IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:The summer has only started and already I can't keep up with them, writes ADAM BROPHY
OKAY, THIS is what Sundays are turning into. Rise and run 10 miles (this will increase to 20 miles in coming weeks thanks to masochistic desire to run another marathon), shower, eat and face into the void of summer holiday kids’ entertainment. Post-run slump tends to kick in just as the first body lands on me demanding to know what we have planned.
Last week involved an 80-mile round trip to Cork to watch the street performers of the year in Fitzgerald Park. I think they were performing, hard to tell as you couldn’t get within a 40 body belt surrounding each act and its PA system.
We were happy enough to sit on the grass anyway as the closest parking space had been in Limerick and the four of us were jaded by the walk over.
That’s all right, we’ll eat and soak up the atmosphere. The missus takes the queue for crepes, I approach the pizza line, kids divided among us, hungry. We meet again two hours later with food in hand at the rendezvous.
Thankfully the wait was the same for both of us, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our meal together on the postage stamp piece of damp turf we found available. It’s not going well. To avoid a row I scan the Mumbai-like crowd scene for signs of stewards and can’t identify a single one.
We leave, forcing our way through the throng waiting in line for the wooden tower slide. “It’s a slide!” I want to yell. “Why would you wait an hour for a 10-second, average speed whoosh? You’d be better off buying something from the vast numbers of apparent drug-dealers peppering the place, you’d be up and down on whatever they’ve got faster than this ride.”
Nightmare. But kids don’t accept the nightmare position. They don’t buy it when you tell them today hasn’t worked, it’s time to cut losses and head for home. No, you promised joy, you had better deliver.
We walk the long road back to the car, in which time they wear us down. Burgers, chips and cinema. We agree to jellies during the film but refuse to cave on slushies. They fight us on this throughout the 20-minute drive to the mall but our positions are entrenched.
We fight them hard and, for once, we win. I think their climbdown, in hindsight, was a deflection to stop us noticing how they’d over-run us in negotiations on everything else. We arrive into blessed muzak and air-conditioning, feed and wait for the movie to start.
The highlight of my day is bodyswerving the entrance to Night at the Museum 2 to have a solo couple of hours in front of The Hangover while kids and missus soak up Ben Stiller.
The drive home starts out cranky and kid jelly hangover is apparent. Silence and snoring reigns however within minutes.
The rest of the trip is in silence as the missus too succumbs to nod. Once home, two lumpen forms are lifted into bed, barely stirring as they are stripped and dressed. We collapse on the couch.
This is unsustainable. It would be easier to bend the knee and attempt to manage life in thrall to the bottle, spitting my way from the vodka hidden in the cistern to the gin by the bed, than to make this type of behaviour the norm for the duration of the summer.
The week before it was boat-fishing, this week it’s beach picnics and barbecues and summer solstice parties. They have the life, shepherded from one social event to the next, wondering who or what is providing their next kick. There was a lot to be said for sending them down the pit, taught them how to value the light.
And the light shines for about 24 hours a day at the moment. No sooner than they’re asleep but they’re back again, dragging us out of bed for their next escapade. Unless it’s a school day when we hire cranes to remove them from their pits and plonk them at the breakfast table.
School is now over; it’s life at their pace until September, which for a four and a seven year old is forever.
Every now and then you get a thank you without having to demand it in that horribly demented way your own parents used to harass you. This thanks will be for something small, like a hand up or a clip for hair, and you’ll wonder did they even notice the wad you dropped to have Colin Farrell read their bedtime stories. They noticed, maybe not the wad, but they noticed.
abrophy@irishtimes.com