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64 different plants in 6 days. Take that Ian Zoe. Twice round the clock with a day to spare. To celebrate tomorrow I am going to eat ZERO plants of any kind. Or anything that eats plants, just to make sure plants don't sneak through. I bet I lose weight eating rocks. Well eventually. Might put a bit on to begin with.
Phoebe was back to her normal confident, disdaingul and roasting self today, at least in the day time. But after I'd put her to bed she came downstairs, put her arms around my neck to hug me and said "I love you." What's happening here? Am I the best dad ever? I guess. This isn't something she says very often to me. In fact it might be the only time she's done it sincerely or without wanting something.
Then she said, "I don't want you to die."
Clearly when she'd lying in bed alone at night, she has time to think and worry. I am sure we all did the same. I remember freaking myself out at about the same age thinking about the infinite nature of space or wondering if God created the Universe, who created God or trying to fathom that one day my parents would die (I was wrong about that, they're immortal as it turns out).
I told her that I was going to do my best not to and that I was trying to stay as fit as possible so I could be here at least until she was a grown up and hopefully beyond that. After all my parents are in their mid to late eighties and so I've hopefully got another 30 years.
I told her that if I did die she could still talk to me, but she said that I wasn't religious so I didn't believe in Heaven. I said she could still talk to me. Which is true. Hopefully I will still be here for her to talk to in person, though I suspect she won't anyway. She's only three years from being a teenager.
Anyway the important thing is I got a genuine "I love you" even if it was again precipitated by fear, but I'm happy to be the rock she clings on to in the swimming pool. I can expect one more on my death bed. But two is enough. Parental love, as unimpressive as I've always said it is, is the real deal. It remains even when it's one way, even when you get nothing in return. And then when you do get something in return, it's pretty special.
Ernie hugs and kisses me all the time and thinks I am amazing, which is also good, though the disillusionment will be hard to deal with when he realises how flawed I am. And then harder to deal with when he realises I've given him the same flaws.
Right now though, it's peak parenting time. There may be troubles ahead....
As I walked to the Post Office this afternoon to send off ebay purchases and the monthly badger prize box (
next month it could be you) kids were coming out of the secondary school. In less than two years Phoebe will be there. And I realised as I passed the girls that Phoebe is almost as old as that I will have to stop writing entries like this one and yesterday's. Phoebe's classmates have already found me on wikipedia and although this blog may be more complicated to find, I realised I can't write about her personal stuff any more (even if I skirted the details yesterday). I remember being upset when Jon Ronson decided to stop writing about his brilliant column about his son in the Guardian for similar reasons, but I can see why he did it. Phoebe can write her own blog if she wants this stuff out there (imagine if I'd started this when I was 10!). Ernie is still fair game because his classmates are basically illiterate, but Phoebe has crossed that threshold now from childhood into that inbetweeners time where you have to navigate complex relationships and whilst I will do my best to help, it's not my place to write about it.
If she's being funny though I will still share that stuff (with her permission). I've always tried to protect the privacy of other people when writing this blog, but there's no way of hiding the identity of your kids. I hope that if they ever read all this shit back that they will enjoy it and get quite a lot out of the documentation of their early years and how much they meant to their dad (even if he made some off-colour jokes about them being sexcrement and so on). I suppose through this, I am able to talk to them after I've died. Hi kids. Hope I didn't screw you up too much. I love you, whatever atrocities you have committed. And am proud of you. Aside from the atrocities. I did tell you not to do any atrocities. Or at least I meant to.
So there's going to be way more stuff about toothpaste tubes and vegetables. Every cloud... is principally going to piss down on you.
RHLSTP has given me the chance to talk to many of my heroes. Today's Book Club is with the man who my mum feared would make me fail my O levels, the genius Kevin Toms who created a whole new computer game with Football Manager.
Listen here 
