t be able to do anything, and he won’t hurt himself,” Janine said. “He’s just over the moon about finally losing that tooth.”

“You’ve already organised it, haven’t you,” I said with a sinking feeling. I should’ve known better.

“I negotiated a discount rate. Fifty cents a tooth. You’ll go broke if you have to pay a dollar a tooth. Colin has a lot of teeth in that mouth of his.”

“Can you please open your mouth, Andrew?” I asked him. “I want to check your teeth.”

“Not for a couple of years yet,” I replied. When he looked disappointed, I quickly added, “Don’t worry. It’ll happen when your teeth are good and ready. You don’t have to worry.”

Silently, I added to myself, “No, leave that to me.” I made a note to take out a loan from the bank. If I had to pay for each of those teeth, and Colin’s as well, I was in danger of being on the road to financial ruin.

People have told me that kids are expensive. I’d just found another reason why they’re right.

Grandmothers Rule, Okay?

Janine’s mother is a master at being the enthusiastic grandmother. She’d been given advance notice that we’d be dropping in on the way to swimming, as Colin was keen to show off the first tooth he’d lost. She was playing her role to the hilt.

“Hi, Nicole,” I said when Colin was distracted for a few seconds. Janine’s parents had insisted that I call them by their first names since I first started dating Janine. I’d been brought up to be more formal with members of their generation but they eventually got their own way.

“Actually, he’s calmed down. Before we came, I had to take photos of both his tooth and the gap in his mouth. It was only after I did that were we allowed to get into the car and come here.”

I could see the disbelief in her eyes as she took in the sight of Colin bouncing around the house. However, it was true. The initial euphoria had dropped down to merely overwhelming happiness.

“Why don’t you leave your tooth inside?” I suggested. “You don’t want to lose it.”

Reluctantly, I let him have his own way. I’d put the tooth in a jar with a lid, but Colin was able to take the lid off, which he’d already done a couple of times in the car on the way to his grandparent’s place. Andrew joined him outside, and the two of them started playing.

Looking out from the doorway, there was no doubt of how proud he was about his tooth. He would hold up the jar, shake it, peer into it, and smile broadly. I winced when he took the lid off to peer inside, and then tipped the tooth out of the jar and onto the lid.

I shrugged and went back inside. All I could do was hope it would be okay. It would’ve been cruel to have taken the jar off him.

Personally, after being a dentist for probably more years than I’ve been alive, I think Janine’s dad could do without seeing another tooth, but grandfathers are special.

Colin approached. “I put the jar inside,” he said defensively. I immediately suspected the worst.

I looked around and spotted it on a nearby chair. Picking it up I was struck by the silence. The jar was empty.

I knew I had a major crisis on my hands. Earlier in the year, Janine had raced up to the house from the paddock when she’d heard Andrew screaming. She’d thought he’d broken an arm or leg. No, he’d accidentally let go of a helium-filled balloon, and it was flying away. He wanted us to get it back....

I shook my head. “No.” I tried to sound disappointed, not annoyed. “Did you lose it outside?”

My mouth dropped open in surprise. That was a possibility I’d never considered.

“That’s very clever of the tooth fairy, Colin. They can be very tricky people, these fairies,” Nicole said approvingly.

As I expected, Wayne wasn’t disappointed at not seeing the tooth. Anyway, I could always show him the photos once I had the film developed. I must’ve used up half a roll of film on the tooth and Colin’s gap-smile.

“You know, it’s quite unusual for an upper central to be the first to come out. It’s normally a bottom tooth,” Wayne said once Colin had gone back outside to play again.

“What do you know?” Nicole replied scornfully. “You’re only a dentist.”

While I thought if there was one professional that could be said to have a reasonable idea on which teeth come out first, it would be a dentist. A paediatrician would be my second choice, but I didn’t have one handy to consult with.

However, with the wisdom that comes from being married for fifty years, Janine’s father maintained his silence.

I learnt an important lesson that day: a grandmother always beats a dentist when it comes to knowing her grandchildren, even if the dentist is their grandfather.

Anniversary Anguish

“Happy anniversary!” Janine said, as she pulled a present and card out of the wardrobe and tossed them gently onto the bed next to me.

Hating your wife on your fifteenth wedding anniversary is not normally the done thing. I would have to say it probably rates very low on the Political Correctness scale. That is, unless the two of you had agreed not to buy each other presents, and you’d adhered to that bargain, while she hadn’t. In that case, every male in the universe will understand how I felt.

“Thank you, honey,” I said, trying to project as much cheeriness as I could possibly manage.

I took the opportunity while unwrapping the present to think furiously about what I could get her as a “surprise” present when I came home from work that day.

I still hadn’t come up with anything special when the last of the paper had been removed.

Staring down at my stomach, and straining to see past it to my toes, I wondered if this was her way of telling me that I’m not fat enough. Of course, it could be just that she wanted to show me how much she loved my by giving me the most scrumptious, mouth-watering, beautifully presented collection of Swiss chocolates available in Australia, but I discounted that possibility as being remote.

Naturally, it also meant that I couldn’t buy her chocolates as my return present, but I’d already eliminated that as an option. Janine has been trying to lose weight, and a box of chocolates would not have been helpful with that goal.

It was as I was driving to work that morning that I thought of buying her some flowers. It wasn’t the most imaginative present in the world, but it was an old favourite because it really was successful. I would continue to try to work out something better, but I had a fall-back position that meant the pressure was off me.

Janine must’ve been bored at work because mid-morning I received an email from her, asking how my day was going. I considered replying with the truth, that my day had started poorly but was improving as time went on, but even I’ve learnt a few things after fifteen years of marriage, and I told her that it was an okay sort of day.

At lunchtime, I visited the closest newsagent and scanned through the set of anniversary cards. There were many magnificent ones to select from, but as they were all from a wife to her husband, I didn’t think they were appropriate for me to give to Janine. There was a paltry four to choose from for a husband to his wife.

I stared at them for a long time. I stared at the huge range of cards for wives to give to their husbands on an anniversary. I stared back at the four cards I had to choose from to give to Janine. Was this some great conspiracy at work? If so, what did it mean? There was the simplistic answer that the card manufacturers knew that men would just grab the first card they looked at and decide that one was good enough, so why develop a large range, but I didn’t think that was likely. The obvious and sensible answer was that women didn’t need to receive anything special in the card department because the mere fact that it was given with love was enough for them. I deliberately chose not to think about what that said about the huge selection of cards for the husbands to receive.

So, I grabbed the first card I saw, decided that it was good enough for Janine, and bought it.

Feeling pleased with myself, I headed back to the office. After spending many long seconds to compose a suitable statement to put inside the card, I picked up my pen and wrote, “Happy Anniversary! Love, Graeme.”

Smiling, I examined what I’d written. It showed elegance and poetry in the way so much was portrayed with so few words. I was confident that Janine would find it a very moving expression of my feelings for her.

I then rang the florist near our home to check what time they shut. I frowned slightly before making the decision to leave the office a little early that day. It would be a disaster almost of the scale of Cyclone Tracey if I arrived home without a gift because the florist was shut.

Janine chose that moment to ring. Apparently the computer systems at her work were out of action and so she was a little bored and told me she was just ringing to see if anything interesting was happening at the office. I suspected she was really trying to work out what I was getting her for our anniversary, but since we’d agreed that we wouldn’t get each other anything, she couldn’t come out and simply ask. Naturally, I worked out what she was up to and carefully avoided any mention of my preparations.

I was in that state of mild euphoria from having a well-thought-out plan that was progressing nicely, when everything went off the rails.

Staggering uneasily to my feet, I took the two steps necessary to pick up the card embedded in the middle of the horticultural masterpiece.

Muttering obscenities under my breath, I dialled Janine’s number. I took a deep breath as the phone began to ring.

“You got them! I’ve been waiting all morning for them to arrive. I was beginning to think they wouldn’t get there until you’d gone home.”

I thought to myelf that that wouldn’t have been a bad thing. At least that way I could’ve

bought her some flowers and felt happy at having given her something for our anniversary.

Technically I wasn’t lying. The flowers were great. It was Janine managing to trump me a second time on the same day with a present I wasn’t supposed to be getting that wasn’t great.

At least with a bottle of good quality Australian sparkling wine, also known as champagne despite that name being illegal if it wasn’t from the appropriate part of France, I would be able to drown my sorrows and pretend to be happy.

“Well, I’ve got to go now. I haven’t been able to get any work done while I’ve waiting for them to arrive. Bye, Graeme. Love you!”

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m madly in love with her, I’d hate the conniving, sneaky, underhanded so-and-so.

If she has a bottle of champagne in the fridge when I get home, I’m not going to be happy.

The Show

It was going to be an exhausting day. I didn’t have to be psychic to know that. We were going to the local show, and I would be looking after the boys by myself. They were going to run riot and I was responsible for making sure they didn’t destroy the place on the way through. If that wasn’t a recipe for disaster, then I was a failure as a parent. Or, maybe it was because I’m a failure as a parent that it was a recipe for disaster. Either way, it wasn’t going to be a day to look forward to.

Janine was already out the door, taking her horse as she had some early competition classes to attend, before either the boys or I got out of bed. After staring mindlessly at the clock, I sighed and rolled out of bed. There was no rush in getting the Colin and Andrew ready, but lying in bed wasn’t helping.

I’d finished my shower and was wondering what to have for breakfast, when the first call came wafting out from the boys bedroom.

“Mummy’s already gone,” I explained to Andrew, who was obviously wide awake, but making no move to leave his nice comfortable bed.

