I’m not crazy. I’m really not. No, really, I’m not. But… I’m starting to think my daughter has an evil plan to take over the world, and her first step is to drive me crazy.

At four in the morning she explodes for no apparent reason. A sort of spontaneous human combustion, except instead of fire, there’s noise. I try to comfort her through the bars, gently stroke her head and make gentle sshing noises. This enormously increases her rage.

Her brother, who can normally sleep through any amount of his sister’s distress, wakes up and tells her to be quiet. This sends her rage ratcheting up another couple of notches. Finally I take her to the spare room and cuddle her to sleep.

This doesn’t work. At all. It’s like trying to cuddle to sleep a small wild bore with it’s bum on fire. Eventually she starts to wind down. I fall asleep. For a moment. Then immediately she wakes me up again by shouting in my ear. This happens again. And again. And again. And again.

Hours pass. I’m sure this sort of mental torture must be banned by international law. The night wouldn’t be that much worse if I was standing on a bucket with electrodes attached to my genitals. As dawn rises I’m ready to confess to any crime.

Finally, finally, she passes out from exhaustion. Driving her father insane is tiring. I carefully, wearily carry her back to her room, largely to make sure she can’t shout me awake again. I place her carefully back in her cot. Safely back behind bars. Bless you, bars. Bless you. I go back to the spare bed and drift off.

Some time later I’m awoken by a tiny nun.

“Hello.” I say blearily to the tiny nun.

“Hello Daddy.” The tiny nun grins happily. My daughter has found one of her mother’s tops and put the sleeve over her head so that just her face pokes out. There’s something else, though. Something… stranger.

My wife has a certain smile that she reserves just for me. It says “Ah, bless. You probably believe what you’re saying, don’t you? But then you are a complete idiot. I mean, properly, an industrial scale moron. For some insane reason I love you anyway. If you weren’t such an idiot you’d realise how lucky you are. Idiot.”

That’s the look she gives me when I tell her that our daughter climbed out over the bars of her cot last night and dressed herself as a nun. “Maybe you dreamt it?” She chuckles.

“You’ll see.” I say.

The next night my daughter does not climb out of her cot. Nor the next. A week passes. No cot escapes. She’s truly a formidable adversary. Patient, calculating, determined. Mummy thinks my mental collapse is highly amusing.

Gone on, Mummy. Laugh. When they cart me away, you’re next.

My daughter can be a bit scary. She’s loud, stubborn and unreasonable. (Any similarity to my wife is purely coincidental). Parents need to be able to look on the bright side, though. We have now had two woman Prime Ministers. Both a bit scary. Pity that statistically it seems a woman has to be scary to achieve high office in our country, but at least it shows my daughter could utilise her personality to her advantage.

Another bright side is that my daughter has another side to her personality. A rather different side. She is also a cat.

“Meow.” My daughter says to me when she opens her eyes in the morning. Sometimes before she opens her eyes. I wonder whether, at some point in our family history, our human genes were somehow intermingled with feline genes. Challenges evolutionary theory, admittedly, but have you got a better explanation? Whatever the cause, turns out it’s a very good thing. She’s a lot nicer when she’s being a cat. I admit, I don’t discourage it.

“What a beautiful cat.” I say. “What lovely soft fur.” She loves being stroked. She sticks her tongue out a little as if she’s panting, a little pet confusion there, she’s keen on dogs too. “Ah. Lovely cat.”

When she’s deep in character, she likes to go around on all fours and eat from your hand, which can complicate diner. Drinking can also be messy. But it’s all worth it, because the cat never gets angry, never shouts, never demands. Her meow might get a bit louder, but that’s it.

Back in human mode, my daughter is having a typical melt down. About ice cream. In the street. Within moments she’s screeching and hurling herself to the ground. Passers by try very hard not to look at us.

Then I have a crazy idea.

“What a beautiful cat.” I say.

Suddenly the screeching stops. She gazes at me oddly, then she sticks her tongue out slightly and says. “Meow.”

