Becoming a parent is an odd experience.

Children never seem that interesting before you have them. In fact they seem down right boring. Once they’re happening to you, though, each new advance they make is astounding, like your arm dropping off and starting to talk to you.

They are the most impressive conjuring trick the universe has to offer. You’re there for the whole thing, looking behind every curtain, peering up every sleeve, but you still don’t have a clue how the astonishing trick was done. Where did they come from? How did they happen? Of course people without kids roll their eyes, your amazement is deeply boring, but you can’t help it.

And now your offspring does something more amazing and wonderful than anything that he’s done before.

He makes up a joke.

Not a rubbish joke, either. An actual funny joke. There are people who go their whole lives without doing that. Mostly politicians.

My son likes saying “No”. We call him “Dr. No”. On long car journeys he loudly practices his “No”s, like an ambitious actor rehearsing for a very small part. When he’s in a grump, he unleashes his “No”s, and we have a “No” war. He says “No”, to anything, doesn’t matter what, and in response, I say “Yes”.

It goes like this. No. Yes. Nooo! Yeees. Noooooo! Yeeeees. Nooooooooo! etc. You get the picture. The more drawn out and Pantomime Dame my “Yes” gets, the more annoyed he gets. Eventually he gives up, enraged, and I win on a technicality. Not text book parenting perhaps, but fun.

The other day, in the midst of a long “No” war, as his “No”s reached an angry crescendo, after my “Yes”, his face suddenly changed. He smirked, and without missing a beat, he put his finger in the middle of his face and said “Nose.”

We both laughed and laughed. Still makes me chuckle.

Three years ago, there was nothing. Now, there’s someone who’s funnier than I am.

How the heck did that happen?

We organise the world quite badly. No one should attempt to go on a family weekend break on a bank holiday. But almost everyone has too. And make the best of it. The Dad’s role in turning this bank holiday hell into golden holiday memories is largely unsung, though.

His first job is to get the family to the well known forest holiday resort. The satnav gets them as far as a river ford or “Road Closed” sign then gives up, worn out by the relentless traffic. The Dad, without a clue of their current location or recourse to a map, valiantly gets them stuck in a town made mostly of road works. The family does not fully appreciate his efforts.

When they finally arrive, irritable and exhausted, the Dad’s first role is that of pack animal. He doesn’t know what’s in most of the huge bags that he has to lug from the car to the cabin, but they must be important to be so heavy.

The Dad then finally relaxes by pounding up and down a swimming pool for several hours with one or more largely unimpressed/whining children clinging to his shoulders. When the wave machine is turned on the Dad tries desperately to look happy and care free as he battles to avoid drowning beneath his laughing children.

Later, in a scene reminiscent of the film Jaws, the entire pool is cleared by a tiny, spherical brown floater. The Dad is sure it probably wasn’t produced by his child.

Apart from clearing swimming pools, other common Dad holiday jobs include bicycle maintenance, breaking up fights, nappy changing and being vomited on. He should pack several pairs of trousers for this purpose.

The Dad, tired out by all the relaxing he’s been doing, gets a bit tiddly on the last night. He spends the dreaded checkout morning sweatily reprising his pack animal role, this time against the clock. With seconds to spare the family flee the scene like reverse burglars, leaving, among many other precious things, a cuddly toy vital to everyone’s happiness.

Amazingly, the family’s had a lovely time. But most amazingly, the one who’s had the best time of all, is the Dad.

We’re all on a journey.

Our journey has certain staging posts. Learning to walk. Learning to swim. Learning to ride a bike.

Our first kiss, first broken bone, first alcohol vomit. Finding love. Losing love. Finding love again. Getting married. They’re like the rungs of our life.

Some of us try to resist this natural progression and stay at one stage or other, but if you do, quite soon you become ridiculous. You’ll find yourself in a night club were everyone is younger than you. You’ll start growing a mullet, wearing shirts tucked into your jeans and hosting motoring programmes.

To be happy we must accept change gracefully and with good humour.

Sometimes, though, change in our lives is so unexpected, so profound, so jarring, that it’s almost impossible not to be scared.

