Your relationship with your children is special. They are so comfortable and secure around you, they save certain aspects of their personality for you, and you alone. It’s lovely. In a way.

We’re off to see Grandma and Grandpa. A few minutes into the journey my son starts to demand a wee stop. He’s obsessed with weeing on grass. We’re late already, but not late, late.

We stand on the grass verge of the layby, my son’s pants around his ankles, lorries roaring by. Turns out it’s a false alarm.

Trousers up. Back in car. Drive away. He decides that he definitely needs a wee now that we’re stuck in traffic. Tension rises. He starts pleading, wriggling around in his seat and whimpering. I wonder desperately whether he could do it out of the window? Luckily the traffic clears and I pull over.

It’s not the nicest spot, but it’s an emergency. I notice several spent shotgun cartridges strewn amongst the litter and brambles. Should I let my son wee on a possible crime scene? Never mind. It’s another false alarm.

Trousers up. Back in car. Within seconds of pulling away he wants to wee again. We are now seriously late. Incompetent daddy late. Government computerisation project late. But he has me over a barrel. He might really need a wee. He revels in the power.

At the service station he wants to wee outside on the grass. We stand poised, passers by passing by, for about a year, to make sure. Nothing.

Wrestle trousers up. Wrestle back into car. The rest of the journey is hell. My daughter is enraged at being woken by the constant stopping and starting. My son is enraged that I won’t stop for another futile grass wee attempt. I’m broken. Finally they shout themselves to sleep. We arrive and Grandma and Grandpa’s.

They transform. They skip around like happy, polite little elves, grinning and being delightful.

“Do you need a wee-wee?” Grandma asks.

“No thank you Grandma.” My son answers, smiling sweetly.

As I may have mentioned, I’m a bit of a sugar fascist. Not a very successful one. And Easter is a particular danger time. But I’ve decided, no more compromises. From now on I’m standing firm.

There were going to be Easter eggs at play group. No chocolate will pass my children’s lips today. None. I am made of iron. Steel. Titanium. I am the immovable object.

At the end of play group the children are each offered several little Easter Eggs. I intercept the eggs and put them in my pocket. My son sees me do this. He fixes me with a look I can’t exactly identify. It’s not quite… hatred. It’s something else. Something colder. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t say anything. It’s difficult to express how deeply disconcerting this is.

We go out to the car. Without argument my son calmly lets me strap him into his seat. This is highly unusual. I’m starting to get really scared now.

We start to drive. My son asks me if he can have one of his Easter eggs. He asks politely, like a child from a costume drama. I waver for a moment, then gather my strength. “No.” I say, firmly. I am a wall made of walls.

My son looks ahead for several moments, then he explodes. He rails at me in a barely intelligible stream of tragic rage at approximately the volume of an aircraft engine. After what feels like an hour of psychological torture, I give in. It’s probably more like thirty seconds, but I’m broken. It’s only a bit of chocolate, after all. What’s the worst that can happen?

I give my son a chocolate egg. A minute later he looks like a balloon full of liquid chocolate has exploded in his face. His fingers are rubbing it into the lovely new coat his Grandparents bought for him. I have to pull over, panicking.

“Noooooooo!” My son screams as I try to wet wipe him. “I’m licking it! I’m licking it!”

We wrestle, my son sucking chocolate off everything like a crazed addict. When the battle is over, my son’s new coat looks like an industrial accident at Willy Wonka’s.

You may have won this battle, sugar. But you haven’t won the war. That comes when we do the Easter egg hunt. Then you’ll win the war.

I used to dress my daughter, literally, in the first thing I found. If that was a fire engine T-shirt and a pair of tartan stretch-pants, then so be it. I suppose I had the vague idea that it doesn’t flippin’ matter what a one year old wears. It doesn’t really matter what anyone wears. In my ideal world, you could go to an interview in a fire engine T-shirt and tartan stretch pants, and still get the job.

Then, my wife began, without a word, changing my daughters clothes after I’d already dressed her. “Oh, so I can’t dress my own daughter, can I?” My stupid brain went. “Well, we’ll just see about that.”

It’s not much fun being a proper bloke. I gather. There’s a limited number of things you’re allowed to be interested in. Cars. Football. Beer. Possibly collecting something really boring like stamps or vinyl records. That’s about it. I have nothing against those things, but there’s so much more to life. Something I wouldn’t necessarily bring up in blokey company is that I watch “The Great Interior Design Challenge”. It’s incredibly exciting to find out whether the colonial style bedroom will beat the Bauhaus boudoir to the final four. In that program people talk about colours “Working”.

