So. The toddler and I have been hanging out together a bit of late as the wife is off doing her thang. I’ve realised that I don’t have a thang. Unless anti-social is a thang. I go to work. I come home and work some more. I go to bed. Rinse and repeat.
Speaking of the wife – I got myself in trouble yesterday. You see, the toddler and I were running around in circles on our toes. It had to be on our toes as that was part of the game, along with the hex-head drill bit we had to run around set by the nose of a toy Donkey. This was the toddlers game, she made it up and I was along for the ride. The toddler stops, looks at me as it grabs its hair and says “da cut.” So I did. I figured the hair was in her eyes and causing her discomfort. So I had at it with the kitchen scissors, the same ones I open the coffee bags with and cut the can in half with that time. It was tough going as only a small part of the scissors are sharpish. It was a bit of a hack job, but what did it really matter – she isn’t going to a formal yet. Right? Wrong.
Giving the toddler a haircut is off-limits. Never again am I to attempt to do such a thing and I was told such. The wife you see had been nurturing its hair for months so the toddler would no longer have its weird fringe, (that’s even weirder now). There was a plan in place that I set back by at least three months by making the toddler version of Billy-Ray Cyrus. I’d already had the side-eye that morning as the wife had got more fan mail from a foot fetish fan due to a movie we made some years ago where she gets her toes sucked. It’s pretty funny – I have no fans at all, so I’d be chuffed if someone took the time to write to me and tell me I had a beautiful something. But it’s a regular thing now with guys telling her how beautiful her feet are. The movie itself was a comment on how all of us are drawn differently – so it’s great folk are reaching out.
The toddler has a cold at the moment. Then it had some odd spots on it Google couldn’t help us out with. Then the next morning there was a rash on it, so a swift booking was made for the doctor down the road. The doctor I go to every couple of years asking “what’s this thing”? I like him. I know others don’t take to him, but he’s my kind of doctor. He’s dry as hell, smirks at my jokes and isn’t afraid to grab a scalpel and cut things out, or off me. His school report cards probably read, “doesn’t play well with others” as he is an odd roster. Anyway, back to the story. I’m at work, so the wife and the toddler see my doctor and neither quite took to his oddness. The toddler kicked him in the nuts and flatly refused to behave and is still referring to him as the “bad man.” There were several “puks” uttered and a fair amount of screaming I’m told. Turns out the rash is some virus and she has as ear infection which means antibiotics as it’s got a bit of a hold in the ol ear-canal. Getting any kind of medicine into the toddler is like trying to get shoes on a cat. It’s a liquid antibiotic made for children, so we tried shooting it into her mouth – which she promptly spat out. I then tried reasoning with the toddler on the next round, using her language that there were bad rawrs (dinosaurs) in her tummy and the milk-like looking stuff in the syringe was filled with good rawrs that would kill the bad rawrs and make her better. That didn’t work either, so we tried the old distract it and quickly squirt the medicine in its mouth method. I don’t recommend the old quick squirt method as she ended up looking like a performer in the final shot of a bukakee film. Today however, I put the stuff in some yoghurt and fed her most of it. I wish I could take credit for the idea but the wife figured that one out as the first option before any squirting was done. Me being a bloke however, realised she wasn’t eating all the yogurt and squirting it down her throat must be the best course of action. I was wrong. Yogurt delivery delivers more antibiotic down the gullet than the old bukakee method.
There has been talk of late of a baby brother or sister for her. This idea has been floated by various people (I’m not one of them). I’m quite happy forever struggling to support the little family I already have. The toddler however, loves babies and wants her mum to have one. She also loves cows, horses, bugs and Peppa Pig and does just fine without having any of those in the house. I’ve tried to explain to the toddler (purely from self-interest mind you) that it needs to go to sleep, stop climbing into the middle of our bed or get a hobby in order for mum and dad to be alone together long enough for this magic baby thing to happen. Too many quick knee-tremblers have had the kibosh put on them before a result is had, when the toddler comes ambling along demanding the “Bananas” be put on the telly or the call of “da, egg” puts the old block on. Dad has uttered a few “puks” himself during these events as he limps out of view.
Along with its amazing ability to block its dad at each and every turn – it has an annoying habit of picking at its toes and creating a hangnail. This leads to a call of “da, sore toe”. It then presents said sore toe with a face of such infinite sadness, it should be on a Radiohead album cover. I then have to cut off the hangnail with a pair of clippers, (that takes forever to find, because why wouldn’t they be where I last left them?). Cutting off these hangnails is precision work. One cannot just chop the top off – oh no! If one leaves even a skerrick of hangnail, the toddler is back at it, picking and pulling and showing me its sore toe. All of the bloody hangnail must be removed. All of it. This requires a very steady hand. I’ve had to stop drinking so I’m fresh as a daisy for when I’m summoned to the call. But I not complain. Sometimes I band-aid its big toes so it can’t pick at them. The cloth ones work the best as they stay on for longer.
I’m convinced the toddler saves the weirdness for when I’m left alone with it. For example. Last night, I caught it faking that it had fallen off the couch. Faking it. Lying there. Pretending.
“What are you doing?”
“I fell?”
“Off the couch?”
“Yeah”
“Really?”
Silence.
“Did you really fall off the couch?”
“Bananas. Da, bananas.”
(It hadn’t fallen off the couch – I’m a good father. I watch my child).
I’m now watching it try and eat uncooked coloured rice. The wife dyed some rice and made a garden for the toddler’s animal toys to frolic in. It’s a lovely idea and would be great if we had a toddler pit we could lower the thing into during playtime. You see, the rice was once contained to a large pan. Now that the wife is out and I’m left in charge – the rice is all over the living room. I know the toddler does these things on purpose. It knows it can’t eat the rice. It knows it shouldn’t. It knows it makes me rattled as it looks at me and pushes the crunchiness into its face and that’s why it’s doing it.
“Da. Egg!”
Here we go – and thus the evening begins.
I deliver to its gawping maw a lovely egg I’ve prepared.
She surveys it and waves her hand like some spolit Queen, “Da, away,” as she shoves the plate my way and I question my worth and reach for the remote.
“DA, NO!” It cries, as I try to watch something on the telly.
“But it’s my telly and I never get to watch it.”
“Da! Bananas!”
“No. I’m done with B1 and B2 and the daft rat always saying ‘cheese and whiskers.’ I want to watch a movie.”
“Bananas!”
“We’ll watch a documentary.”
Then it actually does a header off the couch and begins to cry.
We’re watching Bananas again.
Fun fact: I caught myself singing “banana detectives” yesterday as I showered.
Danny Matier 