VUELIO 'PARENTING INFLUENCER OF THE YEAR 2020' - BLOGOSPHERE 'INFLUENCER OF THE YEAR 2019' - 'SPACE HOPPER CHAMPION, BUTLINS SKEGNESS 1989'
The comedy and chaos of real-life parenting
Today I got into an online debate about ‘In the Night Garden’ with a mum who’s a massive fan of it. (She’d seen an earlier post when I’d suggested that Iggle Piggle and Upsy-Daisy were nazis and ‘Jen’ wasnt at all happy). At one point she argued that “The Night Garden is sweet, is about fun and friendship and at the end of the day wouldn’t the Night Garden be
…One Sunday afternoon many years ago I had to get a box out of our loft. I opened the loft hatch, lowered the ladders, went up into the roof space and found the box I was after. It was full of comic books and it was heavy. Really heavy. And so the sensible thing to do was to wait until Lyndsay came home so that she could help retrieve it.
This debate was kicked off again today.. so okay, ONE. MORE. TIME. FOR. THE. PEOPLE. AT. THE. BACK… Parent and child spaces don’t exist because parents are entitled/lazy. They exist so a parent can get their kid out of their car safely, without reducing the car next to them to scrap. And they are placed near the store because in, a civilised society, most of us agree that it’s a
Just seen the news footage doing the rounds of that piece of shit father ‘smacking’ his little boy. What I’m most appalled by is the number of people supporting him. People insistent that: “I was smacked as a child and it never did me any harm.” Okay, maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. I used to play a game with my brother called ‘Rochambeau’ in which you take it
BING the most popular kids show during lockdown!? (..saw this headline and thought I’d share a snippet of this bit from #ManVsToddler.) “The main character in Bing is a massive-headed rabbit in dungarees, who constantly fucks everything up and then whinges about it as though it wasn’t his fault in the first place. (That’s the entire premise.) The other main character is Flop, Bing’s guardian. It is not clear whether he
RE: ‘BEDTIME HOUR’ Dear CBeebies, I am writing to complain about ‘Bedtime Hour’.Since becoming a parent I have very much enjoyed your programming. I love almost everything about it; from Hey Duggee to Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures. Yes, Abney & Teal’s a bit shit, Bing’s a whiny dick and the Tumble family can be a bit unsettling (I’m just going to say it: Mr Tumble, Grandpa Tumble, Polly Tumble, there’s not
Whilst scrolling through social media, I often come across parents and children enjoying quality time and bonding over a shared love of baking. These pictures are usually incredibly sweet. A toddler, with a little apron tied at the waist, perhaps a smear of chocolate on one cheek, smiles happily at the camera, as they and their mum cheerfully show off a tray of perfectly crafted brownies. Beneath which appears a
[from the archive] …used a baby-changing room today (in a branch of a well known, tax-dodging coffee shop). And it was horrific. Can anyone explain why they bother having these facilities, only to let the room become so filthy that a baddie from Scooby-Doo would think twice before having a shit in it? It is amazing how much a baby-changing room sign can mean to a parent when their infant
The way I see it, there are two main ways to work out nappy-changing duties.. There is the turn-based “I Did it Last Time” method.. or the more controversial “He/She’s On You” system. There are advantages and disadvantages to both… For a start The “I Did It Last Time” method requires both parties to remember who changed the baby last time, (and when you’re sleep deprived it can be a
So Charlie is two years old today. And I can think of nothing better to post than this bit out of the book… part of a letter to Charlie explaining how he came to exist in the first place… ———————————- “…So, before you came along, we were happy and had a pretty good life. We didn’t really talk about having kids. Weirdly, it just didn’t come up that often and
Tough week. Charlie’s mum’s maternity leave ended. So the person in our house who prevents fires etc. returned to work.. Whilst I found myself looking after our little boy properly on my own.. Its true to say that as Lyns walked out the door that first morning there was quite a few tears, sobbing, and protest-soiling.. but, in my defence, by lunchtime I had calmed down a bit. Anyway, to
One or two people were a bit judgey about the idea of taking a 6-month old away. “So, you’re taking him on holiday?” Yeah. “Abroad?” Yeah. “Somewhere hot??” Yeah. “On an aeroplane??” …By which point I was tempted to answer: “No, me and Lyns will be going on the plane, but we thought we’d get Charlie there by driving him to Dover and firing him out of a f*cking cannon”.