I waited for my chance to prove my wife wrong. Then, one morning, I followed these simple steps. 1. Open a draw. 2. Choose an item of clothing at random. 3. Open another draw. 4. (This is the important bit.) Choose another item of clothing of a similar colour to the first item, or that has a similar colour in it. 5. Repeat until daughter is dressed.

When my wife saw our daughter, all matching and coordinated, she looked at me like I was a dog that had just said “hello”. “You dressed her?” She kept asking. My triumph was complete. For a moment.

“Is that peanut butter all smeared down her front?” She asked.

“Er, yes.” I nodded sadly. “And milk. And Humus. But that on her sleeve, it’s ketchup, not blood.”

I imagine myself as a sort of respected sergeant major, clearly and forcefully advising the troops. My wife sees things differently. She thinks I’m just being a loud idiot.

Because my wife is my sergeant major, I have been trying to tone down my sergeant major routine. I’ve taken my authority voice down to a friendly whisper. They still ignore me, but my wife is happier.

“If you do a poo in the potty,” I whisper, “you’ll get a special present.” My son will happily wee in the potty, but pooing in public is a step too far for him. He just doesn’t like it. In fairness, who does? He prefers hiding under the dining table and pooing in his pants. He thinks about my offer. He asks, what kind of special present? I tell him it’s a present beyond measure, wondrous and amazing, possibly even a biscuit. He gazes at me thoughtfully, then wanders off.

Now each time I find him groaning under the table, I don’t use my sergeant major voice, I tell him in hushed tones about the unparalleled present he will receive if he doesn’t poo in his pants. I can tell the thought is starting to work it’s way into his head.

Later he asks to sit on the potty. I’m overjoyed. Maybe this not raising my voice thing really works. He spends half an hour there, groaning like he’s in labour. Finally he calls me over and tells me earnestly that he’s done a poo and can he have his special present now? We check the potty. There is nothing there. I explain that the terms of the bargain require real poo. He narrows his eyes at me.

I have a much needed shower. He rushes into the bathroom excitedly, finger out stretched. Without my glasses I have to bend down and nearly touch my nose to his finger to see what’s on it. Turns out to be a rice grain sized piece of poo.

“Aaagh!” I shout, like a girl.

“Special present!” My son shouts back, triumphant.

My daughter has learnt a new word. And it’s killing me.

Dads are punching bags. Pack animals. Climbing frames. Fight stoppers. Principally, though, we’re protectors. If there are bullets flying around, we’re expected to dive in front of them. We are the family meat wall. Not that my wife wouldn’t take a bullet for our children. It’s just that, if a bullet was coming, I’d get the look, the look telling me that I should be diving in front of it first.

I’m not normally a very heroic person, but even I’ve become a slave to the protective Dad hormones. Ever since I’ve had children, my willingness to risk my life has increased markedly, from nil, to above nil.

In the park playground, my son and daughter are bouncing on the bouncy thing. Three youths are loitering near by. I’m tense as a coiled Liam Neeson. In my mind they suddenly turn on my family. I fight them back but they attack me with knives. I hold them for the police, take my family home then take myself to the hospital to be sewn up.

My wife sees me breathing hard with self sacrifice fantasies. “You all right, dear?”. I eye gesture towards the youths. “Why are they here?” I hiss.

“Because they’re twelve and it’s a playground?” She chuckles. I insist that we move on.

Later, my protection circuit leaps into sudden, frantic overdrive when I hear my eighteen month old daughter shout “Help! Daddy, help! Heeeeelp!” from the living room. It’s the first time I’ve heard her cry “Help!”. Every muscle in my body goes into Dad spasm. I bull-charge into the living room, literally ready to lay down my life.

She has dropped her toast.

“Help daddy.”

I pick up her toast for her, dizzy with adrenaline.

She yells for help twenty eight more times, her terrible jeopardy ranging from her brother sitting too close, to her favourite telly program ending.

May not be life threatening for her, but the repeated blood pressure spikes have already taken days off mine.

I really am laying down my life.

I shouldn’t be scared of my one year old daughter.

“No, not monkey!” I plead desperately as she charges into the bathroom and hurls her long suffering soft toy into the filling bath. “That’s very naughty.” I say. I pluck poor old monkey out, dripping. She loves Monkey, but his rescue does not seem to make her happy.

She turns and gives me… the look.

