Jordan Watson
Ireached the pinnacle of Dadding this week. No Sherpa, no acclimatisation, I just pulled my sleeves up and knocked the bastard off.
As I bathed in the glorious sweet sunshine of which can only be found upon the summit of such a feat, my head swelled to incomprehensible dimensions. Then, I stumbled off balance and plummeted back down to Earth’s hard, unforgiving surface.
Earlier this week I tried to build a wooden go-kart for the kids. It’s in every family movie. They are jealously drooled over by kids that don’t have one and dads envy the other dads that have built their own.
Yes, the kids have asked for a kart before but I was always too busy (or pretended I was going to be).
But this lockdown has called my soapbox bluff. My eldest, Mila, 7, was given one of those kitset ones when she was around four. It got left outside, the weather turned the wood to soggy cardboard and the steel bits rusted up. It was tossed away but the wheels were held onto for that ‘one day’ moment.
That moment had arrived. No more hiding behind excuses. I have more time up my sleeves than ever before. ‘‘Dad, can it have a motor?’’ Woah, woah, woah, let’s slow it down here. Basic, simple, easy-to-build wooden kart. That’s the plan. That is within my Dad DIY capabilities, just. I couldn’t go to a hardware store for bits, so I explained, ‘‘It might not be very pretty because, you know, I can’t go to the shop and I’ll have to use old wood from the shed and just any old nails and screws I have lying around.’’
I made sure that reply was broadcast loud enough so that all my kids, my wife and the closest neighbours could hear my fall-back excuse. ‘‘Bloody lockdown, I couldn’t get the right parts and stuff…’’
I dug out the old wheels, unseized them with a bit of CRC, sat the kids on the ground and roughly measured them up. Cut some wood, cut my thumb, screwed some stuff, ran out of screws, hammered some nails, hammered my thumb, unscrewed some mistakes, remeasured, re-cut, rescrewed, and around two hours longer than it should have taken… I had bloody done it. It actually looked the part.
Childhood memories of crying because my brother wouldn’t push me came flooding back, my kids were about to enjoy a quintessential Kiwi pastime. A tear formed in my eye, partly due to the pain in my hammered thumb. The kids came bounding outside to see what their impressive dad had created with his bare hands. To my relief, they were over the moon.
Then, when they hopped on for the very first time, a miracle, it didn’t break!
Mila pushed Alba the fiveyear-old, Alba pushed Mila, it all felt like one of those American family movie moments. Then the bubble burst (metaphorically, not our lockdown bubble).
The kart was too big for Nala the tantruming two-yearold. She was too small to push the kart, too small to drive and too terrified to get pulled around. Her tears of disappointment were too much to handle. I’ve heard enough about the youngest kids growing up and whinging about always being left out, so with my head believing I was basically a qualified master builder, I got back on the tools.
Found some more timber, a set of old trainer wheels, bang bang bang, and BOOM! I had done it, a second kart, a custom two-year-old kart to push the little one around the backyard. No kid will be left behind, not while I’m on duty. Nala was so excited.
‘‘Look, for Nala!’’ I said, as sweat beaded down my dad belly. She hopped on, I gave her a push for a few metres and BOOM! The wheels buckled under the weight.
The weight of a two year-old was enough to strip me of my master builder certificate – to bring me back down to earth.
That moment was also witnessed by my wife. In her eyes I was back to that ‘below average, rough as guts, never get anything done right’ DIY Dad.
What can I say, you win some, you lose some and ‘‘Bloody lockdown, I couldn’t get the right parts and stuff…’’