I was going to be the best parent in the world. Ever.

Not a small boast, I know, but for some reason, somehow, a part of my brain really believed it. My children were going to be uniquely amazing, polite, kind, high achieving, philanthropic geniuses, sort of like iron man but more humble, entirely because of the amazing way I was going to bring them up.

It’s hilarious now. Not just thinking I could be some sort of super parent. It’s hilarious that I thought my amateur tutoring would make any significant difference in my child’s development.

My son learns what he wants to learn, and he seems to learn in spite of me rather than because of me. His vocabulary is starting to grow at an impressive rate, but I can’t remember drilling into him a lot of the words he comes out with.

“Cheese.” My son demands, with the kind of tone you’d use bursting into a bookies with a sawn off shotgun. “Cheese!”. He shouts. We haven’t been reading any books about the adventures of cheese. Nor is cheese in our book of one hundred words. But he learnt it anyway. Presumably so he could demand cheese.

“Would you like some cheese, son?” I ask, trying to restore a little decorum. “All right.” He says, and sticks his hand out. He doesn’t say “Yes thank you.”. He says “All right.”, like he’s doing us a favour. It’s quite disconcerting.

“Bye bye dear.” He says disconcertingly as he wonders off, cheese in hand. His Grandma can take credit for that one.

Turns out learning, like everything else in parenting, doesn’t happen the way you expect it to. My son, yet to become the uniquely amazing, polite, kind, high achieving, philanthropic genius I was planning to turn him into, came with me to a well known DIY superstore.

“Oi! No!” He shouted at a passing woman in the paint aisle. She almost collapsed with fright. I apologised profusely.

Embarrassingly, I did teach my son that phrase. Just not on purpose.

There’s a power struggle going on in our house, and the stakes are high.

We would like our son to do certain things. Our son doesn’t want to do these things.

If my son ran his own life Pepper Pig and Waybuloo would be on a continuous loop. Every twelve hours or so he would pass out in a pile of toys, half eaten biscuits and cake. He would never bathe unless he felt like it and absolutely never brush his teeth. Once a week we would cut his clothes off him while he slept and replace them so he could move again when he woke up. He would be in heaven.

Unfortunately, we can’t let this happen. Easier said than done, though, and the repercussions of fighting him, it turns out, can be terrifying.

He doesn’t like vegetables. I want him to eat vegetables. I put a piece of lovely roasted pepper on top of his fish cake. He wasn’t happy about this so he gave it back to me. I put it back. He gave it back to me again with a firm “No”.

I probably should have left it there. But I didn’t. I put the piece of roasted pepper on top of his fish cake. Again.

This was clearly the worst thing anyone has ever done. Ever. My son threw his head back to roar his disapproval at me. Unfortunately, in his outrage, he had forgotten that he still had a mouthful of fish cake. It lodged in his throat.

It’s hard to describe what happened next. We fumbled with his chair straps, then I tipped him forward and started slapping his back, trying desperately to remember my St. John’s Ambulance course. His choking probably only lasted for ten seconds, but it was long enough to make me think that what I was doing might not work.

Then it worked. Thank God. He coughed up the fish cake.

Basically, my son was prepared to risk everything to avoid a piece of roast pepper.

Bold move, son. You win this round.

True heroes can remain calm, even in truly terrible predicaments. Winston Churchill. Joan of Arc. Postman Pat. All with nerves of steel.

I am not one of those people.

When something terrifying happens it’s usually a surprise. No one goes up a ladder expecting to end up in A and E. No one takes a team of paramedics with them to the ice rink. No one goes on a hen night expecting to see a video of themselves on youtube the next day dancing on a table and flashing their boobs. Some things are simply unforeseeable.

I bathe my toddler son and baby daughter together. Nothing particularly frightening about that. It saves time and the gas bill and they both love it. Lovely.

Last night I thought I’d leave my daughter in her reclining bath chair a bit longer than usual. She hates getting out, and her screams of rage reverberating in a small bathroom are no one’s idea of fun.

As my daughter frog-kicked, I happily lathered up my son’s hair.

Suddenly, as the bubbles cleared, I noticed something in the water.