I’m quite big. If you came across me in a darkened alley, before seeing my wonky glasses and apologetic smile, you might be a little intimidated. I’m several inches taller than the average person, about four feet taller than my daughter, and about eighteen times heavier.

So is she intimidated by me? Even a tiny, subconscious bit? Is there even the most microscopic hint of evolutionary uneasiness about something eighteen times her size?

No. The look contains absolutely zero fear. In fact, with that look, she is clearly the more intimidating one. Someone so small shouldn’t be so scary.

Earlier, she steals my wallet. I find her sorting through my various cards like a professional thief, discarding the ones she doesn’t like. I ask for my wallet back.

“No! Mine!” She rasps like a tiny, ginger Gollum. She points her forehead at me as if she wants to ram me with it. Her eyes narrow and pin me with an angry glare. Her mouth protrudes into a rebellious, imperious pout. I consider cancelling my cards and buying a new wallet.

“Monkey’s all wet, now.” I say. My daughter, incensed that I have defied her, gives me the look. My blood freezes in my veins. Slowly, menacingly, she reaches over and tips the shaving foam into the bath, all the while her eyes staying on me, challenging me to stop her.

Maybe I should be scared. Now it’s a cuddly toy and a can of shaving foam. What next? The TV in the shower? The car in the local baths? That look could do anything.

The stupid thing is, though, I’m not scared at all. All I can feel as I watch her incredibly cute face contorting into that fearless, defiant, frightening, demonic look, is a huge surge of overwhelming parental love.

What an idiot.

My son’s got a new strategy to defeat me. He’s trying to drive me insane. And it’s working.

“Sausagey pasta!” I announce. I drag him away from the TV and plonk a plate down in front of him. He pushes it away. “But… you love sausagey pasta.” I say, appalled. It’s nearly the only thing he’ll eat without a fight.

“I don’t like pasta!”

“Right. That’s it.” I sit him on my knee. “What’s daddy going to cook if you don’t eat pasta? You can’t live on sausages alone. Eat some pasta.”

“No!” He wails. “I want sausage.”

I get two pasta twists into him by bribing him with eight pieces of sausage. The pasta makes his face contort with horror and disgust as if it’s pieces of a beloved pet. As he eats his beloved sausage I try to converse with my wife, the only conversation we’ve had all day. I’m mentally exhausted by this constant, confusing fight. Maybe I should just give up? Can you live on sausages alone? Eskimos live on seals. They’re sort of like sausages.

“All right.” I say finally. “There’s one more piece of sausage. Do you want it?”

He shakes his head sullenly and leaves the table. As he goes I see something on the floor that for a moment my brain refuses to recognise. I go cold. Eight pieces of sausage are lying by my feet like dot dot dots at the end of a sentence…

A day later I’m still trying to get my head around the sausage incident. I gaze into the distance, frowning like a chimp trying to understand gravity waves. “Daddy!” My son shouts over the blaring telly.

“What, son?” I ask, blinking.

“I need the telly off!”

“I’m sorry,” I start wearily, “You can’t have the telly on. You’ve got mountains of toys. Play with something. I’ve no idea what’s at the bottom of that toy box. Why don’t you find out? And there’s a whole flippin’ library of books. Hang on… what?”

“I want to do this puzzle.” He says, holding up a dull, educational puzzle. “Telly off daddy.”

I stare at him, blinking, my brain hurting. “Er…what?”

Tension. Unbelievable, unbearable tension. Followed by horror. That’s potty training.

The first day without nappies goes badly. Eight changes of clothes. All wee. He does not poo at all. I want to give up.

Day two. The tension at play group is hell. I literally don’t know what I’m going to do if he does a poo here, other than call 999, which is probably frowned upon. But amazingly, no wee, and still no poo. Swimming, he wees on the pool side. Don’t think anyone notices. At soft play he wees in an inaccessible soft corner and a lovely mum helps me mop it up. I end the day mentally and physically exhausted. Still no poo. At all.

Day three. The poo tension is now unbearable. My son hates the potty. His little sister can’t get enough of it, she sits on it, stands in it, fills it with toys, puts it on her head. I take it off her and bribe my son back on it with his favourite TV program and innumerable special rewards. He’s there for an hour. No wee. And no poo. It’s been three days since he last pooed. His bottom is like an unexploded bomb.

Back on the potty. No one leaves this room until something comes out of my son’s bottom. If he can just do a poo, I can breath again.