The grin he gave me showed how much he was looking forward to the day. It probably wasn’t at the forefront of his mind, but he and Andrew had an entire day to torment their poor old dad with a myriad of request. I was already bracing myself for the “Can we have another ride” repeated requests. I paused for a moment and then discounted the possibility that they would’ve recorded the phrase. They are both techno-savvy, but not that much. At least I hoped not.

For a change, it was easy to get them to have their breakfast and to get them dressed. Both were eager to go to the show. I don’t think Andrew really understood what it was about, but Colin wanted to see how his entry to the crafts section had gone. We have been slowly trying to teach him that he couldn’t be the “winnest” at everything, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to win.

We were out the door, into the car, and heading on our way, when my phone rang. Normally, I leave my phone off on weekends, but Janine and I had decided to use our mobile phones to keep in touch. I hadn’t expected a call this early, though, and hadn’t hooked up the phone to

“We’re on our way,” I answered, thinking that she was just wondering where we were.

Since I knew she’d just needed to know where we were, I automatically did what I had expected to be the next step in the conversation.

It was only then that her words penetrated my brain. I had a sinking feeling that I’d just made a really bad mistake. I looked at the phone for a couple of seconds, then picked it up and dialed her number. The engaged signal that I received in response indicated she was probably trying to call me back. I hung up again, and then waited, fearfully, for the phone to ring. It obliged me after only a few seconds.

I mentally wiped my brow with relief. She had more important things to worry about than me hanging up on her.

I managed to get back to the house, find what I thought was what the right item while crossing my fingers that my lack of equine knowledge wasn’t about to cause a major disaster, and then headed back to the show with the boys.

After we pulled into the carpark, I was getting the saddle blanket and my camera, when Andrew piped up.

“We’ll go to the circus after we’ve seen Mummy,” I explained patiently, while wanting to throttle the person who decided the circus tent belonged next to the carpark.

Despite his whining, Andrew was willing to follow me as I headed in the direction of the horse rings. Colin was a lot more accommodating, though I suspected he was just softening my up for a more sophisticated assault later in the day.

We reached the various arenas where the horse events were taking place and I looked around for Janine. I was still looking, when I heard a shout from behind me. Turning, I found Janine approaching rapidly.

How many ways could I make things go wrong? I began to wonder if someone upstairs hated me.

Taking the blanket off me, we all headed around to where she’d parked the horse float. Her horse was tied up next to it.

“How did you go with the led classes?” I asked, keeping my fingers crossed behind my back. I hoped she wouldn’t take it out on me if it hadn’t gone well.

For once, things went my way. She smiled as she put the blanket on her horses back and then placed the saddle on top.

“Daddy just has to help me get on the horse, and then you can all go and enjoy the show,” Janine told him.

For a millisecond I thought I’d been reprieved, but then I realised that I wasn’t being included in the “enjoy” part of that statement; that was strictly for the boys.

After holding the reins while she mounted, I was free to go, if that phrase could be used for someone who was responsible for an enthusiastic tag-team of pure exuberance.

The circus was the first port of call. It’s the same small family circus that’s there every year. Some of the acts were the same, but they’d added a few new ones. It didn’t really matter, as

Next was the Arts and Craft pavilion. We needed to see how the boys entries had gone. When we found then, I was extremely disappointed.

How are we supposed to teach him that he can’t win everything when the judges at the show conspire against us?

The one saving grace was that Andrew didn’t ask if he’d won anything. Otherwise I would’ve had to have told him he hadn’t.

After that momentous event, it was time for the boys to spend Daddy’s money. Janine and I had decided that they would have a budget of $15 each to spend on whatever they wanted.

We’ve never pushed the issue of money, or lack thereof, with them before, so it was going to be an interesting experience. Too late to do anything about it, I noticed that Janine had managed to avoid being involved. Shrugging philosophically to myself, at least that meant the boys would still be happy with one parent at the end of the day.

Colin initially insisted on carrying his own money, and offered to carry Andrew’s as well, but it wasn’t long before I ended up with the lot.

After a go on the jumping castle ($4 each), the merry-go-round ($3 each), another jumping castle ($3 each), and buying a toy ($6 for Colin and $3 for Andrew), the boys spotted the mini-jeeps. They were $5 per vehicle.

I looked at Colin blankly, then mentally added up how much money they had left to spend. I knew that university degree in advanced mathematics would come in handy one day.

“Okay, Colin, but that’s the last of your money,” I said, slightly shell-shocked from two hours

of constant supervising. If it hadn’t been for the boys playing on the tractors and ride-on

lawnmowers that were on display (free, apart from the constant “can we buy this one” from

both boys – usually for two different vehicles) and in the outdoor play equipment (free, though

the boys made a valiant effort to try to make me buy some to take home), I’m sure they

I checked up on the rules. Anyone under six had to ride with an older sibling or parent. That

meant Colin could go by himself, but I’d have to ride with Andrew. I knew without asking that

Andrew wouldn’t be happy riding next to his brother – he’d want to steer and all that would

We had to wait in line for several minutes, but both boys were very patient. Andrew decided

part way through that he didn’t want to do it any more (after I’d bought the ticket, naturally)

Then it was our turn. The boys had already picked out their vehicles. As soon as the gate was

Now, whoever designed these mini-jeeps didn’t take into account that not all parents are

midgets. It was impossible for me to sit on the seat. I had to perch myself precariously on the

back of the vehicle while Andrew sat in the drivers seat. I was able to reach the steering

wheel, but not the brake or accelerator. At least they had the pedals colour-coded and Andrew

already knew that Green meant go and Red meant stop (years of watching traffic lights from

As soon as the man started the small petrol engine at the back of the jeep, Andrew was off.

No one else was – they were all waiting until all the vehicles had been started. We were

halfway around the track before Andrew realised and slowed to a stop. In that time, I’d only had to grab the steering wheel twice to avoid running into things or people, so it wasn’t going too badly.

I was relieved when the engine stopped five minutes (or was that five hours) later. Colin did quite a credible job driving by himself – he ran into us once, but considering the erratic manoeuvring that Andrew seemed to specialise in that wasn’t too bad. I noticed that the

people on the track to help wayward drivers were quite quick on their feet, jumping out of Andrew’s way on many occasions. At the end of the ride though, I was down to only grabbing

the steering wheel once or twice a lap. By the time Andrew’s old enough to legally learn to drive, he should be ready for the Australian Grand Prix. His artful swerving all over the track to stop the other drivers from passing showed a lot of potential. It can only improve once he starts doing it on purpose.

After that experience, I insisted on taking the boys back to their mum. That would allow me a

“Ask me how I did,” she said, having trouble keeping her feet on the ground from excitement.

“Have a look at these,” she said, handing me a fistful of cards.
I started going through them. Second, Reserve Champion, First, First, Champion, Supreme Champion....

“Now, I have to get ready for the Grand Parade. They won’t give me my prize money until afterwards.”

She looked at me anxiously. “I want you to take some photos of me in the parade.”

Andrew’s question made me pause. It took a few seconds to work out what he was talking about. Not too far from the main arena there was a small train ride. He’d ridden it last year and he’d obviously seen it again this year. I made an executive decision.

“Okay, Andrew, but we also need to watch Mummy ride her horse in the parade.”

“Well, we better get going, because the parade is due to start soon,” I told both boys.

With a wave of the hand, we left Janine getting ready and headed towards the train. It had been a long day, though, and Andrew was getting tired. It took longer to get there than I’d anticipated.

I lined up for tickets as the train came to a stop and the previous set of passengers got off. Unfortunately, by the time I’d bought the tickets, the train was just leaving.

“Not too long,” I said, crossing my fingers and eternally grateful that Colin was prepared to wait patiently.

Nervously, I watched the people lining up for the Grand Parade. It was about to start. As the train slowed to a stop, I heard the announcement for the commencement of the parade.

“Mummy’s about to ride in the parade, Andrew. You can ride on the train after the parade.”

I stared back at Andrew. I could either upset my little boy and put up with tears and a tantrum for a few minutes until something else captured his attention, or I could miss Janine riding in the Grand Parade as a Supreme Champion for the first, and possibly last, time in her life, potentially causing a fatal marital trauma in our relationship. Ultimately, the choice was simple.

Broken Things

TV antennas and connecting cables.
Little small figurines on outside tables.
Cuddly soft toys that can laugh and can sing.
These are a few of our now broken things.

Curtains ripped off from their hooks and their railing.
Little small boats that used to go sailing.
Windows that shatter when knocked by a chair.
Things that just happen without thought and no care.

When the tears start,
When the boy hides,
When he cries out ‘OW’.
We simply go searching for Andrew, our son,
To see what he’s broken now!

The family phone that doesn’t like floating.
A clock radio is also worth noting.
Big brother’s cars that move by themselves,
Now in the scrap heap because of our elf.

Smashing with hammers, ‘cause that’s how you fix things.
Dropped from a height, or testing with drownings.
Checking the power points with the hair drier.
He just likes to play, he’s only a trier.

When the tears start,
When the boy hides,
When he cries out ‘OW’.
We simply go searching for Andrew, our son,
To see what he’s broken now!

It has become almost a family tradition that someone has to get sick while on holidays. It started the first time we took Colin to the Gold Coast in Queensland when he was only one-year-old, and he came down with croup.

Since then both Andrew and Colin have had either asthma attacks or croup almost every holiday. Croup mainly affects the very young, Colin hadn’t had an asthma attack for a couple of years, and Andrew has been taking preventers for asthma, we were hopeful that this holiday would be different.

Janine had started the holiday with laryngitis, but that barely counted. Indeed, if I were a cynic I would say that starting the holiday without Janine being able to speak was almost a blessing, but I’m too smart to actually say that.

