Distracted Dad – Christmas Tests

In some ways, it’s been a testing Christmas. And I can’t help feeling I’ve failed that test.

It had started off so well. I’d got going early, bought cards, written some of them, got 80% of the presents by about 10th December and even started wrapping those. I posted our present to my wife’s sister in America in time. I managed to not accidentally tell my wife what I was getting her. I was ahead of myself.

And then came the tests. The night before Christmas Eve, at about midnight Youngest(TM) suddenly vomited. There was some rushing for bowls and towels. Bowls are hard to find at speed in an unfamiliar house. In retrospect, I could have chosen something larger, easier to hold, easier to aim for than a tiny item of tupperware. Then at 2am, The Boy started being sick. They had both seemingly caught the Norovirus the night before Christmas. Youngest(TM) was still ill. By now, any bowls were fine, we needed quantity as well as quality. And so it went on, all through the night, and The Boy was still being sick when it got light (which in the north of England, where we were for Christmas, is late morning).

“Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the house, there was not a sound, oh apart from that of two boys vomiting….”

I’m sounding flippant, I know. There is nothing worse than a child being ill. It was a disastrous, sleep-disturbing, and laundry-creating night, and we were all wiped out for Christmas Eve, but we had recovered by the evening, just in time to put some mince pies and milk out for Father Christmas and hope he didn’t catch anything.

Oh yes, my theme. Tests. My next test was on our relaxing Christmas morning walk, when I fell down a cattle grid. Not completely, I didn’t disappear, but I accidentally turned around to say something, and placed my foot in what I call the ‘hoof’ position. My foot went down until the metal bars cleverly caught my knee (I still have the bruises). To add insult to injury, underneath the cattle grid is a load of…er….manure..from when the cattle realise they’ve made a mistake.

My next test was Boxing Day. Here’s the question: if the weather has been the main news story over Christmas, is it better, at night, to have your only batteries in A) a torch or B) an internal combustion engine which The Boy had got for Christmas from his Auntie? Oh, you went for ‘A’ too? I went for answer B. Which is why, when there was a power cut in the night and the kids were crying out, I was hastily trying to feel my way downstairs like a deaf bat in order to take batteries out of an internal combustion engine. Lesson learnt.

The other lesson learnt is that a power cut in a village in the north of England is just about the definition of pitch black. Hove doesn’t compare. I’d call a power cut in Hove Sepia at best.

That was Christmas. Despite my theme of failing tests, and other stuff not covered here which made it pretty eventful, it was actually very nice. Very Christmassy, lots of good food, relaxing (on the whole) nice presents etc.

Oh, then on the 7th January, the present that I’d sent to America gets returned. I missed a digit off the address. It turns out the tests I’ve been talking about started earlier than I thought. And I had failed that one too.

Richard Hearn 2014
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www.richardhearn.co.uk