Finally, after another hour of pep talks and promises and groaning and negotiating, it comes. It’s not huge, but it’s there. A real nugget of poo. I can’t believe it. I babble incoherently, pointing at it, my voice getting higher and higher.

“You did it!” I finally managed to say. I grab my son, pooey bum and all, and hug the life out of him. “Well done, son! I love you.” The emotion of the last few days come gushing out. I tear up. “God that smells awful, son.” I laugh with joy.

I have to share this moment. I take a picture of it and send it to my wife. Maybe I should keep the poo for her. She’ll love that. Probably.

I hug my son again. He’s happy for me, but a little bemused. The stench is eye-stinging, but nothing can spoil this moment of pure parental joy. Proudly I look in the potty again.

The poo is gone. For a moment my brain stalls.

“Everyone freeze.” I screech finally.

My one year old daughter looks up at me innocently. I check her hands. “Where have you put it?” I hiss.

She grins.

Life’s not fair. If a Mum is struggling with her kids, she gets tutted at. Judgemental eyebrows are raised. Not Dads, though.

I need to post some parcels. Easy. Then I remember I have kids. OK, no probs. They can come too. Easy peasy.

Parking, I realise I’ve forgotten the push chair. Then I realise that my daughter weighs about the same as the average sized minibus. Flippin’ heck, how do women carry kids all day? It’s the child bearing hips. It’s not that they’re just tougher than me.

After a few steps my son starts wailing and dangling from my hand like he’s been tasered. My other arm is in agony carrying my impossibly heavy one year old and a bag full of parcels. Dear God, I’m never going to make it. If I just start crying will people come and help me?

After the most harrowing twenty metres of my life my son forgets that his legs don’t work and starts running up and down the post office queue. I hiss-shout at him. He ignores me. I trap my daughter between my legs before she can toddle off. The relief in my arms is wonderful.

What seems like six hours of hissing at my son and wrestling my daughter later, I stand her on the counter, not knowing what else to do with her. She hands the parcels over, then I plop her on the floor, then realise I’ve forgotten to pay. I try to find my wallet. The lady behind the counter points. My daughter is nearly out the door.

I sprint after her, sweep her up just in time and turn to run back, hoping no one noticed my poor parenting. My son is running after me and we collide, he goes flying, skittering across the floor on his back like an ice-hockey puck, I stumble forward, juggling my daughter and colliding with a rack of pet themed calendars that scatter to the floor. My son clambers to his feet, chuckling. We look at everyone. I only just resist a compulsion to shout “Ta-da!”, like the worst acrobatic troop leader in the world.

Now, if I had been my wife, the queue and the staff would have been appalled by my incompetence. But I’m a dad. So what do they do? They laugh. It’s funny because I’m a Dad, and Dads are useless. They think I’m an idiot. Yay. I win!

Hey. Hang on a minute.

For reasons of practicality, finance, and containment, we’ve now put both our inmates in the same cell block. One unfortunate repercussion of this is regular rioting. They smash up the place, take cuddly prisoners and demand better conditions. Sometimes I cave. Sometimes I have to go in. Usually they can be bought off with warm milk or a story.

Their cells have thick wooden bars. It’s lovely once they’re behind them. Me and the governor can relax a bit, and snuggle.

Thing is, though, I’ve seen The Shawshank Redemption. I know what prisoners are capable of. It’s a good job this prison is escape proof. I check regularly that they’re not sawing through the bars with a converted sippy cup or burrowing through the mattress. On top of that, we have a camera monitoring their cells. The governor and I enjoy watching them as they whisper to each other, planning, plotting. They think I’m stupid. They think they can out smart me. I chuckle.

Next morning I wake up and take a look at the monitor. My son’s cell is empty.

I stare at the screen in disbelief then sound the alarm. When I go in he’s sitting on a chair reading a book. He smiles at me as if him being there is the most normal thing in the world.

The next night on the monitor I see him heaving himself up the corner of the cot, hooking a leg over, climbing out and softly dropping to the floor. He scampers off and moments later the light flicks on. I didn’t know he could do that either. I’m stunned. He’s out witted me by getting taller.

Immediately I’m wondering how I can make the bars higher, but the governor has a different idea. A mind blowing idea.

I spend a couple of hours in the inmates bedroom that day, hammering and screwing and swearing. That night my son looks at his bed, open mouthed. The bars are gone. We look at each other, as if to say, “What happens now?”

I find his new freedom profoundly scary. My son doesn’t, I can see it in his eyes. Once he’s figured out how to open the bedroom door, the house is his.