Instead, about half way through our holiday on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, we realised that both of our boys had serious, in one case life-threatening, illnesses.

We picked up the problem with Andrew first. We’d been going from our holiday unit to the main beach at Noosa. It was a hot day so we stopped off to buy the boys an ice-cream each before we finished our trip to the beach.

That was then I realised that Andrew suffers from a serious illness that will probably be with him for the rest of his life:

The signs had been there for a long time, but Janine and I had not allowed ourselves to realise what they meant. The insistence on having a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for his birthday. Chocolate flavoured milk was one of his favourite drinks. When we bought iced donuts, he always ate the icing off the chocolate ones. "Chocolate" was even one of the words that he recognised, though he’s too young to read very much.

While ordering his double-chocolate ice-cream, I sadly stared down at my youngest son. I’d never heard of a cure for chocoholic-ism, so this was a disability he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life. With care, he’ll be able to live a normal and productive life, but he’ll always have this deep secret that he’ll have to manage.

Sighing sadly, I watched as my two sons finished their ice-creams. I wondered if Andrew’s illness would have any appreciable impact on Colin, but I decided it was unlikely. To the best of my knowledge, chocoholic-ism isn’t contagious, so, after a quiet word with Janine, we decided we would still treat the two boys the same as we’d always done. All we can do is to keep an eye on Andrew’s chocolate intake.

We spent the next couple of hours on the beach. The boys had a wonderful time playing in the surf and sand. As they only get to go to the beach when we are on holidays, which is usually only once a year, it’s a real treat for them.

Afterwards, we decided to have lunch at the Surf Life Saving Club before catching the bus back to our unit. That was when we realised that Colin was also seriously ill.

I’d just ordered our lunch and sat down at the table overlooking the beach, when Colin spoke up.

"Then we’ll go up and politely ask where our lunch is, and they’ll get it for us."

This was concerning. What-if-itis can be fatal in some circumstances. It’s not a life-long illness, like chocoholic-ism, but Colin runs a serious risk of being throttled by whoever he is talking to. I had already struggled to restrain myself from throwing him off the balcony, and who knows how long this illness would last for. With every conversation, he ran the risk of being killed.

"If everyone has run out of food, then we’ll have to go hungry," I replied to his last question, hoping that this would end the chain of questions and responses.

There was silence for several seconds and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief, but I was too soon.

"What if the monster rushed out before everyone had gotten away, and starting killing everyone?"

I attempted to give a response that would make it difficult for him to continue with another what-if, while wondering if it was possible to get professional training on dealing with this problem.

This stunned me. While struggling to imagine a world where the media would not be interested in photos of a hideous monster that had stormed out of the sea and started killing people, I had to admire Colin’s imagination. Once he was over this illness, I could see he had great potential. He could be a famous author, a lawyer, a political speechwriter, or any other job that relies on the ability to create fiction.

Luckily, I didn’t have to come up with an answer as our lunch arrived at that point. A steak sandwich for me, chicken nugget and chips were placed in front of the boys, and Janine had a plate of fish and chips.

Almost Perfect

There is something intensely satisfying about an almost perfect kids birthday party.

A perfect kids birthday party is like a perpetual motion machine, or a government that does things properly: an ideal that can be approached but never reached.

Andrew’s fifth birthday came as close as can be expected, unless you decided to substitute the kids with pre-programmed robots. To start with, he only invited three people. As any parent will tell you, the anxiety levels increase exponentially as the number of children at a party goes up. Andrew only invited John, a friend from playgroup, and his two girlfriends, Sally and Linda.

I have to admit that I sometimes wonder if Andrew and Colin have some sort of friendly rivalry going on with their girlfriends. It was different when I was young; boys didn’t associate very much with girls. There was a “yuckiness” about the whole concept. Either the modern generation is a lot more tolerant of gender differences, or maybe it’s because Janine and I have never made a point of distinguishing between boys and girls. The old saying, “Girls are weak, chuck’em in the creek. Boys are strong, like King Kong,” is one that we’d decided we just didn’t need to teach our boys.

Now, while Andrew certainly made impressive progress in their rivalry by not only having two girlfriends at the same time, but also having the nerve to invite both of them to his birthday party, as a neutral judge I’d have to say that Colin is still in the lead. This is not because he’s had more girlfriends than Andrew, but because he’d actually discussed marriage with one of them.

I can still remember the surprise I experienced when I arrived home from work one night, and Colin asked me if Raylene could come for a sleepover at our place. Initially, I thought this was quite innocent, but I started frantically searching for my biology textbooks when he then declared that he loved her. I almost fainted when he added that he’s going to marry her, but they’d decided they were going to wait until they were ten. Once I’d recovered, I had to admire their maturity in wanting to wait four years before they got married, but I still thought they might be a bit young to make such a serious commitment.

I considered the possibility that this was all just Colin’s idea, as he has a very active imagination, but the next day Janine showed me the love notes from Raylene that Colin had brought home, including one that confirmed the marriage plans. I was still wondering what to do when a couple of days later Janine informed me that the marriage was off. Apparently, Colin and Raylene had been discussing their ages, and it turned out that Raylene was a “bigger six” than Colin, which made the whole relationship completely unviable. I’m not sure I understand the logic, but I’m happy with the outcome. Getting married at ten is a bit too early, in my humble opinion.

One of the presents that Andrew opened first thing in the morning was a Hot Wheels track with some sort of swamp monster attacking the cars. Naturally, I had to put it together as soon as it was opened. There is something about complex pieces of engineering brilliance that Janine and the boys naturally turn to me to put together. Little do they realise that while I’m an engineer, I’m a Software Engineer. I can still remember the joke from university: Real Programmers don’t change tyres – that’s a hardware problem. Alas, I don’t think I’m a Real Programmer because not only am I able to change tyres, but I can also put together Hot Wheels tracks. It helps that they’ve developed instructions explicitly for me and others of my ilk – instructions fit for any dummy.

It didn’t take me that long before I’d put the track together. Even when I’d forgotten to do a couple of steps, it became obvious further along in the process and I was able to backtrack and fix my mistakes without anyone being the wiser. At least I hope that was the case.

The boys had a wonderful time playing with it. It appear that the object was to run the cars around the track and have them blow the head off the swamp monster inside a time limit. The sound effects were great, with the monster making smart-arse comments. Colin recognised this:

I had to smile. We’d put in a lot of effort instilling manners into our boys. They can be completely obnoxious at times, but they usually say “please” and “thank you” while making you pull your hair out. We’re still not sure if they correctly understand the phrase, “excuse me,” as it often seems to translate as “shut up, it’s my turn to speak.” However, generally they are polite and considerate.

They were disappointed when we told them it was time to stop playing, but they quickly got ready and headed out to the car. They’d both been to the place where the party was going to be, and were eager to get going.

Andrew had a good time at his party. We held it an indoor playground where they have a massive jungle gym with only one significant design flaw: it’s possible for adults to get in there with the kids.

This ultimately means a group of fathers leveraging themselves through netting, up tunnels, down slides and generally ending up in places where man (especially overweight man) was not meant to go, while being encouraged along with cries of “Come on, daddy!”

It was with a considerable sigh of relief that I collapsed when they announced it was time for Andrew and his friends to go to the party area for a snack and birthday cake. Having a heart-attack from over-exertion at my son’s birthday party would not have gone down well with Janine. I’d probably be accused of trying to attract attention. After all, it was Andrew’s special day, not mine.

He didn’t seem to mind the low number of presents he received, an unfortunate side-effect of only inviting three friends, and the Thomas the Tank Engine ice-cream cake was a great success. That’s just as well, as most of it was still left after the party was finished, so we’ve taken it home to finish off over the next week or three.

There was only one thing that Andrew was disappointed with. One birthday present we were unable to get for him.

“Look, Andrew. Nanny and Gramps have given you a book on space, and Colin has given you a rocket to play with!”

He started excitedly flicking through the book, stopping when he got to the page showing pictures of the moon.

“I want to go to the moon,” he said, repeating a comment he’d made a couple of weeks earlier.

I’d tried the Americans, but NASA doesn’t take passengers. I’d rung the Russians, who were interested since I was willing to pay (I had saved up a couple of hundred dollars), but we never got to the point of price negotiations when they had to admit they didn’t currently have a rocket able to reach the moon. I’d even sent an email to Richard Branson, asking if Virgin Galactic was ready to get off the ground, but the timing wasn’t right.

And the Winner is....

We’d been riding our bikes at the local high school on a Sunday afternoon, and I was thinking it was about time to finish. When Colin challenged me, we were in the carpark. I don’t know what it is that prompted my response, so I’ll just assume it was temporary insanity..

In hindsight, what I did next was stupid, possibly even crazy. I decided to try to win. I had the most noble of intentions at the time. Colin had to learn he couldn’t be the winnest at everything, and that the important thing was just to try as hard as you could.

Colin had a fixed-gear bike, while I had a ten-speed. I was sure that with the right gear selection I would be able to out-ride my six-year-old son.

The race started in the traditional way. We were lined up, along with Andrew, at one end of the car park. Janine was sitting by the car, reading a magazine. For a change, it wasn’t a horse magazine; it was something much worse. I hadn’t realised when I got her the subscription for the country home magazine that it would contain so many expensive items that she would fall in love with. Since we were planning to put an extension onto our home so the boys could have their own rooms, she was busy getting lots of ideas on what to put into the extension.

“Go!” he yelled when he was a couple of metres away. As I said, the race started in the traditional way.

I’d already put my bike into fourth gear. I started to chase my eldest boy. Andrew was grinning happily as he rode the new bike he got for his birthday. He wasn’t really interesting in winning, just in having fun with his brother and dad.

