Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. I still find it hard to believe that these words actually left my mouth and were directed at my three-year-old daughter. And while she probably didn’t get my slightly ironic, post-modern cultural reference to the 1970s TV show The Incredible Hulk, she certainly got my meaning.
I was at the end of my tether, and she knew it. (The chance of my clothes ripping and my muscles rippling was remote, but not out of the question.)
Friends and colleagues will tell you that I am generally a quiet person, not known for raising my voice in anger or sudden erratic outbursts. My kids may tell you a different story, but then nobody pushes your buttons quite like your kids. (Unconditional love can be hard work).
What should have been a simple task; making a banana cake for a school P&C fundraiser turned into a personal trial and a test of my patience. It smelled fantastic as it came out of the oven, but as I attempted to tip it from the tin, the bottom stuck and the cake crumbled. Not a disaster, but I was on a tight timeline and didn’t quite have the ingredients to make another one.
Given that my cake would probably only raise $20-30 I thought about phoning in an excuse and coughing up some cash towards the cause instead. But male pride got in the way – I wasn’t going to let those P&C super mums think I couldn’t make a cake!
I knew I could improvise my way around not having enough eggs and only having frozen bananas, but what I hadn’t really factored in was the attention span of a three-year-old.
Friday is Dad Day for me and Jemma and, after spending the rest of the week in the company of qualified carers, she has an expectation that I will take her out on the town for a good time. (We can get a lot of mileage from the library, the supermarket and a café.) And this cake business just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
I tried to engage her in some colouring in whilst simultaneously creaming the butter and the sugar for the second time (and splattering it all over the walls for the second time), but she just kept pushing.
I wasn’t attending to her wants and she wasn’t respecting my need to get the job done, and therein lay the recipe for conflict.
There was no gamma ray induced transformation, but, like Dr Bruce Banner, I feel I am on some kind of quest to control the beast within because I don’t like me when I’m angry.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Senior Citizen
It started with the hangovers that were completely out of proportion to the amount I had drunk the night before. Waking up with an aching head, reaching for the Panadol and thinking “this is not fair”, I’d curse myself for mixing the grape and the grain and lie to myself that I’d never drink again.
Then it was squinting at the specials board and not being able to read subtitles on TV. Before I could say “optician” he said, “read the bottom line for me please”, and I’m out the door with a script for a brand new pair of glasses.
Now the final indicator that I no longer inhabit the body of a young man has come along and, quite literally, knocked me off my feet.
A couple of weeks ago I did an injury to my back that had me off work for a week and required three trips to a chiropractor/acupuncturist.
This witchdoctor, with his pins and pictures of skeletons on his walls, had me up on the table with my pants and my dignity down without even a hint of foreplay. (Don’t I get a massage?) Crack, crack, crack he goes on my spine while I lie there trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
And what did I do to myself that I needed this kind of extreme treatment? Absolutely nothing! And that’s the sad and sorry truth. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if I’d been doing some extreme mountain biking, or parachuting off a high cliff, or even had a bad case of shagger’s back. But no, the reality is so much more senior citizen. I took part in a social bike ride, organised by a local Landcare group. We stopped for tea and cakes at the halfway point and I felt a bit of a twinge in my lower back as I got off the bike, but didn’t think too much of it at the time. By the time I finished the ride it was worse, and later that day I could barely move.
Lying there on my back, dosed up to the eyeballs on painkillers, morbid thoughts of mortality filled my head. I started to wonder whether a nagging back injury would be part of my life for the rest of my days and whether my best years were behind me.
Well it seems that reports of my imminent death were widely exaggerated, but it’s made me realise that on the great bell curve of life, I probably am over-the-top and sliding irrevocably towards senility and lawn bowls.
Maybe it’s time for a shandy.
Then it was squinting at the specials board and not being able to read subtitles on TV. Before I could say “optician” he said, “read the bottom line for me please”, and I’m out the door with a script for a brand new pair of glasses.
Now the final indicator that I no longer inhabit the body of a young man has come along and, quite literally, knocked me off my feet.
