Playgroup

My first experience of going to a playgroup with my young son

Playgroup

 

Daddy day-care is an interesting concept to ponder, as you look around history and society and you instantly feel the odds are against you. You want to go buy some new supplies, what’s the best shop for that? Mothercare. Who personifies the life giving and nurturing aspects of nature, Mother nature not Daddy Nature. What’s the major website for chat about babies, Mumsnet. Let’s not forget also it is the Mother who hoiks the little bundle around for 9 months before popping him out, in what from my vantage point looked like the most unnatural & painful way possible.

 

I watched a giraffe give birth on one of Attenborough’s Sunday night shows not so long ago, she basically just popped the little thing out in bout 5 minutes, like she was just passing some trapped wind. I think us humans must be missing a trick as it took my wife something like 8 hours from waters breaking to popping our 9lb nipper out. What’s the major difference… Giraffes do it standing, Anna’s pretty tall like a Giraffe too so I might recommend she stands next time to get it over with quicker.

 

Everything points towards Mummy Day-care being the way it should be done, and I do believe that is the way it should be done. But me and my little boy Reuben were about to break the trend and take on the challenge of Daddy Day-care.

 

I genuinely write that as a ‘we’ and not a ‘me’ as over the first 19 months of Reuben’s life, he has made it pretty clear to me that we are actually mates, rather than anything more loving or nurturing.

 

From about 7 months old whenever I would arrive home from work, we would get a ball out of his toy box for us to play with. As soon as he was walking at 12 months old this escalated into about 4 balls. By 16 months he would have 4 footballs out, 3 tennis balls and 15 golf balls out. Walking across our living room was similar to an obstacle course from Takeshi Castle sometimes.

 

It was pretty clear that Reuben viewed me as a playmate. Whenever anything went wrong, such as I decided to chop him down with a miss-timed slide tackle, he’d run to Mummy for a cuddle. Don’t worry I didn’t really chop him down, I’d just think about it whenever he booted the ball in the goal past me.

 

But yes by 19 months old we are firmly ‘best mates’ I call him my best mate at least 40 times a day and and we high 5 each other whenever one of us is impressed with something. Well let’s be honest he’s never impressed with me, so it tends to be more I high five him when he does something really smart, such as figuring out how to undo the top of the bubble bath and pour it all over the carpet, maybe that’s not a high 5 moments actually.

 

So in the middle of April 2016 we started out on our little journey together. The first real piece of Daddy Day-care was when I took him to our local toddler group. To be honest I say I took him, it was more like he took me. You approach our Toddler group across what seems to be like a huge field. It’s at least a driver and a 6 iron (I tend to measure all distances through golf swings). Yet as soon as we hit the field little Reuben was like “get me out of this pushchair I am legging it to playgroup”.

 

I couldn’t get him out of the pushchair quick enough and as soon as I put him on the ground he was off. For 19 months old he has a right turn of speed, he’d covered about 15 yards before I’d even manged to pivot.

 

Luckily I’d brought my special distracting item with me, the football. Put a football near Reuben and you’re guaranteed one outcome, his world becomes focused on one thing. Booting the football. So after I placed a pass with the finesse of David Beckham in front of the lad, he stopped running off and started kicking the ball about.

 

This enabled me to focus on the vehicle, aka pushchair. So there I was pushing an empty pushchair across a field whilst my nipper was playing football. I’ll talk more about my views on the vehicle later, but at this time you can probably tell I was of the viewpoint that it was a waste of time.

 

The ball enabled us to slow the pace of progress towards playgroup so that we would arrive for the 930am start time. I’m pretty obsessed about being on time for things, which isn’t great for your health when you have a nipper. You can be so prepared to leave on time only to turn around at the last moment and see them straining in the face passing a butt nugget. What’s a butt nugget? It’s how I describe a poop of a toddler, they are about the size of a chicken nugget, but unlike the lovely ones served in McDonalds, they come straight out of the butt. They do tend to be nice and warm when fresh though, which you will find out, when picking one up off your carpet that you no longer care about because it has more stains on it than a 15 year olds boy who is going through puberty discovering babestation bedsheets.

 

Anyways we arrived at toddler group. First challenge �" getting in. The EU is currently up for debate here in the UK. One thing the EU likes is conformity. The single currency being an example, free movement of EU civilians, they pushed for all major phone suppliers to have one type of power supply. Well EU, I’ve got something else for you to add to your list. Stair Gates.

