33. Top 10 Things to Look Forward to this Easter Break: A Reluctant Housedad’s POV

''An Easter bunny laid all these eggs, Dad. Hang on a BUNNY laid these eggs??.

Easter. A time for bunnies and chicks. Eggs and hot-x buns. Family-time and fun. And most of all – for those of that persuasion – a time to rejoice in the Resurrection. Cue sounds of needle scratching across vinyl! Hold your darned horses there, cowboy. The holidays may be fun for kids and fantastic for working parents to spend some long-overdue time with said children, but for us Stay-At-Homers, it’s a Busman’s You-Know-What.

A holiday, it ain’t.

I’ve been dreading Friday since I saw it etched in dripping blood on my three children’s school newsletters, written, no doubt by the teachers who have sweated said blood over the last half-term.

What on earth am I going to do with three youngsters whose three-year separations make their needs about as impossible to cater for as a vegan’s in a steakhouse? Their Successful Mother will be Working. Their classmates will be jetting off to far-and-wide. And I’ll be trapped at home…Relucting.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. I’m a Creative Bloke. In my Working Life, I’d stare at 100 blank pages of a Magazine-That-Needed-To-Be-Filled and fill it. Full of useful stuff. Full of entertaining stuff.

Gotta Think Out Of The Box, do some Blue Sky Thinking, and run some ideas Up The Flagpole to see if they’ll fly.

‘Reluctance is a state of mind,’ so my Successful Other Half keeps telling me. So time to have a talk to myself and apply some Postive Thinking to the weeks ahead.

Here then, my small but devoted band of readers, is a switch in tempo, a change of mindset. Bye Bye Reluctance; Hello Opportunity. Dwell on the positives; kick out the negatives and Enjoy Time With My Children. No doubt there will be a re-visit to the reality of what actually occurred in a fortnight’s time, but for now. There Is Much To Look Forward To.

There, I’ve convinced myself. So without further ado, and with much racking of my pessimistic grey matter, I give you the Reluctant Housedad’s Top 10 Things To Look Forward To…

1. SLEEPOVERS
Not the kids’, but my mates. The Successful Other Half is away on business trips for a couple of nights (that’s what she calls them, anyway. Who am I to get all suspicious, call a Private Dick and investigate?). This is a perfect opportunity to get the kids down early, force open the rain-swollen door to the roof terrace and drink and talk rubbish until dawn. No nagging wife to worry about, no school runs to worry about. Just putting the world to rights with a few of my rarely-seen friends.

2. LIE-INS
This might need a bit of navigation, but if I can persuade my Working Wife to leave for the office stealthily, without disturbing the kids (‘After a full-on term of learning, they need to catch up on their rest’) then I might, just might, be able to catch a few extra Zs. We’re already in training for this because I’m currently coaching Child 1 and Child 2 in the art of Getting Their Own Breakfast Without Turning The Kitchen Into A River Of Cornflakes And Milk.

3. COMPUTER GAMES
As followers of this blog will know, I am not A Real Man. I have no interest in gadgets and video games. Aside from their obvious benefit as babysitters, I’ve never seen the point in them. But perhaps I can learn. Perhaps they’ll teach me. And with teaching, comes responsibility. Perhaps they will grow into their new mentoring roles and take this grown-upness into other areas of their lives, like tidying their bedrooms and urinating into the bowl instead of onto the floor. And who knows, I might even enjoy the hitherto unrealised delights of Moshi Monsters, Club Penguin and Friv.

4. PLAYDATES
Yes, I know this might seem masochistic, but I really like having my kids’ friends round. They’re not like my kids, who turn into demonic show-offs when they have a captive audience to impress; they are polite, well-mannered, and they wash up after themselves. I’ve even (section me!) offered to have three of their pals around on the same day. If it’s sunny, we’ll go exploring in the park. Translation: I’ll sit and read the paper while they pretend to be mini-Rambos in the woods. Oh, and it works the other way to: my kids get to go to their friends’ houses in return. Win-win!

5. BONDING
For all my reluctance at being a housedad, that reluctance is essentially aimed at the mind-numbing chores that go with running a house of five. I never get to see the kids when they’re upbeat and happy; only when they’re tired and grouchy, either before or after school. I never get to spend any Quality Time with them, because I’m so busy tending to their needs, be it the school runs, the bathtimes, the teatimes, the bickering times, the How-Many-Times-Have-I-Told-You-To-Pick-It-Up-I’m-Not-Your-Slave times.

6. SWIMMING
A couple of months ago, my six-year-old was invited to a Swimming Party by one of his classmates. He wouldn’t go because he doesn’t know how to. So during the last half-term, we booked him some intensive one-on-one swimming lessons and his confidence grew. Now he spends most of bath-time with his goggles on and his head underwater, seeing how long he can hold his breath (a dodgy experience, given the delight his three-year-old brother takes in holding him under). We’ve tried to keep the momentum going during term time but the demands on time means this has inevitably been neglected.  Roll on next week when he gets to see his beloved tutor again and I get to see my middle child grow in confidence again.

7. GRANDPARENTS
We live 200 and 300 miles respectively from our respective grandparents. Our kids don’t get to see them often, but the loss is felt greater by my wife’s mum and our dads. My stepdaughter, especially, has only seen my Dad a couple of times, but we’re going to sort that in the next couple of weeks. A Grand Tour is planned – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and all – and, hopefully, new bonds will be established. That’s if I can keep my Dad out of the pub for long enough.

8. GUILT
Or lack of it. During the Working Week I feel massively guilty about Not Working. But with many other Working Parents Not Working either, I can pretend I’m on holiday. OK, there will be the guilt of my Working Wife having to Work, but, hey, she’s a big girl (not literally): she’ll get over it. And besides, she knows I’d swap back with her in the blink of an eye.

9. HOUSEWORK
This is pushing it, I realise, but over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to condition my kids to Do Their Fair Share Around The House. This was the way I was brought up and it’s the way I want to bring up my kids, too. But the demands of school runs, playdates, homework, teatime, bathtime etc etc, leave me with with little room for coaching so I end up Doing It Myself. That can change this Easter. Think of it as Creative Play, kids. Your future husband or wives will thank you for it one day. Trust me.

10. APRIL 26
This is the day they will go back to school and I can go retreat back to my cave of blogging, Tweeting, self-indulging and relucting.