tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36904729457308520362009-07-02T10:25:07.765+01:00Meet Ed. Everyone always thinks Ed has the day off. Why else would he be out and about with three small children? But Ed has a wife with a paying job and a belief that parents should screw up their own children rather than leaving it to strangers. Most importantly, he also has a penpal...DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.comBlogger237125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-87364904255073343582009-07-01T09:30:00.002+01:002009-07-01T09:30:37.996+01:00

Dear Dave,I've been writing to you for nearly two and a half years now. In some ways it feels like only weeks since I put that first tentative letter in the post. In others, it feels like half a lifetime.Actually, I suppose it is half a lifetime - Marie is twice the age she was when we started our correspondence. Bottles and babygros were still recent history for me back then and I'd barely got

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-46435685933514741462009-06-26T09:30:00.005+01:002009-06-26T09:37:50.287+01:00

Dear Dave,Never build an intelligent computer.It's bound to end badly. The exact details of the disaster are hard to predict - the thing might shove you out an airlock, start World War III, imprison you in the Matrix or send an unstoppable robot back in time to kill you - but whatever form catastrophe takes, it's unlikely to be a happy experience. I know this from watching movies, so it must be

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-55727769341640443902009-06-21T09:20:00.000+01:002009-06-21T09:26:54.915+01:00

Dear Dave,Ah, the perfect Father's Day:A long lie, a cooked breakfast and an afternoon spent dozing in front of the British Grand Prix. Then some quality time with the Xbox, followed by a couple of beers and a film featuring explosions, giant robots and Megan Fox. Meanwhile, the children tip-toe around quietly, being polite to each other and clearing up after themselves.This is the life...Not my

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-82388228254079892972009-06-17T09:30:00.003+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.819+01:00

Dear Dave,Marie just got her final end-of-year report from nursery.I suppose it should have been a momentous occasion. Another three weeks and she'll be done with pre-school education. More significantly, after six years of lurking outside the nursery door at 11:30 every morning, I'll be done with pre-school education. All three of my kids will have moved on. This was my chance to reflect on how

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-4022446634943023202009-06-12T09:30:00.002+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.820+01:00

Dear Dave,That's shocking.I mean, how thoughtless. Some people really have no consideration for others, do they? You must be devastated...I seriously can't believe your parents have arranged to be busy the entire school summer holidays. Couldn't their once-in-a-lifetime cruise wait until September, for example? If not, I'm sure the visiting cousins from Australia could have been persuaded to

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-8997764406677357632009-06-08T09:30:00.003+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.820+01:00

Dear Dave,I dread going to the barber as much as other people dread going to the dentist. Dentists look into my mouth, smile and tell me what wonderful teeth I have. Barbers wave scissors around my head and complain my ears are at different heights. I know who I'd rather visit, thank you very much.But I guess we all have our own fears. Marie refused to go downstairs on her own the other morning

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-19572019189416798782009-06-03T09:30:00.000+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.820+01:00

Dear Dave,Sarah's away on business at the moment so I'm entirely in charge this week. I should probably take advantage of the freedom to act without veto by getting all the kids jobs down a mine and then organising a poker night to celebrate. To be honest, though, I'm too tired. Last week was pretty hectic - Sarah had lots of preparation to do for the trip and the children had an unusually busy

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-80405371462617115722009-05-29T09:15:00.001+01:002009-05-29T09:22:44.198+01:00

Dear Dave,I saw my nephew Ned for the first time in a while yesterday. He normally turns up regularly after school but he's been taking his Standard Grade exams the last couple weeks and I think he might actually have been staying home doing revision. After much discussion with his mum and dad, he acquired some last minute motivation to knuckle down. Provided he achieves results which aren't

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-29532338548112602922009-05-25T09:30:00.006+01:002009-05-28T16:00:17.787+01:00

Dear Dave,There are many issues facing a stay-at-home dad. Some are practical, such as when to get sleep, where to take the kids when it's raining and how to avoid standing in puddles of pee. Others are more psychological, from maintaining a healthy level of self-worth in a society obsessed with status and the acquisition of material goods, to learning to phase out children's television before

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-2866209824852959842009-05-20T10:00:00.004+01:002009-05-20T10:22:10.092+01:00

Dear Dave,This is only the fifth week of term since the kids went back after Easter but it's the third time they've had a holiday Monday. As an added bonus, they've also got Tuesday and Wednesday off this week as well. Since they never have school on a Friday afternoon normally, it hardly seems worth getting their uniforms dirty for the number of hours of lessons that remain. They might as well

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-85521144241230626552009-05-15T10:30:00.000+01:002009-05-15T10:32:42.583+01:00

Dear Dave,Hurrah! The good weather is finally here. I can get the boys out of the house without the need to wrestle them into raincoats while they hug the TV and cry at the thought of being parted from it for half an hour. Nope, on occasion, I can now catch them unawares, grab them off the sofa and drop them straight out the window to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine as they bang on the back

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-20320259816446211222009-05-11T10:00:00.000+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.821+01:00

Dear Dave,I'm afraid, just like the smell of children, the prevalence of pink floweriness in your home is only going to increase as time goes on. Daisy's demands for sparkly fuchsia clothing will evolve into a desire for princess outfits, fairy costumes, cuddly flamingos, cerise duvets, neon nail polish and all manner of fashion dolls, kittens and plastic ponies. Certainly that's been my

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-76916945066293024402009-05-06T09:20:00.000+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.822+01:00