A couple of weeks ago I did an injury to my back that had me off work for a week and required three trips to a chiropractor/acupuncturist.
This witchdoctor, with his pins and pictures of skeletons on his walls, had me up on the table with my pants and my dignity down without even a hint of foreplay. (Don’t I get a massage?) Crack, crack, crack he goes on my spine while I lie there trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
And what did I do to myself that I needed this kind of extreme treatment? Absolutely nothing! And that’s the sad and sorry truth. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if I’d been doing some extreme mountain biking, or parachuting off a high cliff, or even had a bad case of shagger’s back. But no, the reality is so much more senior citizen. I took part in a social bike ride, organised by a local Landcare group. We stopped for tea and cakes at the halfway point and I felt a bit of a twinge in my lower back as I got off the bike, but didn’t think too much of it at the time. By the time I finished the ride it was worse, and later that day I could barely move.
Lying there on my back, dosed up to the eyeballs on painkillers, morbid thoughts of mortality filled my head. I started to wonder whether a nagging back injury would be part of my life for the rest of my days and whether my best years were behind me.
Well it seems that reports of my imminent death were widely exaggerated, but it’s made me realise that on the great bell curve of life, I probably am over-the-top and sliding irrevocably towards senility and lawn bowls.
Maybe it’s time for a shandy.
Coming Off the Bike
It changes so quickly. One minute they are riding their bikes at the end of our quiet country road, a picture of rural domestic bliss.
The little one is just learning the joys of self-propulsion with the aid of training wheels and I watch her taking those incremental but inevitable steps towards borrowing the car and not needing me anymore.
The big one is coming down the hill, raising her hands on and off the handlebars, doing the “Look at me, I can ride no hands” trick. She puts her hands back on the bike and does a few tight turns, showing off as usual.
I think it before it happens. I should tell her to take it easy, but it’s too late.
She doesn’t handle pain well. She does not like to see her own blood leaking from her skin. She’s inconsolable and goes into hysterics at the suggestion of washing the cuts with water. We speak not of Betadine.
Coming off the bike is a matter of when, not if. It’s a rite of passage for most kids. Usually there’s no harm done and they’ve got a bit of a story to tell. But as a parent, it’s tough.
I try to comfort her, but I get frustrated at her refusal to let me do anything. And really, it’s a bit of graze on the elbows and knees and she’s been crying for half an hour. I think “harden up”, but I don’t say it.
This is not our first time off the bike. Once I got the dreaded call from a neighbour.
“Ruby’s had a bit of a fall. They’re just putting her in the ambulance now. Can you meet them at the hospital?”
It was her fifth birthday. Brand new bike, down 10 stairs off our front deck.
I think she was braver back then. The hospital staff were excellent and we left with three stitches and a bit of a story to tell. No harm done.
So she has a scar on her forehead, just like Harry Potter. And although hers is not the shape of a lightning bolt, it still bonds them in some special way.
We read the latest instalments of Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the pain vanishes, as if by magic.
She wouldn’t get back on the bike for a couple of days, but she’s tearing down that hill again now.
The little one is just learning the joys of self-propulsion with the aid of training wheels and I watch her taking those incremental but inevitable steps towards borrowing the car and not needing me anymore.
The big one is coming down the hill, raising her hands on and off the handlebars, doing the “Look at me, I can ride no hands” trick. She puts her hands back on the bike and does a few tight turns, showing off as usual.
I think it before it happens. I should tell her to take it easy, but it’s too late.
She doesn’t handle pain well. She does not like to see her own blood leaking from her skin. She’s inconsolable and goes into hysterics at the suggestion of washing the cuts with water. We speak not of Betadine.
Coming off the bike is a matter of when, not if. It’s a rite of passage for most kids. Usually there’s no harm done and they’ve got a bit of a story to tell. But as a parent, it’s tough.
I try to comfort her, but I get frustrated at her refusal to let me do anything. And really, it’s a bit of graze on the elbows and knees and she’s been crying for half an hour. I think “harden up”, but I don’t say it.
This is not our first time off the bike. Once I got the dreaded call from a neighbour.
“Ruby’s had a bit of a fall. They’re just putting her in the ambulance now. Can you meet them at the hospital?”