Colin was out of the saddle and pedalling furiously. Being too big and unfit to do the same, I stay seated and just pushed my legs as fast as they could go.

Three-quarters of the way down the carpark, I passed Colin who grinned happily at me as he tried to keep up. I was smiling when I got to the far end first.

They say that pride comes before the fall. Whoever ‘they’ are, they are correct. I was going too fast to turn my bike around, and I was too proud to use the brakes to slow down to a safe speed. The result was an educational experience of Newton’s First Law of Motion, where the loss of dynamic stability of the turning bike required the transformation from an upright two-wheeled mode of transport to a horizontal sliding movement in the original direction of travel.

Colin and Andrew, being the loving sons that they are, laughed at me, and kept racing.

“I’m winning!” Colin cried out as he headed back to the other end and the finish line. Andrew waved as he rode past.

Painfully, I picked myself up. My bike seemed fine, or at least a lot better than I was feeling. I’d managed to remove the skin along about a quarter of my left forearm, and I had a very sore hip. Wearing jeans was probably the only thing that prevent a similar loss of skin from that part of my body.

I slowly walked the bike back to the car. Janine, the lovely wife, was still reading her magazine. She hadn’t noticed a thing.

“I think it’s time to go,” I said. “I just need to wash my arm first.”

She looked up and saw me standing there, gingerly holding the damaged limb up. An almost sadistic gleam appeared in her eye.

“You must be in agony. Wait there and I’ll get a bandage for it,” she said. She got out the first aid kit we’d bought the from the Ambulance Service of Victoria, and started looking through it. I’m sure she was trying to think of a reason to perform an amputation, but was failing.

It was a Saturday morning and we were driving the boys to their swimming lesson.

“I was thinking we should switch the boys lessons to a weeknight,” Janine said.

“I was thinking we should switch the boys lessons to a weeknight,” Colin echoed from the back seat.

I glanced back to see him grinning at me, before I turned my attention back to my wife.

“I think they are getting to the stage where they’ll want to do other things, and most of those things are on Saturdays,” Janine said.

“I’m copying you,” Colin said, obviously thinking his parents hadn’t already worked that out.

I grinned. Admittedly, I had to use one completely made up word, the longest word in the English dictionary, and an archaic chemical formula, but I won. The joy in proving that I had a better vocabulary than a six-year-old was unbelievable.

“Mummy, Daddy, have I eaten more than you?” Colin asked at the dinner table.

“Yes, Colin, you have,” Janine said. She was pleased, because for a long time Colin hadn’t had much of an appetite.

I looked down at my protruding stomach. While I could try to eat more than him, it wouldn’t be a good idea. I had to concede.

Refueling

“Have you ever been to the company unit in Korea, Trevor?” Karen asked.

“Yes, I have,” Trevor replied. “That’s the one with the really fancy toilet, isn’t it? With the all controls?”

“That’s right. And the heated toilet seat,” Karen said and sighed.

The blissful way with which she said that made me wonder about the place they were talking about, and also wonder about their sanity. Of course, this was at the end of a week of work in Los Angeles, and we were on the way back to the airport so we could fly home, so a certain degree of insanity could be expected.

I wasn’t joining in the conversation because I was driving. While I’ve driven in the USA before, a left-hand-drive vehicle that I’m not familiar with, in peak hour on a Friday afternoon, is a challenge that still requires a reasonable amount of concentration. The added complication of going back to the airport by a route that I was not familiar with, just made it more interesting.

“Karen, are you sure you know the way to the 110 from here?” I asked, while trying to keep the car on what I thought was the correct speed limit, and ignoring all the other drivers who seemed to think that I was driving too slow.

“Just turn left onto Arroyo Parkway and it’ll be fine. It’ll all be well signposted,” she replied.

“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling a small amount of paranoia settle into my brain. “Have you gone this way before?”

“Not from here, but they have good signs for their freeways.”

Her confidence was underwhelming, since she wasn’t responsible for getting us to the airport. I’d wanted to take my usual route for the 210 east to the 605 and then the 105. It’s longer, as we start by going in the wrong direction, but it’s easy. However, I’d been talked into driving into Pasadena instead, and picking up the start of the 110 that would take us past downtown Los Angeles and then onto the 105.

As I cruised along Colorado Boulevard, I wondered if it was the size of the place that made the road system so impersonal. The UK was the same when I was there – all the major roads were known by numbers. I’d gotten to know the M4 and M5 quite well at that time, but the only significant section that I knew by a name was spaghetti junction, and that was as a place to avoid in peak hour. In comparison, I can’t recall anyone in Australia, apart from in Sydney, referring to a road by a number. It was the Hume Highway, the Eastern Freeway, the Ring Road, or the South-Eastern Car Park – sorry, South-Eastern Arterial – never a number. Sydney is the only place I know of where they have major roads called by numbers, but they are all fairly recent, and I blame that on a lack of imagination. They managed to name one new road – the Eastern Distributor – but they also have the M4 and M5. I’m surprised some English tourist hasn’t managed to get confused, and found themselves heading to Birmingham by accident.

The conversation about toilets, heated or otherwise, was cut short when I spotted a gas station, to use the local terminology. It was even a brand that I was familiar with in Australia: Mobil. I had to top up the tank before I returned the rental car, and this seemed like a good time to do it, rather than trying to find one near the airport.

“I’m filling up here, guys, so I don’t have to do it later.”

“Good idea!” Karen said.

I pulled in cautiously, which is the only way I know how to drive unfamiliar cars on unfamiliar roads, in unfamiliar countries, and on the wrong side of the road. I was relieved to note that there wasn’t a lot of people there. I suspected this would take some time, as it had been several years since I’d last rented a car in the USA. I’d driven one of the other cars last time I was there, but I hadn’t been the one responsible for getting us back to the airport.

I stopped and then started to search for the fuel-cap release.

“Any ideas where the release is for the petrol-cap? I asked when I couldn’t find it.

“It should be down the side of the seat,” Trevor said. “You might have to get out to see it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Hopefully, the petrol cap is on your side, Trevor, or I might have to move the car.”

As I said, I suspected this might take some time.

I got out and had a good look around, but I couldn’t see anything.

“No need to worry, Graeme. It doesn’t need a release,” Trevor said from his side of the car.

I looked up to see him unscrewing the fuel cap.

“That’s good to hear,” I said as I walked around the car to join him.

I had a moment of worry when I got around and noticed that the nozzle looked like the LPG nozzles we have in Australia. Since this was clearly a petrol and not an LPG powered vehicle, I wondered if I was in the wrong spot. I breathed a sigh of relief when Trevor pulled the nozzle out of it’s holder and a normal spout was revealed. It was some sort of covering over most of the nozzle that had confused me.

He put the spout into the car and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. We looked at each other. He went back to the bowser.

“I think we need to put a credit card in first,” he said after squinting at a screen.

“Do you want to do it, or do you want me to do it?”

“You’d better do it. I don’t think I’ll be able to expense it as I’m not the one who’s hired the car.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I pulled out my wallet and got out my corporate card. I put it into the slot provide and pulled it out again. “Invalid card” the screen read. I tried again. “Invalid card” I was told again.

“Try it around the other way,” Trevor suggested, peering over my shoulder.

“That was my next step,” I replied, as I turned the card around and tried again.

I smiled when the screen told me to remove the card, and indicated that the card was accepted. It then asked me to enter my zip code.

I looked at Trevor. “Zip code? What am I supposed to put in?”

He shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

I thought for a moment about putting in 90210, which is the only zip code that I know off-by-heart. Not that I ever watched the show, but it was sufficiently popular that the name stuck in my mind. I’ve seen zip code lists as part of my job, so I knew I could probably just enter a random five digit number with a reasonable chance of getting one right, but that felt like fraud to me. I entered five zeros.

“Error. Please see operator,” the screen told me.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Trevor.

I headed over to the office and stood patiently behind the person being served. I wasn’t in any rush as we still had hours to get to the airport. When the previous person left, I stepped forward.

“The machine told me to come here,” I explained, holding out my American Express card. “We don’t have zip codes in Australia, so I didn’t know what to put in.”

He stared at me. I suspected he didn’t get that many Australians refueling at his gas station. It’s a long drive from Australia to Los Angeles. He took my card from me.

“Okay. How much do you want to buy?”

“I need to fill it up.”

He grunted then pushed a few buttons on his console. Frowning, he repeated his actions.

“Do you still have the pump on?”

“Yes. Do you want us to hang it up?”

“Hang it up, and then I can reset it. Wait until it’s reset before you try again.”

“Okay, thanks!” I said. I headed out, leaving my Amex card behind.

When I got back to the car, I pulled the nozzle out and hung it up.

“We need to wait until the pump has been reset,” I told Trevor.

A few minutes later the pump was going and the fuel was flowing. When it stopped, I hung up the pump, went back to the office, paid for the petrol, picked up my Amex card and returned to the car.

One challenge out of the way. Now I just needed to find my way through Pasadena to the 110. After successfully completing the gas station challenge, that should be a breeze.

Drive-in Movie

“I’m sooooo excited!” Colin said from the back seat of the ute.

Janine and I smiled. Colin had been looking forward to this night for several days. The school was having their annual drive-in movie fund-raiser. It was a movie we’d seen before – The Chronicles of Narnia – but that didn’t stop Colin and Andrew from being excited.

“When are we going to get to the school?” Colin asked a few second later.

“Colin, you go this way to school every day. How far do you think it is?” Janine asked, sounding a bit exasperated.

“Not far?” he replied.

“A few more minutes,” I said. “Just be patient.”