 

We enter the door and there is a Lindam stair gate in the way. Reuben, having just dribbled a football across the Driver and a 6 iron field has his adrenaline levels up, he starts shaking this stair gate like King Kong on the Statue of Liberty. A part of me thinks this thing is just going to topple down and the fact I have no clue how to open it won’t be a problem. Regrettably the staff at this playgroup are highly competent at putting these things up and it’s not shifting anywhere, it’s just making a lot of noise, which will inevitably bring unwanted attention towards me soon.

 

So I go to tackle it, I mean I’ve got plenty of experience with our stair gates at home, surly this one can’t be that different. Seriously though this was hard, this was like the Maserati of stair gates. It had two buttons, you just push them in right and then open? No. Maybe you push them in and then give it a little lift? No. Maybe you push them in, give it a pull then a push…oh I can’t even try that as now Reuben has decided his Dad is being so incompetent he’s just going to climb over it.

 

“How Can I end this quickly?” I am thinking, maybe I just lob him over it. Thing is I am not as flexible as I used to be, the idea of me scaling the stair gate could be catastrophic. What kind of scene is it at your first playgroup to get your foot stuck in a stair gate and then be hopping on one leg asking for help? Or even worse, end up in A&E? Not worth the risk I thought. There is no way these two buttons are going to beat me so I did what any self-respecting man would do. Try all the things that didn’t work 2 minutes ago and try them again. The standard approach to all DIY projects that you just can’t do, denial that you were getting it wrong.

 

They still didn’t work. By now Reuben had given up shaking the stair gate and was now smashing the exit door behind us. Poor chap probably thought it was home time he’d been stuck there so long. Or maybe he was going to get his toy owl from the pushchair and ask him to open the stair gate as Daddy can’t figure it out.

 

Just at the moment an old lady dodders in. Her hands are all crumpled, looks like she’s got major arthritis. She barely managed to push the door open she’s so weak and it’s taken her about 2 minutes to walk the 4 steps from the door to the stair gate. “S**t. Now I’m going to have to help her too” I think to myself. Now I’m all up for helping old ladies, I’ll always offer to carry shopping and such. Yet it was pretty clear this old lady was not going to get help with this stair gate from me, the incompetent father.

 

So I was racking my brains as to what masculine line I could say to hide the fact I can’t open this sodding gate when she looks at me, me who is covered in sweat and red in the face with a child who luckily can only on word at a time, currently being “Dada” and can’t add the others in his head onto it, likely being “you are stupid where’s Mama”

 

The old lady says “Having trouble with that? let me help”, she then defies her arthritis in what can only be described as a medical miracle, clicks the two buttons, finds some kind of secret handle hidden under the Lindam branding flips that up and wow, the stair gate is OPEN. She is some kind of Jedi Knight I tell you. Anyway, we are in. Well I say we, Reuben is in before I can thank the lady and is going nuts on a trampoline. So I put his bag over in the corner and am looking forward to the toddler group carers looking after him, whilst I cool down and relax, its 945 am probably a bit early for a beer but I’ll see what they serve anyway, maybe a shandy?

 

I look around though, there don’t appear to be many helpers here. In fact, there don’t appear to be any helpers. “Hang on a minute” I think. I’ve still got to look after this guy in here haven’t I, and there’s a bloody trampoline for him to practice his suicide jumping on. How can this possibly be a good idea?

 

So I find myself trying to teach Reuben that it is a better idea to commit to one toy, whether it be the trampoline, the little tykes’ car or the slide, for a sustained amount of time, rather than some hybrid form of play that involves rotating between all of them every 30 seconds with the odd attempt to climb the slide that is clearly meant for 4 year olds, or even adults it’s so big.

 

I thought this was meant to be relaxing, I’ve never been so stressed and we’ve only been here 10 minutes. Then I look around and realise the place is now swarming with other children. They appear to want to play on the same toys as Reuben, even worse is they seem to want to play with them at the exact same time.

 

How do you explain sharing to toddlers? Well I don’t think you can, you just have to learn some very good wrestling techniques to drag them away from toys after they’ve had their go. Thing is I think all parents instantly feel guilt the second their child is using a toy another child wants. From a distance you can see 3 parents pull their children away from the little tykes’ car, then nobody ends up playing with it. It’s just sat there not moving like a 1970’s Skoda, unloved. Luckily Reuben spots this opportunity and in his own Usain Bolt style way legs it over there. I follow, holding the half eaten biscuit I was trying to feed him.

 

I like to think Reuben is pretty smart. He certainly figured out the basics of movement at an early age, and was rocking himself to “row row row the boat” long before his Mum had managed to get me up to speed with the tune. However, every now and and then he does challenge this perception of smartness I have built up.