We used to look at people and be baffled. “Why would you want one of those?” We wanted to ask them. “Lose your freedom, your hopes, your dreams?”

If you have one, then basically your life is over, there’s nowhere left to go. And if you do manage to go anywhere, you’ll be going there very, very slowly, and carrying your own toilet.

Yes. We bought a caravan.

Today I was up a ladder, fitting a new skylight to our twenty five year old, ebay bought, four birth, almost mould free, “Swift-Rapide”. Or “Quick-Quick”, possibly the most ironically named thing in history. Our caravan’s rear end must have, for two and a half decades, made countless thousands of motorists chew their steering wheels in frustration, and hopefully will countless more.

“She’s a beauty.” I think proudly as I look at her. She is certainly not a beauty. But she’s ours. I may give her a name. I may also buy a captain’s hat.

So how did this happen? How can I adapt so quickly to something so awful? The answer is simple.

Any amount of un-coolness, slowness, humiliation and chemical toilet emptying is far, far preferable to the sheer hell of camping. With two young children. In a tent.

“Bibbet.” My son says.

“No”. I say.

“Bibbet!” He shouts, ignoring me.

I’m not going to give him a biscuit, no matter what. I have to take a stand. No biscuit before diner. I am a rock.

After berating me for several minutes he trudges off grumpily to jump up and down on the furniture. He hoots with laughter at my authority voice. As I come to physically remove him, he falls off the chair and nose dives into his fire engine.

After a few minutes of soothing it becomes clear that he’s developing a black eye. Of all minor toddler injuries, the black eye is the most uncomfortable for parents. The silent judgement of strangers is guaranteed.

Luckily for judgemental strangers, we have to go to the shops.

On the way he unleashes a spiderman-sunglasses melt down. They were a mistake. He wants to wear them all the time, including in the bath, but they keep falling off, which drives him crazy. They fall into the foot well.

I wrestle my son out of the car screaming. A passing lady with a baby sees me in my dusty work dungarees, then sees my son’s black eye, and looks at me as if she’s about to phone the police. I try to calm him down by helping him put his sunglasses back on, then I realise that it looks as if I’m trying to hide his eye. The lady almost walks into a trolley bay.

Unfortunately my son’s melt down has gone beyond sunglasses. He attempts to convince the entire shop, at the top of his voice, that I’ve kidnapped him. He’s very convincing. I start to believe it.

Five minutes later I’m broken. “Do you want your sunglasses?” I ask

“No!” He wails.

“What then?”

Finally, between sobs, he whispers “Bibbet.”

Without a moments hesitation I do something I’ve never done before. I open a packet before getting to the checkout.

“Thank you, daddy.” My son says as he munches his biscuit. He’s very good with his thank yous.

I was never very good at being bad. As a child, for example, I once tried to flick my brother’s bottom with a big elastic band stretched to maximum. At the last moment the excitement somehow made me let go of the wrong end of it and I managed to flick myself instead. I can still hear her my brother’s laughter.

This is how I know there is balance in the universe. When you do a bad thing, it will rebound on you. Well, it will if you’re me, anyway.

I work pretty hard to help my son sleep, but quite often my efforts are rubbish. Last night, for instance, my improvised bed time story was so slow, dull and confusing my son kept looking up at me worriedly as if he was afraid I was having a stroke.

Truth is my mind was elsewhere. As a result of my notorious cheapness I had bid on a used tuxedo on ebay. Obsessing about whether someone had topped my five pounds yet, I sneakily checked my phone.

Not surprisingly my son caught me. I don’t know which of us was more appalled by what I had done. I quickly fumbled my phone into my shirt pocket and livened up the story with a boost of guilt energy. “Now, where were we… err, then… we bought a space rocket!”

Later I grumped around the house performing my nightly bedtime ritual of trying to find my phone. Finally my wife rang it for me, rolling her eyes. “Where is that?” I asked, baffled at the distant tinkling.

We realised it was coming from the monitor.

After five minutes creeping around my son’s room wearing a head torch, the floor boards screeching at me agonisingly, I still couldn’t find it. “Ring it again.” I hissed.

Turns out it was in his cot, ringing inches from his ear. I thanked god he’s a heavy sleeper. Slowly, breathlessly, I reached in and eased it out.