“But I can’t. I’m just sooooo excited!”

Everyone was relieved when we pulled into the school grounds. We were quickly directed to where they wanted us to park.

“Is it okay if we reverse in?” Janine asked.

“Sure, go ahead. Just line up with the other cars,” the parking attendant said.

This was our second school drive-in movie experience. We were doing the same as last year, but were a bit better prepared this time. In the back of the ute we had an air-mattress, doona, pillows and the boys’ sleeping bags. There were also a couple of chairs and an old horse rug for Janine and I. I would’ve preferred a blanket to keep us warm, but we didn’t have a spare blanket, and we did have a spare horse rug – you can tell what the priorities are like in our family.

After parking the car, everyone got out and we headed to the small fair that was set up nearby. It was still at least an hour until the movie started, possibly longer. With the end of daylight saving, it would get dark quicker than it did last year, but I overheard someone saying they still didn’t expect the film to start until after 8:30pm.

Apart from a few commercial entertainments, most of the fair was run on a volunteer basis by school parents. This was most obvious at the coffee stand. I had foolishly offered to buy a cappuccino for Janine.

“The machine isn’t working. It says the dregs drawer need to be cleaned out, but it’s empty!”

Being the sticky-nosed person that I am, I couldn’t help walking around to see if I could help.

“Let me have a look at that tray,” I said.

They handed it to me, and I looked over it carefully.

“There are no sensors that I can see. Are you sure this is the dregs drawer?”

They shrugged. “We’re just parents trying to help out. We’ve got no idea.”

After a few minutes of embarrassing failure, someone came up and told us the manual was in the box. It was quickly located and I claimed it so I could try to work out what was going on. As an experienced IT professional, I understood the acronym, RTFM, which stands for “Read the manual”. The person who told me that sniggered when I asked him what the F stood for, but he wouldn’t tell me.

It was only another minute before I had the answer.

“That compartment on the side is the dregs drawer, and you need to take it out while the power is still on, and wait at least five seconds before you put it back in.”

It was so obvious in hindsight. After all, who cleans machines with the power off nowadays? They’d been turning the power off whenever they pulled things apart, and that’d been their mistake.

I eventually returned to Janine with her coffee. As a treat to myself, I’d bought one for myself, too.

“Where are the boys?” I asked.

“They wanted to play in the playground, so I said they could,” she replied, smiling with relief when I presented her drink to her.

We were sitting there, enjoying the peace-and-quiet of a school yard full of kids and parents, when the serenity was shattered. Colin was approaching, crying. I stood up and intercepted him.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, with the incredible idiocy reserved for parents in a stress environment. He wouldn’t be crying if he wasn’t hurt.

Not surprisingly, he nodded his head. Janine had joined me by this stage.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I was going along the monkey bars, and I got to the big steps, and I got onto the first one okay, and then stepped to the second one, but when I tried to go from the second to third, I slipped and fell through and hit my face.”

When something goes wrong, Colin is not given to simple explanations, like “I fell”. He prefers the blow-by-blow description of what precisely happened, even if the explanation makes no sense. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I got the general idea: he fell.

It turned out he’d cut his lip. Janine went and got some ice and we managed to get him calmed down. We decided it might be a good idea to retreat to the ute and start getting everything set up for the movie.

It didn’t take long. Colin had received both a wind-up torch and a radio for his birthday. This meant we had light when we needed it (without having to worry about batteries running out) and we could use the radio to listen to the movie. The automotive engineers who’d designed our ute had clearly never anticipated the need to listen to the radio from the back, and had neglected to include speakers. Last year we’d wound the windows down and had the radio turned up loud, so we could hear it, but the sound quality hadn’t been good.

Our position wasn’t too bad. We were four rows back from the front, and slightly to one side. The boys in the back of the ute had an unobstructed view of the screen, while the car in front of us obscured the bottom edge for Janine and I when we sat in the seats we’d brought with us.

It was with delight that that car left shortly before the movie started. I suspected they’d only been there for the fair. This meant we were all in an ideal position to watch the film.

The boys were in the back, snuggled up under the doona with the canopy helping to keep in the heat, while Janine and I sat huddled under the horse rug. The wind was cold – it was almost mid autumn, after all – but the canvas rug kept most of the wind at bay.

The movie was about to start when a young man in a thin, short-sleeved shirt came up to us. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans and his arms were held tight against his body, trying vainly to keep himself warm.

“Excuse me, but have you got a spare chair or picnic basket I could borrow?”

“Not really,” I said. “The only chairs we’ve got are the ones we’re sitting on. Why?”

“I just need something to reserve our space. I’ve got the silver Barina over there, and I need to drive off for a bit. We’ll only be gone for about fifteen minutes or so.”

I made a quick decision. There were two possibilities that I could see. While it was possible that someone who wore such inappropriate clothing on a cold night – I was personally wearing a T-shirt, jumper and ski-jacket – might be stupid enough to think stealing a cheap seat a worthwhile exercise, I thought it was more likely that he was a senior student of the school and just wanted to go get some more appropriate clothing to wear.

“Here, take this chair. I can stand until you bring it back.”

Despite the darkness, his sense of relief came across clearly.

“Thanks, mate!”

It was a few minutes later that disaster struck. In the drive-in equivalent of the large person sitting down in front of you at the cinema, a large van came along and carefully parked in the vacant spot in front of us, completely blocking our view of the screen. The boys still had a reasonable view, though not as good as it used to be, but Janine and I had to move.

I walked around and found a spot next to our car where we’d be able to see the screen between the vehicles in front of us. Janine checked to make sure we wouldn’t block the view of the people behind us, but we had to move all of our gear. We’d just finished, when the movie started.

“Are you okay there?” Janine asked me.

“Sure. It’s not a problem. That guy should be back soon,” I replied. Standing next to the back of the ute wasn’t a hassle. If I really needed to, I could climb in the back with the boys.

It turned out that I was partially wrong with my guesses earlier. The young man came back with the chair about ten minutes into the film, still in his totally inappropriate clothing. I hoped he had good heating in his car, or someone warm to snuggle up to, because otherwise he’d freeze.

I put the chair down behind Janine – the only place where I’d be able to see the screen – and snuggled up under an old rug to watch the film.

“Daddy,” Colin called out. “What are those planes doing?”

“Daddy, what are those people doing?”

“Daddy, why are they doing that?”

“What’s going on Daddy?”

“Why are they running, Daddy?”

“Is she a bad person, Daddy? Why is she a bad person, Daddy?”

A typical night at the movies.

Easter

The door to the boys bedroom opened and a small head peered through the gap.

“Easter today! Easter today!” Andrew proclaimed happily.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. At least 7:30am was better that 4am, which is when Colin had snuck into our room to ask if it was time to check for Easter eggs. Janine had told him no, and told him to go back to bed. I pretended to be asleep – there had been no point in alerting Colin to the possibility that he might have a second chance at being given permission to go looking for Easter eggs.

Andrew came in and climbed onto our bed.

“Hello, Daddy! It’s Easter today!”

“Hello, Andrew,” I muttered, still struggling to wake up.

“Why don’t you go wake up Colin?” Janine suggested. “Then we can go check to see if the Easter Bunny has been.”

“Good idea, Mummy!”

That gave me the necessary couple of minutes to wake up properly. I was out of bed when the two boys left their bedroom and headed for the lounge room.

“Wait!” I called out as I remembered something.

“What’s wrong?” Janine asked me, looking concerned.

“I need to get the video camera,” I explained. The night before, Colin had been asking about videos of past Easters, which was a subtle hint that I’d better video this one so he’d have something to watch next year.

“Oh,” Janine said, rolling her eyes.

I got the camera out and followed Andrew into the lounge room. Colin was already there.

“Look! The Easter Bunny has been!” Colin cried, a grin stretching from one side of his face to the other.

While Andrew went up to work out which were his eggs, Colin reached around the back and lifted up some green stalks.

“He’s eaten all his carrots and he’s drunk his milk!”

I grunted. I’d spent a week suggesting that the Easter Bunny might like white chocolate carrots, instead of the traditional orange ones, but I’d been overruled.

Janine took charge and quickly sorted out whose was whose. Andrew wasn’t shy – he started ripping the foil off his giant Kinder Surprise Easter Egg immediately. Colin proceeded in a more sedate manner, but it wasn’t long before both of them had the large egg out. Andrew was lucky – his egg was already cracked so he no problem getting the surprise inside out. Colin was about to smash his egg into the carpet when Janine stopped him.

“NO!”

Colin looked up at her, his lower lip starting to quiver.

“It’s okay, Colin. Just don’t smash the egg into the carpet, that’s all. Would you like me to open it up for you?”

He nodded and handed over the egg. Janine carefully broke it and handed it back. That was my cue to turn off the camera as I would need to participate in the next step – putting the surprises together.

Janine had decreed a long time ago that it was not her job to put the contents of a Kinder Surprise together. Since I like puzzles, I didn’t mind. A few minutes later, I had a small sailing boat together and handed to Colin. Andrew’s surprise had contained a small model car that included a friction motor. I was miffed that Janine had taken it on herself to complete it – stepping over the line of household responsibilities, but since it was a special occasion, I let her get away with it.

Things proceeded in a more traditional manner after that. The boys failed to eat much breakfast, having overdosed on chocolate. Janine and I just relaxed with a cup of coffee while we munched down on left over hot cross buns and a pair of small chocolate bunnies. The boys started playing with their new toys.

“Daddy! Andrew’s car has just smashed into my boat and broken it!”

Morning Games

We were awoken by a small Clydesdale galloping into our bedroom.

“Mummy, Daddy, can I get in the middle?” Andrew asked from Janine’s side of the bed.

