I’m giving Tracy the day off.
I’m taking the kids over to a friend’s house. He’s doing something similar with his good lady. To kill some time, we thought it would be a good idea to go to a shopping centre first. Excuse me, a retail park. No, a lifestyle plaza.
Whatever it’s called, it’s a place where lots of shops with nice but unnecessary things will fill your car boot and empty your bank account.
I have four kids, I’m going shopping for a lamp and some candles, I’m bringing all the kids. Standard.
Except my standard isn’t everyone else’s standard. A woman stopped me when she saw me with all four the other day and said, “I don’t know how you do this. You’re a saint.”
I’m not. I’m a Dad of four. This is my life now.
Getting dressed
Do you know what it’s like to try to dress a child? They are unwilling and uncooperative. They would much rather be “nudey-boots” and will do everything in their power to resist the application of clothing. Do you know what it’s like to try to dress four children? In a short space of time? Because you’ve decided to go shopping and need to be back for the twins’ nap in a while? It’s like this:
Andrew is seven and can dress himself. His choices today are interesting but if him wearing a leather jacket with football shorts and a shirt means he’s ready to leave the house, I’m happy with that.
Sam is four. He can dress himself but chooses not to. He’d much rather sit naked on the floor of his bedroom, crying for an hour because his sock is inside out.
I turn his sock the right way around but he is now unable to find a matching sock. This leads to more wailing. It continues with a t-shirt he doesn’t like, jeans that are too big, shoes that feel “a bit squashy today, Daddy” and his glasses. Jesus, his glasses.
Every night, as one of us leaves the lads’ bedroom, Sam takes off his glasses and puts them on a shelf over his head. In the space of his 11 hours of sleep, Sam’s glasses, plainly possessed by a poltergeist, move freely around the house and hide themselves. On this day, they turned up in the coal bucket. I have NO explanation why.
They are, of course, filthy now and do not meet Sam’s cleanliness standards. These standards include wearing the same jocks for three weeks and having a three-course meal splashed across his sweatshirt but will not allow a speck of dirt on his glasses. They’re cleaned. He’s dressed. Two down.
The twins. Ha Ha! Dressing them is difficult to describe in words. I’ll try.
“No!”
“Stop!”
“Just lie still for one second, PLEASE!”
“Look! A toy!”
“I just have to do the buttons up now!”
“Please come back!”
“Don’t eat that!”
“Where’s your sister?”
“What are you doing in there?”
“You have no nappy on! Come back!”
“Fine! Go without tights! I don’t care!”
This continues until they’re both dressed, I’m sweating and the lads have managed to get filthy by now. Ah, well, into the car with us. That’s easy, right?
The Load In
Getting four kids into any car is difficult. Even something purpose-built for exactly this task, like my Volkswagen Touran, needs military precision concerning who sits where, what order they’re seated in and who has what in their hand. Remember that scene in The Office, where they go on a training day and David Brent breaks out the guitar? Rowan, the trainer, gives them a problem to solve. A farmer, a fox, a chicken and some grain all on a boat crossing a river. It’s like that.
Put Sam beside one of the twins and my next outing will be to get him new glasses. Put one of the twins in a different row to the other and hearts break and tears flow. Bring both twins outside to get into the car at the same time and one will run off down the road.
Leave one of the twins inside alone, while the other one is loaded in and there will be tears beyond belief. Once you do get them in, they each have specific and varied demands as to what they need in their hands for the immense, 15-minute journey: Match Attax, Horrid Henry Books, Peppa Pig figurines and a doll were the items of choice today.
Finally, all in.
All items in hand. All straps on. Nope. One of the twins has her shoulders out of hers. My belt off, hand brake on, back around to her door, straps back on, tighter this time, knock the doll onto the driveway. Now, that’s wet. Tears.
Car off. Back inside. Alarm off. Find replacement doll. Lock up. Alarm back on. Belt on. Plonk doll in lap. Not the right replacement. Utter disgust at my choice. More tears. Seat belt back off. Back inside. Correct doll is under sofa. Find it. All ok. Let’s go. Reverse two feet.
“Daddy, I’m bursting.”
Sweet mother of…ok! Car off. Belt off. Boot open. 4yo out. Alarm off. Wee wee. Wash hands. Lock up. Alarm on. 4yo wrestled back into seat. Straps on. My belt on. Let’s go.
Music Choices
I am a DJ. I choose music for the nation every day. I think I do a good job. Not too many complaints anyway (save for some of my Cheese choices). Our destination is only 15 minutes away. Lash on Today FM and away we go. Cool, right?
Nope.
There is someone talking, God forbid! “Daddy! Mooozik!”, comes the cry from one of the twins. Sam shouts, “Yeah! The Trolls song!” Andrew’s not happy. His father’s son, he wants metal. “Slipknot, Dad. The Grey Chapter.” A quick straw poll with democratic rules means Sam’s choice wins out. That means Spotify. That means pulling over before we’re even out of the estate, opening the app, making sure the Bluetooth connection is working, searching for Justin Timberlake, finding Can’t Stop The Feeling and hitting play.
Three minutes later, the song is over and Spotify chooses to continue the entertainment with some “recommended for you based on previous choices” songs. Some immensely loud screamcore metal blasts at an inconceivably high volume.
Andrew is delighted. Nina is crying. Anna is laughing at Andrew’s moshing. Sam has dropped his glasses and can’t reach them. He is now crying too.
While stopped at traffic lights, I manage to hit a Playlist I’ve created that zips from One Direction to The Wheels On The Bus to Taylor Swift and we make it to the shops to get candles and a lamp.
I would go into detail about what it was like in the shops, Anna losing her doll, me losing Nina, Sam going to the staff toilets because four-year-olds need to urinate 573 times a day but that’s another article waiting to be written.
Did I get stressed out? Actually, not too much.
I’m not some Zen Master of Calm but this is my life. I’ve no choice. I can’t ignore that we’ve got four kids and, at the weekend, I need to do more heavy lifting so that Tracy can catch a break. Monday rolls around and I get to head out the door and leave her with that madness, solo, until my work, meetings and commute are done and I step back in the door. How she doesn’t crack, I will never understand.
Maybe she sees it the same way. We made these miniature humans. Nobody forced us to. We wouldn’t change a thing and, as mad as it is now, in a few decades, I look forward to pulling similar tantrums and creating similar chaos when they try to load old me into a car to go for Sunday lunch.
Sure, they’ll be grand. There are four of them to spread the load!
I am David Zachary John Moore. I am married to Tracy (who used to be Velcro Girl on 2Phat). We have four kids. We have a dog called Lorna, a lurcher we rescued in 2005. She can leap a 9-foot wall in one go. I am tired.
