Watching my children grow up is great, but Must I see every second of it?
“Look daddy, look” has finally beaten “can we watch Paw Patrol?” into the top spot of frequent household phrases. It’s become apparent both children feel very strongly everything has to be seen to be believed as a result of their excitement over the mundanity of life.
The whole world is new to them and they want to share it with somebody who they imagine might be as excited as they are but is sadly in his forties, tired and happiest when resting.
Emma’s main passion is showing off anything she regards as a treasure.
For example, I’ve been excitedly handed a used Elastoplast, she discovered on the street.
“Wow, what a find, why don’t we leave that for someone else and put gel on our hands,” I said, so as not to destroy the moment.
She also ran into the living room, brandishing a large carving knife she’d managed to dig out of the dishwasher.
Once I’d disarmed her, I reassured myself she wanted to share her discovery with me, therefore we’d know fairly quickly if she was armed.
Her physical endeavours are another source of pride and something she wants us all to enjoy.
After the familiar, “look, Daddy, look”, I glanced up from domestic duties to see her stood on the kitchen table, readying herself to leap onto a chair she’d placed a few feet away.
Thankfully, Thomas has a more risk averse approach and enjoys sharing his Lego creations, drawings or
something he’s scratched onto a table.
His creative side has also expanded to drawings of me on his chalkboard with wild bushy unkempt hair, small dark pin prick eyes, a moon-like face, disproportionately large ears, bulbous nose and an angry frown.
Presumably, this is something a child psychiatrist could write a thesis on, but I’d prefer to think of him as a surrealist.
The one thing they both love to scream, “look, daddy, look” about is anything in the potty, to which I really struggle to summon up enthusiasm, although ensure to always congratulate them as I’d rather see it in there than anywhere else.
What’s interesting is that we don’t lose that need to share all we do, but what changes is that we shun mummy and daddy, and sign up to social media.
Disconcertingly, I now seem to spend my days being told by the twins to watch them, interspersed with Facebook notifying me to watch what someone I met on holiday 10 years ago is doing. The one saving grace is that we seem to lose the desire to share anything toilet-related with anyone but a medical professional.