“Of course you can,” Janine said while I struggled to open my eyes.

“I can’t get the in middle ‘cause Daddy’s there,” Andrew said once he’d climbed up.

Obligingly, I rolled over. Andrew has this thing about being excessively cheerful at 6:30am on a Saturday morning. There’s no law against it, but sometimes I wish he’d enjoy sleeping in, like the rest of the human race.

The three of us were lying there for a few seconds, when Andrew piped up again.

“Everyone who wants to play a game, put up your hand.”

Nothing happened.

Andrew thought for a few seconds.

“Let’s see who can put up their hands the fastest. Ready, set, GO!”

My hand shot up. I couldn’t help it – it was a reflex reaction.

“Mummy...” Andrew said, an implicit plea in his tone.

Janine reluctantly stuck her hand up.

“Okay, now that everyone wants to play, let’s start,” Andrew said happily.

I suppressed a groan. I thought about writing an email to my local member of parliament, asking for a new law to ban children from being enthusiastic first thing in the morning, but I doubted Andrew would pay any attention.

“Knock, knock,” Andrew said.

“Who’s there?”

“Impatient cow.”

“Impatient cow who?”

“Impatient cow wants to play!” Andrew said, and giggled.

The boys very first knock-knock joke came from the outtakes of the Looney Tunes: Back in Action DVD. The punchline was supposed to be “Moo!” and comes in before the “Impatient Cow who?” response was finished, but the boys have moved on from that and come up with their own variations.

We did a few knock-knock jokes, then Janine announced it was time to feed her horse, leaving me alone with the hyper-active, batman-pajama-wearing monster.

“Let’s play a new game,” he said.

“Okay.” I replied, as if I had a choice in the matter.

“Let’s play hide-and-tickle!”

I knew hide-and-seek and I suspected this was an Andrew-special variation. I was right.

“One person has to hide in the bed, and the other had to find them with their hands and tickle them. I’m hiding first.”

I made a mental note that since Janine was missing out, I should introduce her to the game later – after the boys have gone to bed that night. I had already thought up a few interesting adult-only variations to try with her.

“Daddy, count to ten,” Andrew said, and dove under the bed covers.

I counted to ten and then reached under the doona to find and tickle Andrew. Since even a king-sized bed isn’t that big, it didn’t take long. After he yelled, “Stop,” he came out and told me it was my turn.

Given my size, Andrew had no problems at all finding me. The next time, the tickler had to count to eleven, then twelve, then thirteen. At that point, Andrew grinned at me and said, “This is fun, isn’t it!”

I smiled and nodded. What else could I do?

I’m glad to say that the game stopped when we got to fourteen. I wasn’t sure if I could take that much more excitement.

“I know, let’s play the Magic Tunnel Game!” Andrew said.

This is one I knew, as we’d played it the week before.

“I’ll hide in the tunnel first and you wish for what I’m going to be,” he said and then disappeared under the doona.

I thought for a moment. “I wish the Magic Tunnel would give me a cat.”

The sounds of meowing started coming from under the doona. Slowly, tentatively, a small face emerged. It looked sad.

“Are you lost, little kitten?” I asked.

The small face nodded it’s head. I started patting it. “It’s okay. Would you like to live here with me?”

A small grin appeared. It nodded its head again, this time happier. I stroked the fur on the top of its head for a few moments more, and then Andrew grinned.

“Your turn, Daddy!”

I pulled the doona over my head and waited. I wondered what animal I would be asked to be.

“I wish the Magic Tunnel would give me... a ‘ceratops! A triceratops,” Andrew said.

I started to panic. What sound does a triceratops make? I quickly improvised and began growling, while holding my two hands up as two of the three horns. I had to hope he’d accept my nose as the third horn – even though it is definitely not that big. I was lucky – Andrew seemed to accept me as a reasonable three-horned dinosaur.

When it was my next turn to choose, I decided to pick something different and asked for a motorbike. Andrew was more than happy to make the sounds of engine, as he zoomed out from under the covers.

His next choice was a brachiosaurus. I had to give up.

“I’m sorry, Andrew. I don’t know how to be a brachiosaurus.”

I’m slowly learning that being a parent is a lot more complex than the brochures made out. I must’ve missed the class on how to be a prehistoric monster and I’m suffering as a consequence. I wonder how many other classes I missed out on.

Maths and Mazes

“What’s two plus three?” Colin asked.

Andrew sat and counted on his fingers as he tried to work out the answer. He’d stopped eating anyway, so Janine and I didn’t mind too much that they were interrupting dinner. We also like to encourage educational activities and both boys were at an age where doing simple mathematics was useful.

“Five!” Andrew said, beaming brightly.

“Correct!” Colin said.

“My turn now. What’s eight plus nine?” Andrew asked.

Colin frowned as he thought hard. He looked down at his hands hidden below the level of the table. It took him a while but he eventually came up with the right answer.

“Seventeen!”

Andrew looked at me to check the answer.

“That’s right, Colin. Well done!” I said.

“I had to use my fingers more than once to work it out, but I did it!” Colin said proudly.

“Now, what’s nine plus nine plus nine plus nine plus nine plus nine plus nine plus nine?”

Andrew pouted. “I’m not playing this game anymore.”

Colin glanced at Janine and I.

“Can you ask the question again?” Janine asked. “I wasn’t listening the first time.”

Colin frowned for a moment, and obviously realised he couldn’t remember how many nines he’d said.

“Mummy, Daddy, what’s nine thousand plus eight hundred?” he asked.

“Nine thousand, eight hundred,” I replied sagely.

Andrew wasn’t to be outdone.

“What’s one buttock plus one buttock?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“A two-buttock!” he said, and giggled.

At that point in time, the conversation deteriorated.

“What’s a smelly bottom plus a bum?” Andrew asked.

I stopped listening, as I was still trying to eat. I knew the discussion was at the stage

where I wouldn’t be able to do both.

Later that night, Andrew brought out one of the books he’d gotten from the library that day. It was a book of mazes. I looked at the first page.

“You have to make sure you don’t go on the dark squares, ‘cause they’re trapdoors,” Andrew explained.

“Okay,” I said, absentmindedly as I tried to trace my way through the maze.

“The ones with the lines are easier,” Andrew told me.

I looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you!”

He took the book off me and turned to the back where all the answers were printed.

“Here!” and he proceeded to trace the line that showed the correct path. “Done it!” he said when he’d finished.

“I see,” I said. I had to admire his intelligence, but I didn’t think his problem solving skills were being stretched.

We were joined by Colin and the two boys started doing the mazes together. Colin had more sense of fair play and tried to do the mazes without the line giving the correct path. He did pretty well, obviously enjoying the challenge.

On one page, Colin was struggling. He’d managed to get three-quarters of the way across the page before getting struck.

“You’re doing well, Colin,” Andrew said encouragingly.

“How did you do it?” Colin asked him, starting to get annoyed.

“I started from here,” Andrew said, pointing to a spot near the exit.

A Weekend with Murphy

Colin and I were off for a weekend away. He was particular excited because it was going to be the first time he had taken his new dirtbike anywhere.

He had been asking for a motorcycle since he was four, and when he turned eight we bought him a cheap dirtbike. Janine and I didn’t see any point in spending a lot of money if he decided after a short time that he wasn’t really that interested. Initially, that had seemed like a wise move, because the bike hadn’t been ridden a lot over the first few months. Slowly, however, he became more keen, so, after numerous breakdowns, we decided to get him a new dirtbike.

It was an expensive undertaking. As Janine is a keen horse rider, we are very familiar with the slogan ‛Poverty is Owning a Horse’, but we’re adding dirtbikes to that category. The bike itself, a Yamaha TTR, was moderately expensive, but it’s the extras that add up.

The first was a trailer. His old dirtbike would fit in the back of Janine’s ute, but the new one was too big (and heavy – I wasn’t going to lift it up to the tray of her vehicle to get it in).

The second major expense hasn’t been undertaken yet. It was just after we bought the trailer that Janine made a comment.

“What will we do when there’s a horse competition on the same weekend you and Colin go off to a motorcycle weekend away?”

It was a good point. We only have one vehicle with a tow bar, and my car isn’t really suitable. At some stage soon, we’ll have to upgrade my vehicle to something larger, and, naturally, more expensive.

Poverty is Owning a Dirtbike.

However, we haven’t reached that point yet, so Colin and I were looking forward to our weekend away at a dirtbike camp. We had been previously with the old bike, but this would be the first time Colin would be able to show off his new pride and joy. It was obvious it was his new pride and joy, because every day after school the first thing he did was to go and either caress or sit on his new bike. His face would light up so much that if I could figure a way to capture it, we wouldn’t have to pay the electric company anything to light our house.

Janine and Andrew had their weekend planned, too. Andrew was having a school friend sleep over, and they were all going out to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner.

Colin and I packed Janine’s car and we headed off. It was very exciting... until I got to the end of the driveway.

“Why are we stopping?” Colin asked.

“Because the bike’s moved. We don’t want it to fall over.”

The first time we tried to transport the bike on the trailer, it had fallen over. We had straps to hold the front firmly to the front of the trailer, but the back wheel had bounced around so much that the whole bike had fallen over. We had decided not to buy a proper bike trailer, or even a box trailer with an inset to hold a bike. Instead, Janine had insisted we buy a box trailer that was capable of holding a round bale of hay. After all, it is important to remember that poverty is owning a horse, and the needs of the horse takes priority over a mere mechanical device like a dirtbike. Colin and I are working to overcome this short sighted attitude, but Janine is starting from a very entrenched position – she’s had horses from before we were married, and long before Colin had appeared on the scene – and it’s taking time.

