Terrible Twos: Happy Father's Day, Daddy

Happy Father's Day, Daddy Rex

As a slight deviation from my normal style, this week's column is dedicated to what Ruby would have put in her daddy's Father's Day card, had she had the capability to write it herself. As it was, she drew a couple of smudgy snails, but I'm sure this is more along the lines of what she meant...

Dear Daddy,

Happy Father's Day! I do hope you have a lovely day. Because I imagine you are very excited about it, I think we should start all the festivities nice and early, so I expect you will be reading this at about 5am.

When you play peekaboo, by putting your pillow over your face, I will sit on your head and bounce! I find it's a good way to burn off some of my early morning energy and, if your growling 'monster' noises are anything to go by, you seem to enjoy it too!

Oh, by the way, Ava and I have bought you a present. It won't matter if your eyes are too bleary to see it properly, because I'll grab it back and run off with it before you've had a chance to look at it properly anyway. I might hide it somewhere actually. You'll probably come across it somewhere random in a week or two.

Once you are well and truly awake, we can really start having a very fun Father's Day! But before we do that, you might need to take me to have a wee. By the time I have said: "I do wee, Daddy?" 94 times, and you have climbed out of bed, and taken me to the bathroom, and put my Peppa Pig seat on the loo, and put me on my Peppa Pig seat, I definitely WILL have decided whether I do really need a wee... or not.

I am told that, on Father's Day, children should do kind things for their daddies, and you know I would love to make you a cup of tea – but because I am too little to reach the worktop, and because I am not allowed to go anywhere near very hot things, I will, instead, whine at you repeatedly until you go downstairs and get me a cup of juice. And while you are there, you can make some tea yourself!

When we all sit down to have breakfast together, I will drop all my egg on the floor and then pretend I want to give you a cuddle so I can, in fact, sit on your lap and eat your egg. I'll eat all my toast up, apart from the crusts, and these I will keep trying to shove in your mouth – particularly at times when you are trying to talk to Mummy.

Once breakfast is over, the fun can really start! Shall we begin with you reading me a story (five times over)? Perhaps Mummy will buy you a Sunday newspaper – hooray! We can scrunch it all up and stuff it down the side of the sofa! Don't worry if you're too busy (tidying up my books) to do that – Ava and I can do it by ourselves when you're not looking. If I have time, I might also put a snail in your shoe.

I will try not to get cross with you when you say I can't have a third Petis Filous after lunch, but I can't promise. What I CAN promise though is that, today, especially for you, I will forgo my afternoon nap. I couldn't possibly leave you downstairs by yourself, not on Father's Day! Naturally, this might make me a bit emotional come say, 4pm. A Petis Filous should solve that.

I wonder if it might be nice for you to go and have a leisurely pint with a friend in the afternoon, but I think even NICER might be a trip to the swings! With me!

Yes, thinking about it, it's probably best if you don't attempt to leave the house at any point without my sister and I. We all know how that'll go if we're really honest.

I will probably get myself extremely muddy and snotty during the course of the day's activities, and I'll almost certainly have yogurt in my hair, so if you like, after dinner (during which you will sit next to me at all times) you can run me a bubble bath.

We could play the bath game! You know? That game where you spend 15 minutes trying to convince me to get in the bath? And then 20 minutes trying to convince me to get out again?

As it is your special day, you can choose which bed time story you read if you like. I'll disagree with you, probably, and make you read a different, much, much longer book (or three), but this will merely be my way of trying to ensure Father's Day never ends.

Inevitably, at some point, after you have fetched me a drink, and cuddled me for half an hour, and stroked my face for quite a long time, I'll have to give in and fall sleep. I hope you won't mind.

You know if I could stay up all night, and prevent you enduring a boring evening of television, wine and adult conversation, I most certainly would. But I'm only two-and-a-half. Fingers crossed for next year!

Yes, happy Father's Day, Daddy – have a lovely day.

All my love from Ruby. xxx

As a footnote to this, I'd like to add that I was at home all day on Father's Day... but hey, what can I say? When Daddy's in the house, no-one else will do.

Ha haaa!

I guess that's what being such a wonderful father does for you...

My darling toddler, thank you for...

...saving me pennies on the phone bill
 Just imagine how many calls I might have made by now if the phone was EVER where it should be on its cradle! The telepathy thing isn't coming on that brilliantly, though, if I'm honest. Daddy never seems to receive the message 'bring more wine'.
...decorating the house
 You’re right. We really were very unimaginative when we painted it in shades of off white, hoping to achieve stylish spaces that exuded light and airiness. That big smear of chocolate you made by wiping your cheek on the wall in the living room actually matches the cushions! And should I ever enter the house and forget where the kitchen is, the line you drew with non-washable felt-tip the entire length of the wall in the hall will show me the way.
...boosting the local economy...
 ...by, for example, providing work for the exterminators, who come to catch the mice, who come to eat the food that you somehow manage to deposit, in minute amounts, all over the house in places that should be impossible to get to.
...the interesting beauty regimes
 I do remember reading that avocado is excellent for one's skin – although I’m not sure about your particular method of mixing it with snot, and transferring it from your face to mine with that expert lunge/sweep manoeuvre. Especially when I already have my make-up on.
...for helping me make new friends...
 ...such as the woman who answers calls for the emergency services.
...all the long weekends...
 ...which are always extended by several hours, what with your fascinating ability to wake up at 5am every Saturday and Sunday (or sometimes, amazingly enough, even earlier if it’s one of those rare occasions that I went out the night before).
…filling the silences in the house...
 ...with giggles, farts, excruciatingly high-pitched screams, the brain-numbing babble of battery toys and – rather brilliantly, even when you are sleeping soundly in your bed – a deafening roar when we turn on the stereo, which you have invariably switched on to maximum volume.
...not to mention the silences everywhere else...
 ...like in the library, for example, when we returned your story books and you were sad to see them go. I'm not sure, when the sweet librarian suggested you could take home a different Peppa Pig book, it was an entirely appropriate response to turn purple, scream bloody murder and repeatedly try to bite her. But still, she didn't call the police or anything.
...making my heart swell...
 ...not only with the love I have for you, but also with adrenaline – when I catch you on the third 'rung' of the bookshelf, because you have realised there's a valuable vase up at the top (possibly the only thing in the room you haven't yet licked).
... teaching me the true value of money
 I thought, what with frivolous purchases of Jimmy Choos and luxurious make-up having been replaced by cautious purchases of Start-Rites and Johnsons wipes, I had learned to appreciate it. But what really clinched it for me, I think, was looking up just as you posted that £20 note through the minuscule gap between the wall and the fireplace.
...helping me garden
 I understand that waiting for those tomatoes to turn red is just too much for you. Never mind. After months of tending those plants (which I grew from seed by the way, do you remember?), rather than plucking ripe juicy tomatoes for glorious summer salads, I will just look up recipes for green tomato chutneys which will take up space in the cupboard for all eternity – or until we move house.
...being so honest
 Like when you pointed at my thighs, laughing, and said: 'jelly!' it was a turning point for me. Really.
...being right next to me when I woke up this morning
 The fact that you prised open my sleepy eyelid, and then tried to lick my eyeball, is by the by. Even if not quite THAT close up, just like every other morning of my life, you were still the very first thing I wanted to see.