 

For some reason Reuben decided to push the little tykes’ car into the wall. Fair enough I think he’ll just back that beauty up and swerve through the door he was clearly aiming for. Only, I appear to have made a major error you can make as a parent. I’ve made an assumption. Reuben decides rather than using the perfectly cut out door way like every other two legged mammal is currently using at playgroup, he is going to create his own door way. By ramming the little tykes’ car into the wall repeatedly whilst making a grunting noise that I can only describe as being similar to what a constipated Dragon from Game of Thrones would make… “Eeeeuurrrrghrooooar” he goes as he is pushing and ramming into the wall.

 

I go and pull him away from the car, thing is I find out quite quickly that where I thought his Mum had been taking him to music group on a Friday morning, it was actually Ninja training as the nipper proceeds to spin around in my grip and kick me in the face. None of the Mums or Grandparents in attendance appear to be having this issue, they’ve learnt the self-defence techniques that I am lacking already. As I am reeling for a few power kicks and speed slaps to the face I am forced to put him down. He heads back to Little Tykes’ car and continues to ram the wall. “Eeeeeuuuuurgghhrooooooaaaaar” he goes.

 

Having just been physically assaulted by my child I am thinking the other guardians are probably ranking me as a D- of a father currently. So I try and get some points back by calmly explaining to Reuben that it would make much more sense to go through the door way that is 1 foot to his left.

 

The challenge I have is I’m not convinced he knows his left or right, the number 1, knows foot can be a measurement as well as a body part and also I’m not convinced that he gives two hoots what I’m saying even if he could understand me. One thing I was convinced on is he couldn’t bloody here me anyway above this dragon roar he was doing. Well this had now been going on for at least 90 seconds. Not a long time, not enough to boil an egg, but when your child is trying to knock a building down and you can feel a number of Mums sipping their Douwe Egberts instant coffee behind you starting a hole into your back it is an eternity.

 

Surly they must all be thinking one of two things, either “Look at that useless father, rumour is he couldn’t even work the stair gate, poor child needs his mother not some bumbling father who can’t even seem to steer the car through the doorway”, or “What has that father done, he’s created an absolute nutter of a child, no discipline whatsoever, he needs his mother about to teach him the real lessons of life”. Neither of those thoughts, which these women were guaranteed to be thinking were particularly positive outlooks for me or Reuben.

 

So I was fairly surprised when a Grandmother stroller up to me and said “Ha-ha, this is a funny stage isn’t it” My first reaction was “What does she mean ‘stage’, stage as in this will happen more than once? Stage as in, once I do get him to go through the doorway that is 1 foot away from him, on his left, he won’t look up at me with a smile that says “Thanks Dad, that’s just what I needed and now I have learnt that doorways are a more fluid method of movement than plasterboard walls” that kind of stage.

 

She then continued “He looks about 18 months old”, “19 actually” I replied, whilst having my forearm head-butted. “Oooh yes Little Dougey was just like this, ha-ha” she added, that’s two smirks she’s slipped into this conversation already, in my opinion there was nothing to smirk about currently. Then she moved to walk but but stopped and arched back towards me slightly. Her face turned to a smile and then she said “It gets worse you know, wait until he can pick the car up and throw it at the wall hahaha” and then she did walk off.

 

Throw it at the wall? Pick it up?? Surly by then he will just be driving it around practicing his parallel parking?? But then looking at him right now, as he was trying to scale the roof to get a better launchpad to just burst through the wall himself now, I did have to wonder.

 

I decided to make the bravest decision I could have possibly made in that situation, pick him up and leave. Ok so maybe that is not the bravest decision but it was certainly the only way I could see my heartbeat dropping below 150 beats per minute any time soon. So I picked him up, he only slapped me in the face 3 times as I walked back over to his bag, this was definitely progress.

 

Thing is being a Dad I hadn’t packed the bag very well, so in getting his now half eaten biscuit out I had pretty much emptied the entire bag. Bonus was I found some spoons at the bottom, they had a bit of mould on them and had clearly been there for months, but spoons are precious cargo when your toddler sits down 3 for meals a day all with starter, main and dessert. Nothing the dishwasher wouldn’t fix I thought.

 

Anyway this meant I had to put him down. So I did, as I was putting him down his little legs starting whirring in a running motion before I’d even got him back on the floor. The second they could make traction with the wooden planks, he was off. I just let him go, I needed to pack that bag.  I got the bag packed pretty quickly and I was about to get out of this shattering experience, now I’ve just got to find my little captain carnage. What could he be up to, suicide jumping on the trampoline? smashing a wall again? probably stealing some other kid’s cracker as he only ate half of his I was thinking.