Happily, after a little adjusting and tightening, the bike was made secure, again, and we were off. I kept an eye on the bike in the mirrors, but it stayed secure.

We were about ten minutes away when I remembered that I had forgotten to pack my Nintendo DS. While these weekends away were great fun for Colin, I don’t have quite as much fun because I don’t currently ride. Instead, I get the other enjoyable tasks of setting up the tent, pumping up the air beds, rolling out the sleeping bags, and cooking. These, sadly, don’t keep me occupied for the entire weekend, so the last couple of times I had taken along my DS with a few games, so I could fill in the gaps between doing these chores, eating and drinking (beer, of course).

I wasn’t going to turn around, though, and resigned myself to trying to find some other things to do while Colin was riding. I went through the list and decided that talking to some of the other parents there might be a viable option.

Another half hour later, I realised we had forgotten to pack chairs. It would either be sitting on the ground or standing. I carefully avoided thinking about the fact that Janine had offered the picnic rug earlier, or that I had declined. After all, admitting that I had declined to take something useful wasn’t something I cared to do.

The rest of the trip had passed uneventfully, if I ignore the fact that I wouldn’t allow Colin to put on his favourite CD. I had brought several from my collection and I insisted we listen to them. Colin didn’t seem overly impressed by my musical tastes.

We arrived at the camp ground and unloaded Colin’s bike. He quickly put on all his gear and we headed up to check in. His bike was checked to make sure it was safe, and then he was off.

I set up the tent, and moved in our gear. While I can be a stickler for the rules at times, the whole reason for going away was for Colin to ride his bike, so while he rode, I set up our camp site. As I did so, my watch fell off my wrist – the band had broken. I sighed and put it in my pocket. Something to get fixed during the week. It wasn’t as if camping out in the wilderness was something that required accurate timekeeping, so a watch was really an optional extra.

We were parked near some people we knew from earlier camps. They had already started a camp fire, so I did my bit by collecting firewood for later in the night after the initial load had burnt down.

Then my pile of wood disappeared.

“I thought the idea was to keep that wood for later,” I said.

One of the other kids shrugged. “Sorry. We thought the fire was getting low.”

I smiled. “Okay, but how about we keep the next load for when the fire gets low again?”

I gathered two more loads of wood, and then removed the first load from the fire where the other boys had put it.

“That was Kevin,” one boy said, using the age old technique of blaming someone else. “He likes to annoy people.”

I grinned. “That’s okay. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

I kept a careful eye on my wood pile after that. A supply of good quality burnable wood is worth a lot when you’re camping a long way from civilisation. That is the reason that Janine doesn’t join us on these trips – if there’s not hot and cold running water, she’s not interested. Not only is there no running water, there’s not even electricity unless you bring your own generator. These trips are real camping.

After Colin had finished riding for the day, I prepared a culinary delight for him to eat – half-cooked tinned spaghetti in jaffles, made over an open fire. He ate a small amount before making a confession.

“I don’t really like them. The bread is nice, but not the spaghetti.”

I rolled my eyes. I had slaved for minute over a hot fire to make this gourmet meal for him, and he had the gall to tell me he didn’t like them. “Then just eat the bread.”

It wasn’t as if he would starve. We always had the fall back of cup-of-soup, another one of my specialties. And, if really desperate, we had the option of instant noodles using the thermos of hot water I had made before we had left home.

Colin and the other kids played hide-and-seek that night. Needless to say, when you’re in the dark, with no lights around apart from a few camp fires and torches, the game wasn’t a great success. The other kids hid and Colin couldn’t find them....

The next day, Colin was up early. He was keen to go out and ride again, and wasn’t impressed when I told him that the riding wouldn’t start until ten. Instead, he had to wait until after breakfast – another culinary masterpiece of a packet of cereal with milk.

As he was about to head off to ride, he came up to me. “Where’s my goggles?”

The riding rules were strict – if you didn’t have all the safety gear, you couldn’t ride.

“I don’t know. Where did you leave them last night?”

“I don’t know!” He wasn’t quite ready to start crying, but I didn’t think it was that close. He was, after all, only ten.

“Then go look.”

The two of us searched everywhere they were likely to be, and a number of places they weren’t like to be. I then sent him off, asking the other campers if anyone had found a pair of goggles.

They didn’t show up, but we eventually found someone with a spare pair of kids goggles, so Colin was still able to ride. He was very, very thankful.

As I packed up the tent and got ready for our later departure, I happened to move Colin’s jacket. Out fell his goggles. Both of us had checked earlier, but with his jacket being the same colour as his goggles, we hadn’t noticed them. I took them up to the track and swapped the goggles on Colin’s next lap. I then wrote a very thankful note and left the loaned goggles on the front seat of the other people’s car.

Everything went smoothly until just before lunch when Colin took a short break..

“Hey, you’ve got a new bike!” one of the other adults remarked to Colin. He had been one of the other riders who had helped once with his old bike after it had broken down.

“Yes! It’s really, really cool.”

After a couple of minutes of compliments, the other adult frowned as he noticed something. “You’ve broken the cover on the air filter.”

That turned out to be fatal to Colin’s ride. The broken cover was allowing dust to go directly into the engine. If he kept on riding, he risked the engine seizing up. His bike was broken and he couldn’t use it any more that weekend.

Colin was disappointed, but he’d had a good ride and didn’t want his pride and joy to get more damaged, so we packed up and headed home.

About the same time that the low fuel light came on, I noticed in the mirror that one of the straps holding the slab of wood we used as a ramp appeared to have broken. When I pulled into the next petrol station, I confirmed that the strap was broken – one of the straps Janine used when she was floating her horse. I knew I was going to get into trouble when we got back.

After filling up the car with fuel, I opened up the side door to get some more snack food for Colin and me, and the thermos fell out. I picked it up, but the twinkling sound I heard told me that the fall had been fatal. At least the thermos had been empty, as we had used all the hot water earlier.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Janine was outside when we arrived home.

“Hi, how was your weekend?” I asked.

“Good! Yours?”

I paused to think. DS, chairs, watch, wood, dinner, goggles, bike, fuel, strap, thermos... she’d had a good weekend because Murphy had been camping with Colin and me.

“Fine. It was a really good weekend.”

The New Baby

It was, as normal with these things, a long time in the planning.

“Is it going to be a boy or a girl?” Andrew asked.

“A boy,” I replied.

“What’s his name?”

“Tom.”

“Where’s he going to sleep?”

Colin jumped in before I could answer. “He can live in the playroom.”

“That’s really generous, Colin,” I said, ignoring the fact that the playroom was a complete mess with Lego pieces scattered everywhere, “but Mummy and I have already prepared somewhere for him.”

That had been the job on the preceding weekend – setting things up so the new baby would have somewhere to stay. We would still need some new outfits, but we had bought some, and there were a few hand-me-down items.

The happy event was occurring close to Janine’s birthday, so the boys and I had been shopping for both birthday presents and items for the impending new arrival.

“Is he going to be warm enough?” Colin asked.

I smiled. It was very encouraging that he was so concerned. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“When is he going to get here?” Andrew asked.

I glanced at the clock. Janine had told me the baby would be home just after seven that night. “Very soon. Would you like to go outside and wait?”

“Yes!”

Both boys rushed to get ready. I had to make them put on jackets because it was a cold night, but otherwise I let them do whatever they wanted. I didn’t want to interfere too much with their enthusiasm.

“I’m going to wait in the driveway,” Colin said.

“Wait for me.”

He looked at me. “Why?”

“Because it’s dark outside. You don’t want to get run down because they can’t see you.” I grabbed a torch. Living out in the countryside means the nights can get very dark, especially in winter.

It wasn’t long before the new baby arrived home.

The boys jumped around as they watched the new member of the family. They were very excited.

“Don’t get too close,” Janine said, concerned that someone would get hurt.

“He’s nice,” Colin said. Andrew quickly agreed.

Janine and I settled the new baby into his quarters and then watched him for a while.

“He’s big,” Andrew said.

“And he’ll get bigger,” Janine said, clearly in love with her new baby.

“Okay, boys, it’s time to go inside and go to bed,” I said.

“Is he going to be okay outside?” Colin asked.

“He’ll be fine. Horses are used to staying outside.”

Tom’s only a yearling, so he’s got a lot of growing to do before Janine can start riding him, but she finally has a new horse to replace the one who passed away last year.

Tentalogically Challenged

“I’m bored,” Andrew said. “What can we do?”

“How about putting up the new tent?” Colin suggested.

Both boys looked at me. I smiled. “Sure!”

It was Friday afternoon and we had a long weekend coming up. We had tried to get a new tent for Christmas, but the shop had been out of stock and the tent didn’t arrive until the week before Australia Day. I had collected it earlier in the week, with the plan being to set it up for the long weekend. The boys had anticipated my plans.

Our previous tent had been a lightweight tent whose main problem was that it was a little small – fine for two people, but Andrew had expressed an interest in going camping with Colin and I – and it was impossible to stand up in it, making getting dressed a serious challenge. Janine and I had gone shopping one day when the boys were elsewhere and found a reasonable-sized canvas tent that included a annex canopy area for hot days or when it was raining.

“Let’s move the tent outside,” I said. “Anyone want to help me?”

“I will!” Andrew said, and tried to pick up one end of the tent.

Canvas tents are heavy. “Don’t strain yourself,” I said, as I picked up the bag by the straps and staggered to the door.

Once we were outside, and after making the extremely important decision on where to set up the tent – not too far from the house, so the boys could come inside if they needed to – it was time to get started.

“Why don’t you hold the end of the bag, Colin, while I pull the tent out,” I said.

