Boden Vs Meursault

I had one of those slightly odd Facebook  friends online chats a few days ago.  You know the ones, the little box in the corner of your screen says that 5 of your friends are online and you click it in a voyeuristic sort if way to see who it is.  In my case 3 of the friends instantly disappear and you are normally left with the usual suspects, the people who have Facebook open on another tab and are actually doing something else so ignore you.

 

In this case it was a newly announced dad to be.  We had heard the great news from a couple of other mates who had either been in for dinner or sent Christmas e-mail with news.  So a quick “congratulations and how are you? Along with a very heart felt “you will make a great Dad” pinged or slithered or wandered through the wires and strands of glass that connected Wiltshire to the Welsh borders and then it was all over with a “I’m due to be in your part if the world next week so we should meet up and have a beer” and a “see you then”.

 

So what other words of wisdom could I have offered in the little box in the corner or in the pub, if we actually do meet.  What would have been helpful advice for me when the first of my two were on the way.  Is it that different being a MAD?  Is it ever possible to be as cool as some of the Dads your mates had when you were growing up, or for that matter the effortlessly relaxed and in tune “Daddies” that wander the streets of my life.

 

Not certain that being cool or effortless is loftiest thing to aim for.  The sagest thing I have been able to think of to say to most of them is “be prepared to start crying at Halfords ads”.  One recent MAD still updates me on a regular basis that he has been into to the aforementioned car parts emporium and has yet to feel any moistening of the eye socket at all.  I must admit to alternating between not believing him, as I do not wish to be alone in my sobbing behind the Haynes Manuals and minor envy as it would be nice to not to have to sit in the dark at the end of the latest Dreamworks cartoon hoping my eyes will dryout.  As yet the girls have not registered that whilst they find Desperaux either totally terrifying or poleaxingly, mesmerising, their Dad just wells up.  It even happened at the end of High School Musical 3!

 

What, if any , words can be offered.  I have started to say that anything “that makes you smile if not laugh out loud every day has to be good”.  That’s glib and almost Christian (oh yes Hopes chosen reading for the new year is the bible, staring with the old testament of course) but true.

There are others who will provide advice the poverty, the sleepless nights the irrational fear of peanuts, the constant reading of ill-informed web sites and the paranoia any programme made by Robert Winston instils in all MADs, normally made worst if they are middle class as well.

 

The joy of agonising about educational attainment, the secret sharing of snooped information about the reading levels of their school friends.  The discussion of “how unhealthy it is to hot house kids”.  The unfathomable delight at finding any item of Boden clothing in a black bag of hand-me-downs. 

All this awaits all new parents, is it any different for us MAD’s?  having never been a young dad I have no idea.  I am sure they have shorter hang over’s, that may be cheaper by unit volume, and their wounds inflicted by small people with limited special awareness heal faster.

What is it about kids that they have no idea how lethal their heads can be when propelled upwards into Daddy’s unsuspecting jaw whilst reading Princess Dora for the 350th time.  Anyway that’s a whole new blog