Rory FitzgeraldFinally all those years of nappy changing are paying dividends.
Most people were looking forward to the May bank holiday weekend, yet the prospect filled me with a certain foreboding. Dread is not too strong a word.
For me, the bank holiday weekend meant 7am starts and a frantic round of childcare, involving mediating bitter disputes over who-took-whose-toy and who-pushed-who-first, in between stints as an unpaid and low-quality children's entertainer.
Consideration should be given at a cabinet level to issuing a statutory pre-marriage health warning to anyone about to marry a doctor, nurse, fireman, soldier or anyone whose job means that they will routinely have to work weekends and nights.
Many poor innocent intendeds are in blissful ignorance of the reality that lies ahead. For every spouse who works weekends and nights, there is another at home alone as a part-time single parent in a solo battle to keep the show on the road.
I can attest that stay-at-home parents of small children have one of the most demanding jobs going. And yet, these long weekends when I have the kids 24/7 can often be the best of fun – on the good days at least.
Activities
On the first morning of this, my first of three weekends in a row, the long weekend loomed dauntingly ahead, with all too many hours to fill with child-friendly activities. I had planned an early morning cycle in the park, but beyond that I was fairly well stumped. I needed a miracle.
As we pedalled through the early morning mists of St Anne's Park, on rounding a bend, I was greeted with just that. Indeed, at that moment, I understood the feeling that a drowning man in mid-ocean must feel on being spotted by a passing ship: a funfair had arrived in the park.
And this was no ordinary funfair, but it contained acres of inflatable Heaven for small kids: there were bouncy castles, inflatable obstacle courses and massive slides. Next door to that was a lovely traditional funfair with spinning teacups, chair-o-planes ñ the works. We rushed over, in a state of awe. On entering this miraculous land of fun, the kids immediately ran into friends from school and the gang began scrambling about amid giggles and shrieks of delight. We bumped into more friends and the morning soon developed in to something approaching my ideal of childcare: sitting around with friends drinking coffee and chatting, while the kids were somewhere in the near distance, happy and whinge-free.
Friends
This would be us for the weekend. As indeed it was. Texts went out to friends and family with small kids and a perfect weekend was had, catching up with old friends to the gaudy background music of funfair rides, which the kids scampered about joyfully.
We were even treated to special discounts on the third day as we were such remarkably loyal customers.
All the running around at the fair had the dual benefit of ensuring early nights and long naps, which provided some mid-afternoon reprieve. During one of these naptimes my eldest boy, now too old to nap, was looking for something to do. I suggested ñ half jokingly ñ that he could clean my motorbike. He jumped at the task "Can I dad? Really?"
He most certainly could and did, all I had to do was keep him supplied with dishes of warm soapy water while he spent happy hours intently washing down every part of the machine. Finally, I thought to myself, all those years of nappy changing are paying dividends.