It was her fifth birthday. Brand new bike, down 10 stairs off our front deck.
I think she was braver back then. The hospital staff were excellent and we left with three stitches and a bit of a story to tell. No harm done.
So she has a scar on her forehead, just like Harry Potter. And although hers is not the shape of a lightning bolt, it still bonds them in some special way.
We read the latest instalments of Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the pain vanishes, as if by magic.
She wouldn’t get back on the bike for a couple of days, but she’s tearing down that hill again now.
Inappropriate Content
And so it begins. The stage where I have to monitor my daughter’s use of the internet for “inappropriate content”.
Like most eight year olds, my eldest daughter Ruby can boot up a computer, open a browser and search the web, but still struggles to butter her own toast. For a few years she’s been able to get online and look at cartoons and songs designed for pre-teens, and for a while she was actually doing maths and spelling games (it was like tricking her into learning!).
But because we are mean parents who limit her ‘screen time’, she still sees ‘playing on the internet’ as a bit of a treat. It is usually a win-win situation where she can go and amuse herself for a while and I can get something else done around the house. (Although, as that is usually hanging out washing or doing the dishes, I don’t see how I win?)
Anyway, last week she came home and announced that ‘Ke$ha’ was her new favourite singer. She hadn’t actually heard any of the songs, but her friend was right into it and therefore Ke$ha was cool and Ruby wanted to check it out.
Google to the rescue.
As most popular culture from the past decade has completely passed me by, I had no idea who Ke$ha was, but 6.5 million other people had already checked out the video for her song We R Who We R on YouTube.
I could have ignored this butchering of the language, but when dozens of scantily clad women wearing too much make-up came on and started gyrating and feeling themselves up while giving the camera a sexually suggestive look, I reached over and shut it down.
Not surprisingly there were howls of protest.
To her credit she responded well to my little chat about it not being appropriate for her age and she suggested a compromise; minimise the screen so she could still hear the song and print the lyrics so she could sing along.
Okay. At this point I hadn’t really paid any attention to the lyrics, but I now know the chorus goes:
Got that glitter on my eyes / Stockings ripped all up the side / Looking sick and sexy-fied / So let’s go-oh-oh, let’s go!
Ruby was singing along to this when her mum came home and all hell broke loose. Lyrics were confiscated, there were tears and shouting.
I can’t wait for the teenage years.
Like most eight year olds, my eldest daughter Ruby can boot up a computer, open a browser and search the web, but still struggles to butter her own toast. For a few years she’s been able to get online and look at cartoons and songs designed for pre-teens, and for a while she was actually doing maths and spelling games (it was like tricking her into learning!).
But because we are mean parents who limit her ‘screen time’, she still sees ‘playing on the internet’ as a bit of a treat. It is usually a win-win situation where she can go and amuse herself for a while and I can get something else done around the house. (Although, as that is usually hanging out washing or doing the dishes, I don’t see how I win?)
Anyway, last week she came home and announced that ‘Ke$ha’ was her new favourite singer. She hadn’t actually heard any of the songs, but her friend was right into it and therefore Ke$ha was cool and Ruby wanted to check it out.
Google to the rescue.
As most popular culture from the past decade has completely passed me by, I had no idea who Ke$ha was, but 6.5 million other people had already checked out the video for her song We R Who We R on YouTube.
I could have ignored this butchering of the language, but when dozens of scantily clad women wearing too much make-up came on and started gyrating and feeling themselves up while giving the camera a sexually suggestive look, I reached over and shut it down.
Not surprisingly there were howls of protest.
To her credit she responded well to my little chat about it not being appropriate for her age and she suggested a compromise; minimise the screen so she could still hear the song and print the lyrics so she could sing along.
Okay. At this point I hadn’t really paid any attention to the lyrics, but I now know the chorus goes:
Got that glitter on my eyes / Stockings ripped all up the side / Looking sick and sexy-fied / So let’s go-oh-oh, let’s go!
Ruby was singing along to this when her mum came home and all hell broke loose. Lyrics were confiscated, there were tears and shouting.