“Oh, what a beautiful cat.” I say, amazed my idea worked. “What beautiful fur you have. Can I stroke your beautiful fur?”

“Yeees.” She says in her squeaky cat voice. Crisis over. I am amazing.

I know. This may be… questionable parenting. If she somehow became stuck in her cat identity, then I would have some explaining to do. On the other hand though, wouldn’t it be nice if, when my daughter becomes Prime Minister, instead of being scary on the news, she occasionally just sticks her tongue out a little and says, “Meow.”

You’d have to be completely insane to become a parent.

When I was single and childless, I hated getting stomach bugs. It was awful. Horrendous. Back in those halcyon days I had no idea how much worse things could get.

I couldn’t have imagined in a million years how anyone could cope with being ill, and at the same time look after a small child who was also ill.

When I became parent of a small boy, family illness was horrendous. Literally hell. I couldn’t imagine how it could ever be possible to survive an illness with two small children being sick everywhere. Impossible. Inconceivable.

I suppose subconsciously I assumed that if me and my two small children ever did start simultaneously barfing, an alarm would go off somewhere in the NHS and someone would just come and take over. My door bell would ring and there would be the Vom Squad. They would mop my brow and give me fruit tea and shoulder rubs and put the washing on, and they’d take my children away to a secure, regularly cleaned emergency NHS softplay somewhere until I was feeling better. I’d thank them profusely and make them mugs of tea and say how wonderful the NHS is.

Turns out this was not a realistic hope. These days you’re lucky to get attention from the NHS if you wonder into an A and E with your arm hanging off. There probably isn’t the money for home help squads for Dads with dodgy tummies.

I don’t know what time it is. I’ve been awake since four AM when my son emerged from his room covered in sick. The hours since then have been like a scifi horror film. Slowly every member of our family has fallen prey to the bug, each spending time with their head down the toilet.

Small children have the amazing ability to recover instantly after throwing up. I have not. I want to die.

Then something miraculous happens. My two year old daughter comes to me as I wretch, puts an arm around me, rubs my shoulder and asks me if I’m all right. Oddly, magically, this makes me feel all right. In fact, it makes everything all right. Which is, clearly, completely insane.

It’s hard to read faces. Thanks to my kids, and my incompetence, though, I get plenty of looks to practice with.

There’s the obvious ones. There’s the supermarket look that says, “can you control your children, please?”

“Yes.” I say with my face. “Of course I can control my kids. I’m just a relaxed Dad. Isn’t that right kids? Kids? Oh God, where’d they go?”

There’s the park look. It’s a mixture of pity and annoyance. “Your daughter has just stolen my child’s drink/ banana/ ice cream. Are you feeding them properly?”

“I’m so sorry.” I say. “Yes, I feed them.” My face says. “Constantly. They’re like animals. Your child’s lucky they’ve still got all their fingers.”

There was the look that a Mum gave me at the play group. It was a cold, chilling look. Angry, sorrowful, disappointed. My heart sank. What’s my daughter done now? The last hour flashed before me. I had given each of my children a pistachio-cream filled pastry to keep them in line on the way to play group. (See previous articles to get a handle on the unbelievable levels of food hypocrisy I’m displaying there).

Turns out it was a “You’re daughter has just vomited green sick all over the doll’s bed my child was playing with” look. Not a good look.

“Yeah.” My face replies. “Makes sense.”

Then there was the animal-park look. That was a difficult one to interpret. In fact, it was two looks. Two Mum’s are with my daughter, looking around for a responsible parent. I wave. They approach me. They look worried, confused, baffled, slightly ashen. A little… lost. Oh my God. What could my daughter possibly have done to put that look on the faces of two grown women?

I rewind. As normal, my daughter had been driving me crazy trying to escape. I was spending my time chasing her around. Then, amazingly, she had settled down by the fluffy rabbit enclosure. I took the chance to back off, sit down and relax a little.

Oh dear Lord. Please no. She hasn’t… not a rabbit. I try to see if there’s blood and fur on her hands.

“She was drinking from the rabbit’s water bottle.” They say. “We thought we’d better…” They trail off. They seem confused by my reaction. May face is saying “Oh, thank God!”.

