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Out of the mouths of babes!
IT'S fair to say that you might not like everything your kids come out with – but it's time to face facts, people, what they say is usually the truth – no matter how unpalatable that may be.
Young kids are not the best liars, generally what you see is what you get.
You reap what you sow and all that.
If you ask them if they like going to visit (family member's name removed on spousal advice) and they tell you that their house stinks of dogs, is a right tip and their kids spend their time shrieking at their parents and smashing up their bedrooms, then that's how it is.
You asked, and they told you.
Like they say on those spirit-crushing, unbearably chirpy American TV shows our kids mindlessly gawp at, Hannah Montana, The Wizards of Waverly Place, The Suite Life of Zak and Cody, Sonny With A Chance and the rest of the s***e that effortlessly blends from one programme into the next, so seamlessly that you have to press the 'information' button on your Sky remote to tell which one's which – build a bridge and get over it.
Our seven-year-old daughter's specialist subject on Mastermind would be 'I Tell It Like It Is, Mate. Deal With It'.
Like me, she says the things in delicate social situations that 99.99% of us may be thinking, but would never dream of actually saying, for fear of causing a bout of terminal embarrassment.
She's not malicious or anything, far from it. She's one of the sweetest kids you could ever meet. She makes friends within five minutes on every holiday we've ever been on (Cornwall this year, since you asked) and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
One of life's charmers.
At school her teacher asked her and the rest of her class to do a piece of writing to describe their mum and dad. And this is what she wrote.
'My mum has hair like a lion'. 'My dad swears and farts a lot'. Cheers, love. I have to go to parents' evening and face these people, you know.
No wonder the teachers smirk at me in the playground when I drop our kids off in a morning.
But she wasn't finished there. Oh no. After that she was asked to write something about Lancaster city centre and her experiences therein.
'The town. There is a cheese pasty shop in town. We go there when I have been good.
'Sometimes, when I have been really good and not argued with my sister, I get a little cake as well.'
Now in my defence I'm not one of those parents who goes round pacifying their offspring with what's known in certain circles as a 'Greggs Dummy'.
Me and my wife try our best to feed them fresh vegetables with their meals, even if we have to either chop them up really finely or disguise
them as something else – and sometimes, just sometimes, when there's absolutely nothing else to hand, they've even been known to help themselves to a banana or an apple.
Just imagine! Kids eating fruit without being asked four or five times and not whining like Concorde while they're at it.
But they needed to keep their strength up for their week-long festival of childhood joy commonly known as the half-term holidays.
School? Pah! Why bother about going to school when you can go swimming at 10.30 on a Thursday morning with your dad?
What can school give you that messing around in your cousin's garden on a sun-kissed afternoon bouncing on a huge trampoline and engaging in glorious water fights can't?
What can you learn in school that you can't get with a trip up to the Lake District, munching on chips and gravy outside a chippy with your parents and your dog? Hmmmm?
But by the time you're reading this they'll have been back at school for nearly a week, and days spent playing with their friends in the glorious early summer weather (it's not often you can say that now, is it?) will be just memories.
They get up when their alarm clock goes off; they get dressed, have breakfast and go to school to the sound of a ticking clock; they march in to school, do their lessons, have playtime and eat their lunch to the sound of a bell.
When they're off, even when they're not at the great school they love, they do what they want when they want – or at least when we try and tell them.
Oh, and the Race for Life event our kids and my wife did in Liverpool last weekend?
They walked it, literally. In 59 minutes and 30 seconds. While raising a load of money for Cancer Research UK.
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Weather for Lancaster
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -0 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South east