 

Then I look over the other side of the room and I have never been so shocked in my life. Reuben, was playing. Just playing. Playing with the toy kitchen. No smashing walls or other children. Just playing, so I took a seat and watched for a bit. It was quite amazing to see to be honest. There was a little girl next to him who I later found out wad called Bethany or Beth for short and they were just exchanging the pots and pans. I sauntered on over to the kitchen to see what they were rustling up and there was another Mum stood nearby as her child was also looking at some plastic vegetables.

 

I noticed Reuben appeared to be particularly fond of the wine glass, it is likely it reminded him of his mother. This was a magical moment though, my little champion was interacting with another child in a playful way and he was having a great time doing it.

 

The relaxing wasn’t to last long though. Reuben’s Nanny had pre warned of me one activity that I needed to be very wary of. It was likely this activity would make the car incident look like a walk in the park, and it couldn’t be avoided. Story time.

 

See when I mentioned earlier that Reuben loves footballs and throwing one towards him is a certain way to get his attention, there is also one way to guarantee that you will lose his attention instantly, by asking him to sit down.

 

I briefly contemplated following through on my plan to leg it but thought I had better just man up and take Captain Carnage through to the story time. The first thing the children have to do before story time is wash their hands, then they move onto get a biscuit and once they’ve taken their biscuit they sit down on the mat. Well that is the intention anyway.

 

As you would expect the children only really have eyes for the biscuit, the majority are bee lining it for that biscuit, a couple get confused and then dunk their biscuit into the soapy water, resulting in crying children. I have little sympathy for them though, I mean it was only 5 minutes ago these kids were pretending to cook sausage, egg and bacon so dunking a biscuit should be easy for them.

 

Reuben was actually more compliant with the intended assembly line than I had expected, he washed his hands briefly and then raced to get his biscuit. Then he actually went and sat on the mat, his nanny had trained well I thought to myself. I also knew though that as soon as that biscuit was eaten he would be getting up and causing mischief again.

 

One little bite out of his custard cream, being an accountant by trade I quickly did the maths and established that this biscuit would last 5 bites, he’s one bite down and there is no sign of this story being started.

 

My wife tells me I’ve got a sweet tooth, I quite regularly eat an entire pack of revels inside 10 minutes, that’s fine though right, just means you get get started on the second pack quicker. Regrettably for Reuben he appears to have inherited this from me as I look up after doing my calculation to see he is now onto his third bite. Where is the story and where did the second bite go?

 

Finally, one of the ladies running the playgroup pulls out the story. Humpty Dumpty, a classic. She opens the book as I look over to Reuben, the lads done me like a kipper and chosen to amalgamate his fourth and fifth bites into one. He’s got a lump of biscuit sticking out of his mouth which kind of looks like an Antarctic iceberg piercing through the sea. Reuben is not one for wasting biscuits though and he very quickly found a way of sucking that in.

 

The lady had progressed to Humpty sitting on a wall by now, as Reuben was chewing. There was no way Humpty was going to tumble down that wall and be put back together before the gannet had finished eating that biscuit though and I knew the second that final swallow happened he’d be up flipping the bird to the lady saying ‘I’m heading back to my kitchen to find my Mum’s wine’. What could I do? The other half of cheesy biscuit he hadn’t eaten! It was still in my pocket. It was a bit crumpled, but it would buy me a few more minutes.

 

As if I was conducting a drug deal on a street corner in Brixton I sly fully slipped it out of my pocket and passed it to the champ. He gave me a bit of a shifty look, almost as if he knew we were breaking the one biscuit rule for story time, and then he smiled. This little nipper definitely likes living life to the beat of his own drum, who has time for rules anyway?

 

Biscuit transferred Reuben made it to the end of Humpty being put back together again, in fact he looked a very polite young man as he didn’t even get up the second the story was finished like all the other children did. I was quite proud of him, well as proud as you can be when you know deceitfully bought good behaviour.

 

With that I did then decide it was time to leave Toddler group. Like any real man after a good snack the champ was looking a bit tired so I lobbed him into his pushchair and we set back off across the field for home. I looked down about 50 yards into our trip and he was fast asleep. What a little wonder. My first half day was complete and I even though there was a bit of drama I had really had a good time.

 

Now I needed to decide on what to make him for lunch, it was pretty clear that everything in the day revolve around food schedules. Do Domino’s deliver at midday?