For the Love of Kit

Kids are all about the kit. Reference: have you seen those lean sun scorched middle fifties men wearing lycra sipping lattes? It’s all about the kit. Recently I have been cruising the baby & toddler aisles at Big W & Target. It’s a social network where I share baby-kit tips with wandering mothers (never any dads). Baby bags are expensive and pretty much look like laptop bags but with bunnies and flowers. I’ve used four ‘designer’ baby bags in the last four years. I’ve also tried a backpack and even one of those gifts from overseas the fancy store plastic bag. At the moment I use my former (life) laptop and assorted men’s stuff bag.

how much?

The consumer shelves are adorned with beauty, shape and form. It’s a visual massive attack of Object de Banal. These beautifully machine pressed plastic utilitarian items could easily be art. For example, Dennis Hopper an art lover in the ‘superstar league’ like Duchamp could point his finger and declare, “This is art!”

The goods are so well packaged that even this aspect of marketing adds to a brand’s realization of its form and function. The freaky prices also contribute to the aura of consumer goods as art. Realistically it’s an industry pumping itself up for the ‘things’ we don’t need. Still, I don’t think these high priced quality goods are in any way out of place amongst the poverty-6 pack plastic kiddy tumbler set for 1$1.99 (what B1&B2 use). Truth be told if I had financial credibility I would get the $15.00 grey/green European design Chinese built super duper kick ass sip cup with interchangeable lids with multiple ergonomic hand grips for little precious’

Is it a car or an insect?

growing hands. In fact If I had enough of the lucre I would buy the mother of all mummy’s accessories a metallic black, SUV, with tinted pimp windows Kluger. It’s all about the kit.

Prams, strollers, coffee cup holders, wet weather gear, mini bags, medium bags, large bags, carry bags, nappy bags, food bags, small pouches, medium pouches, large pouches, x-large pouches (a small bag), containers of every shape, colour and design. With so much technology and expertise one would think mum (occasionally dad) is attending an interplanetary play date after musical finger painting.

It’s all about the kit. Everything seems to be about the items puzzled together to give off the vibe, ‘this is what I do’ or ‘this is who I am’. For every expensive box of duck shaped safety pins you can alternatively use a bulldog clip or better yet buy a no name duckless pack of fifty. I think you get the point.

I still like good kit though!

Drive Me Bonkers!

For those parenting pros. out there I may be stating the obvious. I got into the parenting game fairly late. Which in hindsight considering my past behaviour and maturity (late bloomer) saved me from the electric chair. It’s difficult enough being a parent let alone one who feel somewhat wheel clamped by circumstance. Don’t get me wrong it’s an excuse and I’m trying to justify my decisions and actions. I am prone to justification when life gives me the middle finger (by the way I don’t think my children are life’s middle finger). The middle finger is an obstacle to the groovy flow and/or grind of my life. Children are merely added to the DJ-stress MC-remix along with cardiac dental bills and car rental insurance. So once the kids arrived from the outer limits my grooviness is squashed into the pooh I’ve been immersing myself in for the last few years.

I'm looking at you

As Bob Fosse said, ‘It’s show time folks.’

Driving is my current mode of the great escape (fruitless) from the brain drain of the Burroughsesque dialogue between B1 and myself (B2 grabs objects). In the car I try to listen to music, think but mostly reflect on where it all went horribly wrong (joke)! All a man needs in this life raft adrift at sea and low on water is time to do nothing. Forget it, there is an instinctive claim on your mind, body and sleep the moment the tyke opens his eyes. Still, I am immeasurably fascinated and curious by the disquieting unfolding of their ideas and minds. No matter what I think I should or shouldn’t reveal to the B’s be it language, ideas or context of delivery it will leave its own DNA mark that comes back to taunt you time and time again.

B1 says, ‘Dad I found a sweet.’

   Dad says, ‘Where?’

   ‘In my seat.’

   ‘Give it here I’ll chuck it out.’

    B1 muffled gummy voice.

    Dad says, ‘Did you eat that?’

    B1, ‘Yesh.’

    ‘Give it here.’

    B1 says, ‘Last time I pick up stuff from the floor.’

    ‘Yes, the three second rule. Not the three month rule.’

 

Driving at 60km I half twist my back ripping my Latissmus dorsi and B1 spits his mangled furry fossilised jelly baby into hand. I am cranky and swear loudly.

 ‘Dad you said a naughty word.’

    ‘Dad apologizes, dad is silly.’ (What’s with the third person?)

    B1 says, ‘Mummy doesn’t say naughty words.’

    ‘Yeah well from now on when I swear it’s because I’m an adult.’

    ‘Dad.’

    ‘yes.’

