Going for the burn

I don't mean to worry any new parents among you, and it's important not to exaggerate, but a useful thing to remember when raising children is that, if you take your eyes off them for longer than the time needed to blink, they will burn your house down. This point was illustrated recently by an incident in our kitchen, involving my daughter. She's nearly three now, and she likes to help. Whether you're digging the garden or trying to write a newspaper column, she just loves to get involved. Sometimes you try to tell her that, really, she's helped you more than enough already and maybe she'd like to go and watch television now, but she insists it's no trouble.

Anyway, this particular day, Rois∅n was standing on a chair in the kitchen, assisting her mother in a complicated food-processing operation, while me and the 18-month-old baby amused each other in the livingroom, on the grounds that we're both dangerous to have around the cooker.

There were several household appliances involved in the food preparation, but at some point Rois∅n noticed that, inexplicably, the toaster was not being deployed. The toaster is a food-related appliance, she would have said to herself, and yet what had happened. By which time the iron was dripping into the toaster in blue and white plastic strands, like something from a Salvador Dali painting. We've tried separating the two appliances since they cooled down, but this appears to be impossible.

The iron has achieved oneness with its fellow appliance, and the result has a certain visual appeal. We don't know whether to throw it out, or enter it (Untitled: iron on toaster) in the Texaco children's art competition.

There are worrying consumer issues involved here, incidentally. Although the new iron came with all sorts of useless information (this is a smoke-free appliance, etc) and the usual warnings (do not use to flatten coats of domestic pets, etc), I don't remember anything about it not being toast-resistant. And the toaster didn't pop at any stage, even though the dripping plastic was more than well done on both sides.

But the incident highlights the fact that children need the sort of close, round-the-clock supervision that only high-security prisons offer. This can be wearing on parents, who are usually not trained in security work. And the result is that, sooner or later, as an average parent, you lower your guard. You lower your standards, too. Children are constantly exposing you to new fears (for example: is the back of the fridge dangerous? Or, apart from disconnection, is there any risk involved in your child biting through the telephone line?), so that you get blasΘ about the old fears.

I used to worry - innocent days! - about the baby eating food off the floor. But that was before he took to swallowing lumps of the garden. Then, more recently, I was talking to a friend, a little further down the parenting road, whose child had swallowed a 10p coin, and now they were waiting for change, as it were. At least my kids weren't dealing in hard currency yet, I thought; but now that's something else to worry about.

So there it is, new parents. The message is: you're going to need eyes in the back of your head and a sixth sense for spotting trouble before it happens. But apart from that, just relax and enjoy the experience.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie