THE DAD BEAT

Harry de Quetteville’s tales from the fatherhood front line

“Cnhvprplsreloosh?”

“Will you please take your fingers out of your mouth?”

Was there ever a more ignored parental injunction? For five years this plea has echoed around the house. In vain. The monsters’ delivery can still be muffled and incomprehensible, punctuated by glutinous slurps.

Now there is a new twist.

“Daddy, put your finger in my mouth!” says Mole. “Go on. Go on.”

“No. Yuck. And anyway, I’ve just finished changing the tyre on my bike.”

“Doesn’t matter. Look!”

And he takes one of his own, only marginally cleaner fingers, and proceeds to waggle a tooth back and forth.

“Ooooooh,” I say, leaning in for a closer inspection, which reveals a loosened but still attached incisor. “It is definitely wobbly. Right.”

“Right?”

This is an area of confusion. Mole is uncomfortable with the left and right thing.

“Well, the tooth is on the left of your

Back at school, there is no blood – just plenty of sweat and tears

mouth. But I meant right as in correct.”

“Oh yes?” he says, looking trusting but totally baffled.

“Because you know, sometimes words have two meanings…”

He furrows his brow.

“…and it makes you wonder,” I find myself adding, for some reason.

“I’m going to eat this apple now,” he declares, breaking my reverie with gruesome relish. “There’ll be blood everywhere when it comes out.”

Back at school there is no blood, just plenty of sweat (parental) and tears (Cosmic). A week in, harsh reality has punctured our youngest’s fantasy of what school would be like. Hubris has, with almost reassuring inevitability, led to nemesis. It’s no fun unpeeling his fingers, one by one, from the classroom door.

“This morning,” Beloved tells Mole, “we’re going to drop Cosmic off first, then you.” “Why, Mummy?”

“Because Cosmic is, well, at drop-off he’s just a bit wobbly.”

“Wobbly, Mummy?”

“Wobbly.”

Mole looks at me, and I smile and turn my palms out. “You see?” we nod to each other. “Two meanings.”