Parenting - The Game!

Parenting books don’t prepare you for real life so I’ve designed a game for parents-to-be:

LEVEL 1

Your baby is teething and refusing to nap. You’re hungover and there’s no coffee in the house. To complete this level you must make it through to midday without sobbing.

LEVEL 2

On the back of two hours broken sleep you discover that your baby has the shits. To move to the next level you must reach teatime without hitting the gin.

LEVEL 3

Your baby has puked so much you’re forced to change your own clothes three times in the space of an hour. You have nothing clean so must squeeze into jeans that don’t fit anymore and throw a jumper on that’s covered in more unidentified stains than a tramp’s undercrackers. As you walk through the hall you catch the reflection of a demented crack addict in the mirror. Your goal is to leave the house with your self-esteem intact.

LEVEL 4

You’re on the brink of physical and mental exhaustion. To complete the level you must mingle with the general public and attempt to construct viable sentences without sounding like you’ve lost your mind and developed your own dialect.

LEVEL 5

Congratulations, you now have twins! Your goal is to leave the house on time.

I'm a stand up comic and new dad to twins. Click here to follow my blog on Facebook.

Comments

Kevin Nguyen said…

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4 February 2016 at 05:35

The Time I Smeared Shit on the Duvet

My wife and I developed our parenting systems through trial and error. One of the earliest rules we’d introduced was that if it was after 5am and one of the babies became unsettled, we wouldn’t waste our time trying to get them back down in their cot - we’d just bring them in with us. After a nice cuddle in our bed, they’d normally settle back down, barring the occasional impromptu fanny gouge or affable bollock kick. (Babies are the most violent sleepers on the planet, easily capable of committing GBH in the middle of reaching for their dummy.) Our twins were six months old. I was fast asleep. At least, the deepest sleep you can get once your kids arrive. My pre-kids sleep used to be the nocturnal equivalent of deep sea diving. Nowadays I’m lucky if I can submerge my toes in a puddle. Early on, my sleep was lighter than a Ryvita biscuit who’d been having it off with a helium canister they’d met on Tinder. Everything woke me up. Some nights I’d just lie there, bewi...

The Time I Got Sent to the Naughty Step

The naughty step is only as powerful as the child allows it to be. I once sent my son there and 20 seconds later he came racing through the living room on his fucking bike. I briefly tried to return him to his pleasantly carpeted penitentiary but I was far too busy giggling. On another occasion, my lad wouldn’t go to bed and instead plonked himself down on the bottom of the stairs in defiance. I started to threaten him with a trip to the dreaded step of naughtiness. ‘IF YOU DON’T GET TO BED RIGHT NOW, I’ll, erm….’ I tailed off as I realised he was already sitting on the effing naughty step and my threat now made less sense than Welsh hip-hop. I could see on his little face, he’d worked this out too. He threw me a smirk that said, ‘You’ll do what, knobhead?’ I felt it crucial not to back down. So I continued: ‘I’LL PUT YOU ON THE NAUGHTY STEP, YOUNG MAN!’ ‘But I’m already on it!’ he snorted. My brain turned to scrambled egg. ‘WELL THEN!’ I had nothing. Bu...

The Time I Screamed at my Kids

Before my kids arrived I swore I’d never shout at them. But choosing how to approach parenthood before your kids are born is like a caterpillar deciding what kind of butterfly they’re gonna be while they’re still building the cocoon. ‘I’ll still do loads of charity work, of course. And I’ll be REALLY nice to moths too, even though they’ll probably hate me because I’ll be so bloody gorgeous.’ Theory and reality are like sugar and shit. I’ve raised my voice to my kids more times than I can count. Often just to shout ‘STOP SHOUTING!’ which I’m aware doesn’t set a great example. ‘You should NEVER shout at your kids.’ And that’s fine. In theory. Because everything’s fine in theory. The Slimfast diet is a piece of piss until day two when you’ve had three hours sleep and someone offers you a Wagon Wheel. Of course, I never WANT to shout at them. I love them more than words can describe. But those you love are also the ones blessed with the innate ability to boil your piss q...

Sam Avery

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