I have achieved Nirvana.

I’m in a sweltering jungle under an immense plastic dome. My T-shirt is soaked humiliatingly to me, dark bat-wings of sweat under each moob. I’m exhausted. My back aches agonizingly. My incredibly heavy son is sitting on my shoulders. He is eating strawberry jelly from a plastic cup and dropping most of it into my hair. I can feel it melting and sticking my hair together into sugary clumps. I am blissfully happy. Let me explain.

It turns out a pleasant family campsite in Cornwall in august can be a horrifying place. I booked it, so the monsoon-like august weather, a new meteorological phenomena apparently, is my fault. The mould covered tent really is my fault. I packed it away wet last time, and didn’t dry it out, despite my wife’s reminders. It is covered in foul smelling mould. We are hardly speaking now. She fantasises about punching me in the gentleman area.

At night it rains so hard it sounds like I’ve pitched us under a waterfall. We can’t sleep. So the next day we are all horrendously grumpy. I sit outside avoiding low punches, watching all the other miserable family men sitting outside their tents, batting away the amazing rain dodging wasps who somehow still find me.

It’s too wet to go cycling, or walking, or to the beach. We can’t stay in the tent because it’s covered in mould. I need to pull something out of the hat.

“Let’s go to The Eden Project.” I say brightly.

“Won’t everybody have the same idea?” My wife asks. I scoff.

Literally everybody has had the same idea. The whole place is one endless queue. I want to cry. I will not survive this.

Our children, grumpy, damp and tired, decide this is the moment to unleash ravening, psychotic meltdown hell upon us. Out of rage my son hurls himself onto the anti-slip paving which has the ironic alternate function of tearing open kids knees. He has a morbid fear of plasters. Blood flows down his leg, mingling with the rain. His screams are the loudest noise ever created. Take me now Lord.

Wife and daughter have had their fill of me. They abandon us. My son demands medication, but the ice cream queue is twelve miles long. I grimace, fighting back tears of dispair.

Then I see it. A tiny kiosk selling plastic cups of jelly. Top tip: it’s in the biome concourse under the walkway. Their’s no queue. Ever. Who wants a plastic cup full of jelly? Thank you God. Thank you.

“I think I dropped some more jelly, Daddy.” My son tells me.

“Did it land on my head?”

“Yes. But don’t worry. There’s plenty left.”

“Good.” I smile.

Happy son. Happy Daddy. Nirvana.

Being a Dad unleashes some powerful emotions.

At a friend’s Barbecue my son finds a light sabre. It makes shwing-shwing sounds. Not just in my head. It’s not even me making them. It actually makes the noises itself. It’s incredible. Star Wars blew my young mind many years ago. For a long time I was obsessed. I dreamt one day of owning a real lightsaber.

Now I watch my son. He’s dressed in a grey hoodie, not unlike the cloak of a young padawan. He cleaves the air with the glowing, shwinging sword, legs wide, eyes wide, lost in his imagination. He is me. I am him. My mind is blown. Again.

“Where’s our daughter?” My wife asks me. A while a go she asked me to take my turn watching our children. I realise I’ve been watching my son’s Jedi training for quite a long time.

I look around. I can’t see her. She’s not even two yet. How far could she have gone?

I hunt around the garden. I ask people. No one’s seen her. I go inside. She’s not in the kitchen, or the living room or anywhere else down stairs. I go up stairs. I search the bedrooms. She’s not there. I search the attic room. Not there either.

I forget about Star Wars. Some truly powerful parental emotions start to kick in. My heart’s thudding. My imagination starts creating terrifying possibilities. I search the house again.

Other party guests are getting involved now. My panic is infectious. I’m trying to hold my emotions in check as I search, but it’s like trying to stop a runaway train.

I go out onto the road, calling and trotting up and down. It’s a quiet street, but still there’s no sign of her. I would break the world in two at this moment for her to appear.

“Found her.” My wife calls. “She was upstairs.” I start breathing again, and as my emotions rev down I start to feel ridiculous.