It lay on the bottom like a fat, coffee coloured sea cucumber, slowly undulating in the currents. Then I saw other blobs and threads of light-brown goo floating about. Then I saw the long, cappuccino coloured thing still snaking from my daughters bottom, spreading, almost alive.

I went tingly all over. Time seemed to slow down.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.” I heard myself whisper, my daughter gazing up at me innocently, her legs stirring the soup.

“I don’t know what to do.” I chanted, paralysed with horror, my son happily pouring gelatinous brown water through his play waterwheel. I may have screamed.

“Pull the plug.” My wife ordered, snapping me out of it.

Half an hour of panic ensued. I got soaked. Almost everyone cried.

Later, when I had regained my composure, my wife asked “I wonder if that’s the first time she’s done that?”

Again I was frozen with horror.

Parenthood is always introducing you to new experiences.

This morning, for instance, my son gave me something I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen a raisin. I’ve seen a grape. But I’ve never seen a grape that’s half way to becoming a raisin.

If you’re a parent you’ve probably seen one. It’s the kind of thing that your child brings you when you’ve got visitors. The grandparents, or judgemental friends, or the health visitor, say.

“Ooo, what have you got there?” You ask your son. Stupidly you hold it up for everyone to see. “Oh, I think it’s a grape. It’s, sort of, half way between a grape and and a raisin.”

You can see your visitors trying to estimate how long it takes for a grape to turn halfway into a raisin, because that’s obviously how long its been since you cleaned underneath the armchair. They’re trying to hide how much they are internally judging you. Good job they weren’t here last week when your son brought you something that looked like an Egyptian mummy’s finger. Turned out to be a carrot.

You’re desperately trying to think of what to say to your visitors about the grape-raisin. “Never seen one of those before.” You laugh stupidly. “It’s a grape-sin.”

Your son is starting to get annoyed now. He is making angry sounds and ‘gimme’ grab motions with his hands. You can feel your visitors coming to the conclusion that your son is used to being allowed to eat things that he has found on the floor. You want to deny that this has ever happened, but you can’t.

“It feels funny.” You say, rolling the grape-raisin in your fingers. Embarrassment is growing. “He loves raisins. And he loves grapes even more. It’s like his perfect food. A grape-sin.”

You can’t stop talking now.

“What’s most surprising, though,”, you add, wishing you could shut up, “is that he gave it to me at all. He would usually just pick it up and eat it.”

You make a mental note to hoover more.

When having an important meeting with a religious representative, whether it’s an Imam, Guru, Priest or Rabbi, the right thing to do is be friendly and polite. You should respect the millennia old wisdom and traditions from which the great religions have risen by not being overly controversial or jocular, and you definitely shouldn’t swear. But probably at the top of the list of things that you shouldn’t do while a priest is telling you an anecdote, is a really, really long, really loud fart.

No one tells you how much babies fart. I thought ageing dogs were bad, but my son went through a windy period when he practically invented a new language with his bottom.

Our local priest’s composure under fire from my son’s bottom was astonishing. The priest was talking. We listened. I was genuinely interested. My son was on my wife’s knee.

It began like distant thunder, then it revved up and took off. For a moment I thought a world war two aircraft was passing overhead. Everyone but the Priest looked at our son, eyes wide. We waited for the fart to stop, but it didn’t. It just kept on going, our son grinning happily, his bottom buzzing away like an angry bee in a kettle drum.

And the priest kept talking as if nothing was happening. We looked at our son, his bottom still vibrating. We looked at the Priest. He was still talking. The fart stopped, but only for a moment. It started again, stuttering and parping, made a sort of wolf whistle, then thinned to a plaintive squeak before finally coming to rest.

“Sorry.” I half said, gagging with laughter. The priest ignored me completely and simply continued on for another minute or so with his story, smiling and gesticulating, before shaking our hands warmly, admiring our son, tickling him under the chin, and politely taking his leave of us.

We were stunned.

There was only one possible explanation. Holy men must be trained to ignore farting babies.

Make an appointment with your local holy man. Take your farty child. See for yourself. It’s amazing.