I can’t wait for the teenage years.
Middle Aged Men In Lycra
On any given weekend in cities around the world, you will find large groups of lycra-clad men with carbon-fibre bikes searching for the perfect latte.
Visiting Melbourne late last year I was shocked at the population increase since my previous visit. Thousands of men in brightly coloured clothes with freshly shaved legs and mirrored sunnies were all moving as one, like a big school of fish along Beach Road.
It has become known as the rise of the MAMILs (Middle Age Men in Lycra) and is apparently what men having a mid-life crisis do these days instead of buying a sports car. (I’ve also heard them called COBWEBs – Crusty Old Bastards With Expensive Bikes).
And now, like Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, it seems that I too have “caught the cycling craze”.
Although I own neither lycra pants, nor a flash racing bike, for the last couple of weeks I have risen early on a Saturday morning, met up with a couple of mates and ridden along winding country roads into Lismore. (I was dressed in board shorts and a T-shirt and had to borrow a friend’s bike because mine is an old mountain bike with a baby seat rusted onto the back that was never going to cut it.)
The ride to town is about 18km, predominantly downhill and it takes in some spectacular views of cloud-filled valleys along the way.
Riding past Richmond River High, we (quite literally) ran into a group of serious MAMILs, all geared up and ‘spinning’ hard. (That’s bike talk for ‘peddling’). We tagged onto the back of their pack for a while, but they soon left us behind. (I think my mates were taking it easy on me.)
Heading back home to Dunoon via Numulgi and Corndale there are some serious hills to climb which really get the legs and the heart pumping. And I guess that’s the point of it. The life of the modern man is a very sedentary one; from the computer screen at work, to the car, to the TV. You have to make a concerted effort to find time to get out and get active these days.
I’ve been doing a couple of ‘bootcamp’ style classes and some boxing to keep fit over the past year and it feels good to work up a sweat first thing in the morning. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to go all the way and become a proper MAMIL (and I certainly won’t be shaving my legs), but the other options for men in their forties looking for some sort of escape from their lives seems to be drinking heavily or having an affair. A bit of carbon-fibre and lycra will probably get me in a lot less trouble with the wife.
Visiting Melbourne late last year I was shocked at the population increase since my previous visit. Thousands of men in brightly coloured clothes with freshly shaved legs and mirrored sunnies were all moving as one, like a big school of fish along Beach Road.
It has become known as the rise of the MAMILs (Middle Age Men in Lycra) and is apparently what men having a mid-life crisis do these days instead of buying a sports car. (I’ve also heard them called COBWEBs – Crusty Old Bastards With Expensive Bikes).
And now, like Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, it seems that I too have “caught the cycling craze”.
Although I own neither lycra pants, nor a flash racing bike, for the last couple of weeks I have risen early on a Saturday morning, met up with a couple of mates and ridden along winding country roads into Lismore. (I was dressed in board shorts and a T-shirt and had to borrow a friend’s bike because mine is an old mountain bike with a baby seat rusted onto the back that was never going to cut it.)
The ride to town is about 18km, predominantly downhill and it takes in some spectacular views of cloud-filled valleys along the way.
Riding past Richmond River High, we (quite literally) ran into a group of serious MAMILs, all geared up and ‘spinning’ hard. (That’s bike talk for ‘peddling’). We tagged onto the back of their pack for a while, but they soon left us behind. (I think my mates were taking it easy on me.)
Heading back home to Dunoon via Numulgi and Corndale there are some serious hills to climb which really get the legs and the heart pumping. And I guess that’s the point of it. The life of the modern man is a very sedentary one; from the computer screen at work, to the car, to the TV. You have to make a concerted effort to find time to get out and get active these days.
I’ve been doing a couple of ‘bootcamp’ style classes and some boxing to keep fit over the past year and it feels good to work up a sweat first thing in the morning. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to go all the way and become a proper MAMIL (and I certainly won’t be shaving my legs), but the other options for men in their forties looking for some sort of escape from their lives seems to be drinking heavily or having an affair. A bit of carbon-fibre and lycra will probably get me in a lot less trouble with the wife.
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