“I looked upstairs.” I say. “Twice.”

My wife gives me a look. I smile, my lips trembling. The terrible visions dissolve like ghosts in the daylight, until the next time. My son is still battling imperial storm troopers.

Maybe I should have used the force.

I don’t makes excuses. Ever. Excuses just aren’t in my make up. But seriously, I was really, really tired when it happened. Just a fact.

The culprits are the kids. They’re energy vampires. They wear you down until you’re just a collection of facial expressions pretending to be a human. Sometimes you are so utterly exhausted and downtrodden by the little blighters that you can make life threatening errors.

“Do you know what day it is on Saturday?” My wife asks innocently. Innocent in that not at all innocent way. My mind is blank. It’s must be a big thing because she’s specifically reminding me to remember. It’s a cruel but effective strategy.

“Of course I know.” I lie, frantically trying to buy time. “The important question is, do you know.”

“Yes.” My wife smiles calmly. “I know, but do you?”

My brain is going berserk now trying to remember the important events in our lives, what month they happened, and what month it is now. “It’s…”. I’m out of time. I take a crazy, panicked guess. “…our wedding anniversary?”

“Yes!” My wife exclaims, surprised. My relief is over-whelming. I punch the air. Soon I relax again and forget this stressful incident.

I wake up Saturday morning. My wife kisses me and gives me an anniversary card. My blood freezes. I’ve forgotten. Again.

“I think I need to pop to the shops.” I say. My wife doesn’t seem too perturbed by this. Over the course of our marriage I have, cleverly, without intending to, lowered her expectations to somewhere near rock bottom. I’m relieved that she doesn’t seem too angry. Soon I relax again and forget this stressful incident.

We get the kids ready for our family day out. We go to the science museum. We have a lovely, happy, relaxed day.

Back home, my wife hugs me. “Have you noticed how relaxed I am even though I didn’t get an anniversary card or anything?” She says. She has the smile of the hungry tiger. My blood freezes. I’ve managed to forget again, again.

I dash to the late closing shops. I grab a card that says “To The Most Wonderful Wife in the World.”. She’ll have to be. I scoop up some chocolates and wine on the sprint. I race home, feverishly write the most heartfelt card I can muster and present it to my wife. Better late than never, I think.

When she reads the front of the card she starts laughing. This seems good. Then the laughter becomes hysterical. “To the most wonderful wife in the world,” She manages to read, “happy birthday!”

No excuses. It’s all the kid’s fault.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”. So said the great FDR, 32^nd president of the United States.

It may be hard to believe, but I have not always been the fearless, debonair, charismatic cross between James Bond, George Clooney and Professor Brian Cox that I am today, with my magnetic personality, devastating smile and sex appeal like the gravity well of a neutron star. Amazing, I know, but there was a time when I was a bit of a… nerd.

When I tried to talk to girls, I would either want to throw up or run away. Maybe both at the same time. Wasn’t until well into my teens that I started to finally overcome my shy-nerdism.

School discos were a terrifying trial by fire. Only other nerdy wall flowers will know my gargantuan internal struggles as I waited for my moment, a moment that most often never came.

Finally, after innumerable agonies, I mostly overcame my fear. In a way I’m glad that confidence was so hard to come by. It made me value it. And want to share it.

At the play group, after the story, all the kids gather for a dance while we all sing a song. My son, recently, has become a bit timid in these sorts of situations and tends to hang on to me. We watch the other kids bounce up and down to the song. This is my chance to give my son the gift of confidence.

“Go on son.” I say.

“No.” He says.

“Go on, go and dance.” I say. “Go and ask the little girl if you can dance with her.”

He gives me a worried look. I smile encouragingly. I’ve seen them hold hands before. “Go on son.” I give his shoulder a squeeze. I nearly quote FDR at him. He smiles back uncertainly. He trusts me. I swell with pride as he goes.

He finds the little girl. I see him ask her if he can dance with her. She replies. He looks at her, confused, then walks back to me.

“She said no.” He tells me, his lip quivering.