    ‘I farted.’

I throw the blob out of the window rain slashing my face and dripping down my sleeve I to my armpit.

Travis Bickle is out there somewhere

 B1 says, ‘Dad.’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘You made garbage.’

The Park is Mine. Not!

Park visits are a strategic and logistical nightmare. Like the gathering at a waterhole the animals shuffle for ownership. The occasional mass biker (club) piss up tends to settle the issue of ownership. Tommy Lee Jones in a classic ‘park genre’ thriller, ‘The Park is Mine‘

Swing time

plays an armed to the jowls former soldier who ‘kidnaps’ Central Park and holds the city of New York to ransom. Contemporary park abusers have taken Tommy’s existentialist approach to heart with football-sized blankets and blast furnace barbecues. It’s unfair of me to point fingers because when the three of us (B1B2&D) crash the park we do it U2 concert style.

 I am the mule and hanging from me are B1’s Scooter, helmet, knee and elbow pads, truck, bucket & Spade and my Crumpler (Mr. Mom bag) bursts with nappies, bottles, milk powders, Hot Wheel cars, biscuits, pens, crayons, crumbs, dead fruit and my dog tattered book (utterly unread), medications, creams, lotions & potions and a library of childcare pamphlets which cover responding to allergies and how to manage an accidental exposure to The Bee Gees. Under my armpit I have a ‘just in case’ picture book and between my teeth my keys scrape my teeth. B2’s Hummer pram grinds its way through the muddy entrance.

 And the fun hasn’t even started! 

Fun

The airborne training area is usually crawling with toddler recruit units bent on park domination. Letting Jackson loose on the ropes, ladders, bridges, slides, swings and mayhem brings out the anxious parent in me. I wait in anticipation of tears of garbled explanations in gibberish. After four years on the job gibberish is a language that strains my patience. The park offers space; grass, sun and play just don’t take the kids. 

Swimming lessons but you gotta get there!

Swimming lessons are fun! They would be if I could get us to the aquatic centre (in old-speak ‘pool’ or the more sophisticated phrase ‘indoor pool) on time. Morning routine usually has me stumbling around the lounge-room retrieving items for the boys so that I can have some blissful couch time. It’s 6:40am I hold a blurry sharp eye on the mantlepiece clock. I calculate the odds of B2 taking a nap before we leave. Fortunately B1 is pretty much a trustee coming up for parole. However, it’s not a sense of trust handing B1 control of the TV remote it’s exhaustion and hope for the best.

The aquatic centre is pretty close but the benefits of distance and time are given a traffic beat down. Therefore, to get to swim lessons for 9:30am and this deal includes the expected morning trip to Junction City, Surrealism, team B1B2D must jump off at 5am. I’m kidding aren’t I?

At 8:57am I’m dismantling a tricky B2 pooh-bomb as my brain is lulled into disturbance by B1’s stream of unconsciousness reminiscent of Kerouac’s beaten-dead period.

The numbers crunch my plans and no sooner have we moved to the car B1 wants to take a number two. I pretend to relax and B1 knows it. Guiding him to the bathroom with B2 dangling from my arms, B1 disappears.

     ‘Where are you?’ I said.

     ‘Getting a car!’ [where do you think dad].

     ‘Now? I thought you needed to go?’

     ‘Yes but I want a car.’

9:13am.

At 9:21 we’re in traffic. B1, B2 check! Mr. Mom bag check, B2’s survival kit check! Let’s roll. Traffic is a slaughterhouse, B2 is crying, B1 pontificating on the virtues and philosophy of lollypops. Granted a fascinating topic but bad timing B1. At 9:32am I give up fantasies of teleportation and accept the shame of lateness. Now it’s a matter of how late. Next week I’ll be organized.

But this is next week!

Where do I Go From Here

Let's just hook in dad

Somehow I’ve made it this far and not without help. Still, the adventures and as Jackson says, ‘mysteries,’ will be the focus of this blog. Not sure if it will be of any interest to my friends and family but it’ll give Sally the opportunity to keep tabs on her three boys as we stumble through the day. Jackson has coined the term, ‘is today a boy day mum?’

So please feel free to comment and direct me to spelling mistakes and product placement will also be a feature (movies, playgrounds, food, different types of mud and stones, clouds, bugs, books and all the other things that make me recall the that great home dad film in made in the 1980s with Michael Keaton, Mr. Mom. My favourite line is delivered to

Mr. Mom’s wife’s boss
Mr. Mom, “You want a beer?’
Boss, ‘it’s seven o’clock in the morning!’
Steady pause.
Mr. Mom, ‘Scotch!’
Mr. Mom turns chainsaw on in the lounge room.

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