Just as I thought I might get away with it, my son’s eyes flicked open.

Balance restored.

Easter. I’m not sure what it all means.

Of course it’s an important religious commemoration, parts of which may seem a little odd in today’s world. Maundy Thursday, for instance, is literally the day for the “washing of feet”. Once a year seems a little anti-social, but it was different times.

There’s also lots of ancient, pagany traditions. New life, rebirth, spring, renewal and regeneration. Easter Sunday is calculated from the cycle of the moon, a nod to an ancient pagan moon deity.

Strange then that our modern society boils down all the religious tradition and wisdom, all the ancient cultural symbolism and poetry, all the philosophical resonances from deep in our pre-history, into four words.

Eat loads of chocolate.

This is a particular problem for me given that I am, as I have mentioned before, a weird, hypocritical, obsessive, fanatical anti-sweets and chocolate extremist.

Luckily my wife is around to keep me from ruining everyone’s fun completely.

This year we decided to create an Easter egg hunt for our son and a few of his friends. An Easter egg hunt without any actual Easter eggs? I had a plan.

I spent several unpleasantly early hours hiding a huge number of plastic eggs, in the grass, hanging from trees, balanced on mole hills with daffodils stuck in them. Some of the eggs would have special treats in them. Treats like little boxes of raisins.

Instead of chocolate there were special prizes for those who could collect the most empty plastic eggs, and for the one who could find a golden egg. Also plastic. And empty. I was very happy with my work. My visiting niece angrily accused me of trying of torture children.

My son and his friends descended on the egg hunt like a horde of locust detectives. Within minutes they had picked the area clean. I felt like a failure.

It turns out, luckily, that my wife had replaced some of the raisin boxes in the plastic eggs. The kids sat around happily for the really important part of the egg hunt.

Eating chocolate.

I believe in respecting your elders. Especially now I’m getting a bit older. Instilling my son with it is one of my primary goals as a parent.

This made it particularly embarrassing when my son started calling my father in law by his first name.

To avoid this problem my wife and I have always been careful to call each other Mummy and Daddy, however weird it gets. Even when we argue, which gives disagreements a somewhat surreal edge.

“Why does Daddy always forget to put the cheese away? He knows that it goes dry and horrible” Mummy says. Our children look at me, waiting for the answer.

“Daddy is very sorry for being silly and not putting the cheese away, although Mummy saying ‘always’ seems like a slight exaggeration. But thank you Mummy for always helping Daddy remember when he’s being an idiot.”

Sometimes we even call each other mummy and daddy when the kids have gone to bed. We can’t help it. It’s as if we have to fully inhabit our roles for them to be convincing. I have to glance around furtively before addressing my wife like a normal adult.

To tackle my son’s inappropriate familiarity toward his Grandpa I suggested we all make a special effort to call Grandpa “Grandpa”.

It’s strange calling my father in law Grandpa. Ironically it makes me feel as if I’m a naughty boy being cheeky about his age, but we all have to go through with it. Luckily, within a couple of grandparent visits, my son is cured. I breath a sigh of relief.

Then my wife, in a bit of a mood, shouts my first name up the stairs.

“What are you doing?” I hiss. “Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry. It was a mistake. Like you never make mistakes. Our son called me ‘honey’ for three months.”

I can’t pretend that didn’t happen. Or that it wasn’t my fault.

Then my son strides into the room, shouting my first name like he’s my Dad and I’ve been a naughty boy.

Turns out my toddler son and baby daughter are rubbish at getting mother’s day gifts.

They had plenty of time to plan it, but somehow they still managed to balls it up.

To be honest I can understand the difficulties of present buying. If, for example, you’ve been with your partner for several years, is a card enough on valentines day? Should you get them chocolates? Flowers? A romantic diner? What’s appropriate? Gift etiquette is a confusing minefield.

My son and daughter really should have known better on mother’s day though.

They could have asked me to get something when I went to the shop for ketchup the day before. My son even came with me but he was too busy trying to break the portable bar code reader to get his Mum a thoughtful gift. Maybe he forgot about it, despite the huge mother’s day banners in the super market. Or maybe he decided that the card with the splodgey foot print butterfly on it that he and his daddy had made would be enough. What ever the case, we left with nothing for poor, long suffering Mum.