I feel his confusion and pain ten fold. I’m back at the school disco. I want to grab him and run away. Maybe throw up too. What I do is smile, stroke his head and say “Lets dance.”. We start jumping up and down together.

The only two things we have to fear are fear itself, and girls.

Oh god, the horror.

We’re frightened of all sorts of odd things. Ghosts. Spiders. Moths. I have a friend who’s terrified of birds. Strangely, though, one of our greatest fears is the idea of a mechanic having to work on our car when it’s messy.

I have one hour to clean the car for the MOT. Of course that’s only five minutes with small children around. I press the incompetent parent panic button. I put on a film. There will only be time for the first half. Their rage will be… epic.

The car interior looks like the safe house of a gang of hamster criminals. They’ve conducted a series of successful raids on biscuit factories and celebrated in epic style. Then it appears a gang of rodent squatters from the nearest rubbish dump moved in and had several legendary parties involving raisins, oatcakes, satsumas, bananas, Pom Bears and culminating in some sort of wet wipe explosion.

I clear a bin bag full of rubbish out of the car. I find toys, sippy cups, socks, shoes and at least one packed lunch, all of which went missing some time last year.

I park the car by the side door and bring out the hoover. The sound attracts the children like moths to a flame. They want to help, which is lovely, but their ‘help’ will literally make the job take all day. I close them inside the house and they bang on the toughened glass, their wailing drowned out by the vacuum cleaner. Blessed relief.

I rub frantically at the wiry carpet which seems designed to make crumbs un-vacuumable, then I dig at the un-vacuumable crevices, layered deep with an archaeological record of past snacks. The deeper I go, the stickier it becomes. Oh my lord, children are disgusting.

I battle them into the car, arrive late for the MOT, spend two endless hours hanging around a DIY superstore, nerves shredded by merciless whinging.

Of course the car fails the MOT. The repair costs will, luckily, be exactly the same as the holiday savings.

Wishing now I hadn’t tidied the car.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, son?”

“You scared me when you said I was naughty. I didn’t want you to say that I was naughty. That wasn’t very nice. Sometimes people make me cry, and that is not very nice either. You made me cry saying that I was naughty. Daddy, say sorry for saying that I was naughty and for scaring me by saying that I was naughty. Say sorry now, daddy.”

This is a strange, impressive strategy for my son to take. I doubt myself imeadiatly. I rewind what happened. I did say he was naughty, but not in a scary way. It takes a while for me to formulate a response. “I didn’t mean to scare you, son, but when I said you were naughty it was because you were naughty.” I say this carefully and calmly.

“No!” My son screeches. “I’m not naughty, daddy! You’re scaring me again!”

“You were naughty, son.”

“Nooooo! Stop scaring me daddy!”

“Son?”

“Yes?”

“Did you hit your sister?”

“No.”

I think we can all agree that lying is bad. Really bad. It’s one of a parent’s worst enemies and you have to battle it constantly. Of course, it’s not always easy telling the truth. Lying works. People fall for it. It can achieve your goals. It’s very tempting.

“Now son. You know that you shouldn’t lie, don’t you?”. He nods. “Did you hit your sister?” He shakes his head piously. “Son. I saw you hit your sister. Hitting your sister is naughty. So you were naughty when you hit your sister. Now, remembering that you shouldn’t lie and lying is very naughty, Did you hit your sister?”

“No.”

“Did you hit your sister?”

“Yes, but, but, but, but, but she tried to hit me.”. “Did she hit you?”. “Yes.”. “Did she?”. “…no.”. “That’s why I said you were naughty. Because you hit your sister.”

“But Daddy! That was then. I’m not naughty now!”

I fall silent, brain exhausted. He’s confused me to a stand still. Again. At least he seems to have got the message about lying. That’s something.

Later, his tone more conciliatory, he asks if he can watch telly. I say no.

“But you said I could watch telly later!” He reminds me.

It’s true. I did say that. He’s using truth against me. I struggle for a responce. “Er… I’m sorry, son. The telly is… broken.”

Honesty is… over rated.