Dear Dave,No, I don't know where the smell is coming from. Sorry. If you've cleaned the carpets, the upholstery and the children, you may be stuck with it. I suppose it's possible one of them threw up in a drawer and didn't tell you. Or maybe they taped a banana to the back of a curtain a month ago. Who knows?I wouldn't worry about it. Invest in some scented candles, open the windows whenever you

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-81513447917917901312009-05-01T07:30:00.007+01:002009-05-02T08:43:16.457+01:00

Dear Dave,We finally made it round to Chris and Catriona's for dinner at the weekend. It's been months since they came here but trying to get everyone's schedules to match up for a reciprocal gathering has been tricky. They've been out at galas and posh functions, mingling with the rich and influential; we've been staying in, mingling with the winter viruses brought home to us by our loving, yet

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-16672370087480071612009-04-27T09:20:00.000+01:002009-04-27T09:27:26.984+01:00

Dear Dave,It's not easy being the youth of today. Stay inside and you get bad press as a couch potato addicted to computer games and low quality television. Go outside and hang around with friends and everyone thinks you're in a gang and about to mug an old lady. Unless you can find somewhere to play football all day or you occupy yourself doing an underpaid menial job, the result is nothing but

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-45583717374276414512009-04-22T10:10:00.001+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.822+01:00

Dear Dave,Lewis is not a fan of change.I imagine this is fairly normal in a seven-year-old but he takes it to new extremes. For instance, he threw a strop recently because Sarah bought him a new pair of school trousers. Never mind that his old ones were too small and had a hole the size of Andorra in the knee, the new ones simply weren't the same. He managed to convince himself they wouldn't be

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-33943283074462532842009-04-17T09:15:00.001+01:002009-04-17T09:22:45.456+01:00

Dear Dave,It was brought to my attention recently that it's ten years since The Matrix was released.My first reaction was that it can't possibly have been that long. It simply can't. Thinking about it more carefully, however, I remembered going to see the movie at the cinema with Sarah and then sitting outside a café in the sunshine with a beer, discussing why the machines had been foolish enough

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-43952899771307987662009-04-13T09:00:00.001+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.823+01:00

Dear Dave,Long ago and far away, a housedad named Ed took his three children on an outing. It was a holiday, the weather was nice and there was a story-teller in town - it seemed like the perfect excuse to get out of the house before everyone killed each other. They had a packed lunch with them and sat on a travel rug on a grassy hillside waiting for the show to begin. For the sake of argument,

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-27009764783200766072009-04-08T08:45:00.000+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.823+01:00

Dear Dave,The other week, I caught two of my children arguing about me when they thought I wasn't listening."Daddy's my slave," said Marie without a hint of doubt in her voice.I wasn't too pleased about this but Fraser went momentarily up in my opinion when he laughed and dismissed the notion out of hand. "No, he's not.""Yes, he is," insisted Marie."No," said Fraser. "He's my slave."On

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-47955783758854064992009-04-03T10:30:00.003+01:002009-04-03T10:56:33.516+01:00

Dear Dave,My twinges of illness the other week never amounted to very much. I ended up being so busy preparing for Lewis' party that I didn't have time for the plague. This week, though, I feel like my limbs and eyelids have lead weights attached and I'm just stumbling along in the direction of the school holidays. Last year at this time, with Easter being early, we were already away on our

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-78291955182619722112009-03-30T09:15:00.000+01:002009-06-17T11:56:22.824+01:00

Dear Dave,As the kids get older, it's easy to forget how things used to be. What seemed like an insurmountable problem only a few months ago can be quickly relegated to a hazy memory by fresh challenges and poor sleep.I'd almost forgotten Marie used to be a world class stropper, for instance. From little over a year, she had the ability to work herself up into a frenzy over nothing, letting rip

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-68514948083421917372009-03-25T09:30:00.004Z2009-06-17T11:56:22.824+01:00

Dear Dave,The other week, the kids were watching something on TV when the characters suddenly had a limited time to put a complicated plan into action. There ensued a lengthy montage of sawing, hammering, man-trap setting, high-fives and satisfied grins, all to the sound of the A-Team theme tune.This was the second time in a couple of days that such a thing had happened in one of their programmes

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-49246857529985832402009-03-20T12:00:00.001Z2009-03-20T12:09:10.722Z

Dear Dave,Lewis was seven yesterday.He was also dizzy, disoriented, tired and running a fever. This was a shame for the poor boy. He did cheer up somewhat, however, when he got to stay home and lie around playing his new computer games all day.This morning, he's still off school but feeling much better. I, meanwhile, am feeling dizzy, disoriented and tired. It's possibly the start of whatever he

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-2121459366365092832009-03-18T10:30:00.001Z2009-03-18T10:44:15.549Z

Dear Dave,I was thinking the other day that it must be time to have another rant about a survey to do with parenting. I didn't have a particular survey in mind but, you know, it's been a while. I considered hunting around for one, then I decided not to bother. Poorly reported pieces of research are like health scares - there's bound to be one before long.Sure enough, three have been brought to my

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3690472945730852036.post-10380453716966744572009-03-13T09:30:00.003Z2009-06-17T11:56:22.825+01:00

Dear Dave,Glad to hear Daisy's over the chickenpox and Sam's recovered from the stomach bug.It's obviously a shame that Sam's now covered in spots and Daisy's started throwing up but, honestly, you were probably expecting this eventuality. (I know I was.) Good luck. Another year or two and you'll be able to look back and laugh...Would you believe that someone told me recently that parenting only

DadsDinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00409820799442134743noreply@blogger.com0