We even forgot the ketchup.

Maybe my son and daughter started to seriously doubt their decision not to get their Mum anything when, on mother’s day morning, their Mum gave their Grandma not one, but two bunches of flowers, a card, a box of chocolates and a bottle of bubbly. Perhaps at that moment they really started sweating. They didn’t seem worried at all though. They seemed entirely relaxed about it.

In the end Daddy had to step in and save the day. Late mother’s day afternoon he panicked a little and excused him self on the flimsy pretext of going to the shop for ketchup. He got some panic chocolates, panic flowers, panic magazines, and put it all in a nice panic gift bag, along with a bottle of ketchup with a panic bow on it.

I think I saved my children’s skins. Just. But they really need to work on their gift buying skills for next year.

I can’t remember when I last had a day off.

That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had one, I just can’t remember it. Or much else since my son was born. It’s long been recognised that parenthood is a brain degenerating condition.

I’m sure before I was a parent I spent whole days lounging around in pyjamas watching TV. Not any more.

I know people complain about the whole Frozen phenomena. Poor, bedraggled parents mercilessly strong armed by their children into buying ridiculously over priced merchandise. But there are upsides.

There is now such a thing as a daytime sing-a-long screening. My wife left it up to me whether I went or not. God I love her. In truth I was sorely tempted, I’m quite partial to a sing-a-long, but on the other hand, I could stay at home. Alone. On my own.

I laid my plans carefully. I would only get one shot at this. Wearing pyjamas and dressing gown I lovingly constructed a gigantic sandwich containing both breakfast and lunch foods, to cover both meals. I pulled the comfy chair out into the middle of the room, close to the TV, and in the surround sound sweet spot. Testing confirmed that it was good.

I placed a row of drinks (tea, water, squash) beside the chair. Why not? Who’s going to knock them over? I went to the secret place and took out the DVD I’d been keeping in reserve. A DVD I could never in a million years watch with my wife. A sci-fi action adventure starring Vin Diesel. I held it up. My hand was shaking. I had dreamed so long of this moment.

While Anna and Elsa were forging a new relationship, Vin Diesel was punching an alien lizard’s face off. It was… bliss.

Then the film ended. The house was quiet. Too quiet. I felt a bit sick because of the gigantic sandwich. A bit sick, and a bit lonely.

When my family got home I nearly cried.

Parenthood has broken me. In a good way. Sort of.

Who wants a day off anyway.

I don’t usually give advice.

Sometimes, though, advice can save others from a horrible, traumatising experience.

Turns out there’s something in the ceiling of all toy superstores shooting out rays of pure evil that turn toddlers into raving psychopaths. That’s my theory anyway. Certainly my son’s behaviour had nothing to do with anything I did. Probably.

He started pointing and “wow”ing as we went down an aisle of exciting looking scooters. “I know what I’ll do” I thought, “I’ll let him have a go on one of the scooters, he’ll like that.”

He did like it. A lot. I pushed him up and down the aisle. His grin was huge. Then I put the scooter back on the shelf.

For some reason this made him very angry.

My solution was to entice him into the next aisle with a cool looking ride on car. I pushed him up and down on it and if anything he liked it more than the scooter. Then I put the car back on the shelf.

This is when the rays of evil from the ceiling really started to kick in. My son went stark raving bonkers. I panicked. I decided, in the moment, to entice him away from the ride on car with a ride on aeroplane. He loved it more than both the others put together.

I realised I didn’t know what to do next. This situation may be about to spiral out of control. I looked around for Mummy. She was nowhere to be seen.

I put the aeroplane back on the shelf.

You don’t often see people really hurl themselves to the ground in rage. Even a stunt man flinches a little before they hit the floor. Not my son though. He belly flopped onto the shop tiles, skidded several feet, and began bellowing like a velociraptor with a stubbed toe.

As I carried him out, writhing and screeching, even the shop staff looking judgemental, I reflected on the lessons to be learned.

Never, ever take your toddler into a toy superstore. Especially if you’re an idiot.