Colin grabbed the one end, while I reached into the bag and pulled on the tent. The result was Colin being dragged along the ground as the tent refused to leave its cosy confines.

We tried again, with the same result. We then swapped ends, which simply meant that Colin was dragged in the opposite direction.

The three of us looked at each other.

“Maybe we should cut it out?” Andrew suggested.

“I’d prefer not, though I doubt we’ll be able to get the tent back in the bag once we’ve finished,” I said. I considered the problem and then came up with the answer. “Why don’t we try peeling the cover off the tent?”

Both boys stared at me, not understanding. I smiled, and pulled the tent bag upright, so the end was on the ground. “Andrew, Colin, grab the top of the bag and let’s pull it down the side.”

“Like taking off a sock!”

“That’s right, Colin. Just like taking off a sock.”

It was still a minor struggle, but we succeeded. Once we had the tent half exposed, I was able to grab the end of the bag and shake the tent the rest of the way out.

We put the tent where we wanted and unrolled it. It seemed bigger than I had expected, but it had been a month since I had ordered it.

“Where do we want the entrance?” I asked, pointing in the two directions that it could go.

“Closer to the door, in case we have to go to the toilet in the middle of the night,” Colin said. He had never been camping somewhere without toilets.

“Let’s just check... Good! It’s already in the right place. Now, where are the instructions?”

I went searching through the canvas bag, and the separate section for the pegs and guy ropes, but without success.

The instructions had disappeared.

“Does anyone know where the instructions are?”

“I took them out earlier to read,” Colin said.

“And where are they now?”

“In my room.”

I paused, but sometimes Colin needs prompting. “Do you think you can go get them? It’s going to be really hard to put up the tent without instructions.”

His eyes opened wide and then he nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

While I waited for him to return, I headed into the shed. I had just remembered that we’d need hammers to put in the pegs. It was too early to teach the boys how to use rocks instead. That was a lesson for another day.

“Here you are,” Colin said, handing over the instructions.

I reviewed them to refresh my memory. The first step was to peg down the tent, and then start putting together the frame. Before I did that, I wanted to see how easy it was to identify the different types of poles.

I looked around. “Did anyone see the poles?” I had assumed they were wrapped up inside the tent, but I hadn’t spotted them when we unrolled the tent.

Both boys shrugged.

I got down and crawled over the tent, patting it down to see if the poles were hidden inside somewhere.

I wasn’t successful.

Sitting back on my heels and stared at the tent, and then looked across at the boys. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any poles. We can’t set up the tent.”

“Are you sure?” Colin asked.

“I’m sure. The store must have forgotten to give them to us.” I was hoping that that was all it was – that there had been another bag for the poles and the person who had fetched the tent from storage had missed the second item.

We rolled up the tent – nowhere near as tight as it had been originally, which meant that there was no chance it would fit back in its bag – moved it up onto the verandah, as there were possible showers forecast for that night, and then went back inside.

I rang the store and they confirmed that I was supposed to get two bags with that tent, so I told them that I’d be in to see them in the morning to pick up the poles.

There was something still bothering me. I fired up the computer and got onto the store’s website. Browsing through their online catelogue, I checked out the range of canvas tents. I looked at the pictures, and then at the picture on the instruction sheet.

Not only had they failed to give me the poles, but they had also given me the wrong tent.

The tent we had been given was the next model up, approximately twice the size of the tent we ordered. It was way too big for what we wanted, which was a monthly overnight camping trip for Colin and me, with the possibility that Andrew would join us later.

I started searching for the receipt, so I would be able to return the tent and get what we wanted. I searched the pile of papers next to the bed. I managed to find a bill I had forgotten to pay, but I didn’t find the receipt.

I searched the rest of the house with no luck. While I’m normally very conservative with throwing things out, I must have made an exception for that receipt. I had to hope that the store wouldn’t require it, given that I was exchanging from a more expensive tent, especially as I had only paid for the cheaper tent.

The next morning I loaded the tent into the back of my car and drove to the camping store. Once there, I mentioned I had rung the night before about the missing poles, and then explained my new problem with the tent. They were very helpful and it wasn’t long before I was heading home with two boxes: one containing the smaller tent, and the other, I was assured, containing the poles.

Janine had plans for the morning that involved torturing Colin (buying new school shoes and, while out, doing some other shopping), so it wasn’t until the afternoon that the boys and I were able to assemble together for our massive construction attempt.

The boxes were opened and it was noted, with much relief, that the second box did indeed contain the poles.

“We’re going to need the number one poles to start with,” I said after reading the instructions. That was actually step three, but I was concerned on how to work which pole was which.

My concerns were justified. We couldn’t tell from the instructions how to tell the poles apart.

“This is a number four pole,” Andrew said, holding one up.

“How do you know?”

“It’s written on it,” he said, pointing to a fade black number.

We quickly sorted out the poles, and found a few where the numbers were so faded that they were almost invisible. It was only by comparing them to similar poles without faded numbers, and back to the instruction sheet that indicated how many poles there should be of each type, that we were able to work it out.

“Colin, can you please go inside and ask Mummy for a marker pen?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Because we need to re-mark the poles. We don’t want to go camping and not be able to work out which poles were which.” Sometimes the obvious really does need to be spelt out, especially with kids.

Colin nodded. “Okay.”

A few minutes later, all the poles were marked multiple times, so if one number wore off, others should still be visible.

It was time to set up the tent. We carried to where we wanted it – the boys noticed it was a lot lighter than the other tent, though still too heavy for them to manage by themselves – and rolled it out. I was a lot happier this time as it was a much more manageable size than the the previous one.

“Step one. Peg out the corners of the tent, and then peg out the sides.”

Colin and I picked up hammers and some pegs. There were two type of pegs, and I assumed that they were for different types of soil.

After I hammered a peg in at one corner, I pulled the tent tight and asked Colin to do that corner. I then went around and did the same for the other two corners.

Andrew, who had been left with the instructions, was frowning. “What does pegging out, mean?”

“It means putting pegs at each of the appropriate places around the tent to make sure it stays in place.”

“But why do they call it pegging out?”

“Because it involves putting pegs into the ground.”

“Why do they call them pegs?”

Sometimes the boys ask too many questions. “Because that’s their name. I didn’t make up the name, so I don’t know why they called them that.”

Colin and I got to work.

“Ouch!”

I looked up to see Colin shaking a hand. “Did you hit yourself with the hammer?”

He nodded. I grinned. “Everyone does that, Colin. It just takes practise to use a hammer without hitting yourself.”

I headed to the peg bag and frowned. There weren’t enough of the pegs we were using to complete what we were doing. “Andrew, can you count how many pegs we need to do all the points around the tent?”

He circled the tent, counting slowly. “Twenty-two.”

There obviously weren’t twenty-two pegs of the type we were using, and equally obviously there weren’t twenty-two pegs of the other type, either. For reasons that escaped me, it appeared that we would have to mix-and-match our pegs. This bothered my consistency gene, as I liked to use the same type of peg for the same purpose. However, I wasn’t fanatical on the subject so I picked up some of the other type of peg and used those to finish off.

It took us a while, but we got it done.

“Okay, boys, I need you help to pull out the annex roof,” I said, referring to the undercover area next to the main tent. It has been one of the biggest selling points for me when we were looking at tents – a place to sit out of the rain or sun.

We started to stretch out that section of the roof and I quickly realised we had a problem.

“Er... boys? I think the tent is facing the wrong way.”

The entrance to the tent wasn’t where I had thought it was. It was facing in a direction where there wasn’t room to put up the annex section.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to pull up all the pegs, turn the tent around, and do it all again.”

Pulling up the pegs was a lot faster than putting them in. The boys and I then grabbed three of the corners and rotated the tent so it would be facing in the direction we wanted. To save time, I quickly put in all the pegs myself, rather than having Colin do his fair share.

The next challenge was working out how to fit the poles to the tent. The instructions were sadly lacking in details, such as when to feed key poles through holes in the canvas, but after a few false starts, we managed to work it out.

It wasn’t long before we have the main part of the tent standing upright. It wasn’t taut, but it was standing. I went back to the instructions.

“Uh oh.”

“What’s wrong?” Colin asked.

“Just a second.” I had finally noticed in the instructions how some of the poles were not idntical. It said I had to make sure that the pole holes near the top were fitted at the front of the tent, as that would be where the poles to hold up the annex would be connected.

I walked around to the back of the tent and checked the poles. Every one of them had a hole near the top. I was about to start dismantling the tent so I could move them to the front when I thought I’d doublecheck the poles at the front. Climbing under the annex canopy, I pushed the canvas out of the way so I could check the same places on the front poles.

They also had holes. Which was a smart solution to the issue, even if the instructions didn’t agree.

We started on the annex canopy. I was quite pleased – it only took us four attempts to work out how to fit the poles together in the right order. Colin was a totem of patience as he stood there holding up the central pole while I worked out how to fit the other poles to it in the correct order.

As we were finished, Janine came out. “I’ve brought cheese and bics for everyone.”

The boys dived in. I took a few. “Thanks. But where’s the gin and tonic?”

She chuckled. “Sorry, I couldn’t find any.” She examined the final results of our construction attempt. “Not bad.”

I shrugged. “Not quite perfect, but it looks good.”

“Sorry I didn’t come out to help, but I didn’t think it would be useful,” Janine said.

“Yeah,” I said, recalling the challenges along the way and mentally agreeing that hysterical laughter would have been a huge distraction.

If you'd like to send feedback to Graeme please use the comment box below.
You can send your comment anonymously if you'd like. Thank you.

Family Snippets by Graeme