Sam Avery

*ROUSING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS AS DRONE CAMERA FOOTAGE PANS THROUGH FRONT DOOR OF SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE. WE SEE TOTAL DESTRUCTION IN THE HALLWAY. THE TV IS BLASTING ACROSS THE EMPTY LOUNGE. BISCUIT CRUMBS ARE SCATTERED ACROSS THE SOFA. COUNTLESS STAINS ARE VISIBLE ON THE CARPET* VOICEOVER: To the untrained eye, this modest property is merely a run-of-the-mill suburban dwelling. But these crude crayon etchings across the wall tell a very different story. For this house is one filled to the brim with conflict, dispute and illogical misunderstandings. This house, is the home of toddlers. *CLOSE UP SHOT OF CHILD LYING ON KITCHEN FLOOR KICKING LEGS AND REFUSING TO LET GO OF A SPATULA* VOICEOVER: And no other life form on the planet is as thoroughly uncooperative as the human toddler. *SHOT OF CHILD SAYING NO TO A DRINK THEN YELLING WHEN THEY AREN’T GIVEN ONE. THEN LOSING THE PLOT WHEN GIVEN ONE IN WRONG CUP* *CUT TO WIDE SHOT OF KITCHEN* VOICEOVER: Here we see th...

1. EXCITEMENT Wow! A new toy. How cool! And it sings three different songs too. That's a relief as I was slightly tired of the other ones but this one seems different. Much less annoying.  We'll have endless fun with this one, kids. That's for sure! 2. YOU LEARN THE WORDS Look, everyone! *presses button, sings along, feeling great* This is better than karaoke. Hit that button again! Whooo! 3. YOU SING THE WORDS AT ALL TIMES Bloody hell, that song is a real earworm isn’t it? Catchier than Ebola. Can't stop singing it. Losing my mind a bit actually. Like those Tetris dreams I used to have. 4. IT ENTERS YOUR SOUL Oh, that SHITTING SONG. I can't think straight. I swear I heard it in my sleep last night.   This is hell on earth. In fact it's worse because I can't even hear myself scream - all I can hear is that frigging song. 5. LOSS OF RATIONAL THOUGHT I'd do time for that fucking thing. As soon ...

MONDAY Got some new books today but for me, there’s nothing more relaxing than sitting down with a book I’m very familiar with. I must have read that one about the zoo a million times and despite the fact there’s no real story, character development or a satisfying conclusion, it really moves me. Plus it’s fun to hear the big people try to inject false enthusiasm into their voice when I demand we read it again. TUESDAY I’ve been saying this for a while now but Postman Pat is an absolute knob. I’m only 20 months old and even I know he’d struggle to get his hands on a fucking plane. Love Peppa Pig though. What a role model. I hope I grow up to be just as obnoxious as her. WEDNESDAY Refused to take my nap today. Was convinced something amazing was going to happen and I didn’t want to miss it. Nothing happened. Got annoyed. THURSDAY Played with daddy’s iPad this morning but they took if off me. Said they’d put it somewhere safe. Found it on the sofa later so put it in ...

1.YOU CAN GO TO THE TOILET ANYWHERE No need to stop at motorway services or even find a tree to hide behind. Just wait till you’re surrounded by loved ones at a family Christening, lock eyes with one of them and angrily squeeze one out. Beautiful and convenient. 2.IT'S SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE TO THROW A TANTRUM It’s the Friday before Christmas and your boss asks you to work late. You plaster on a fake smile, nod and say, ‘Of course, no problem at all!’ when all you really want to do is roll round on the floor, waving your limbs until your screaming face is beetroot and you’re choking on your own snotty tears. 3.YOU HAVE ZERO RESPONSIBILITY Adults have to fret about broken boilers, council tax and Brexit. The biggest conundrum a toddler will face is whether to eat that bogey or smear it across the wall. 4.YOU CAN BE WRECKLESS Ever fancied running with your eyes shut or getting your face stuck in a hole? How about diving head-first down the stairs or spreading Su...

MONDAY Mummy wouldn’t let me touch the radiator so I asked Daddy. He wouldn’t either. Touched it later when they weren’t looking. It was really fucking hot. Why did nobody stop me? TUESDAY Wrecking stuff is so much fun! Today I ripped my fave book to pieces, smashed a toy in half and totally destroyed a new outfit with a nappy leak that nearly caused Debenhams to be closed temporarily. I love being creative! WEDNESDAY It’s slowly dawning on me that I’m totally clueless in almost every area of life. Today I lay down on the floor and rubbed my face across the gravel. ON PURPOSE! It stung like fuck, obviously. What is wrong with me? THURSDAY Some snotty kid pushed me over at the soft play area today. I cried. They stuck their finger in my ear. I cried more. Mummy came over and blamed me. I cried even more. Injustice is a bitter pill to swallow - I was fuming for literally minutes. I don’t know this kid or what their game is but mark my words - retribution will be s...

My twin boys are 18 months old so this will inevitably change. But for now, here’s my 10 favourite things about being a parent. 1.You Feel Like You've Done Something Worthwhile The planet is overcrowded and we’re running out of fish. We’re not helping by adding more methane-oozing, petrol-guzzling humans to the queue for the last few haddock. But no achievement in life has made me feel as proud as my kids. 2.Nobody’s Bothered If / When You’re Late You are never actually ‘on time’ with kids, merely ‘not late, yet.’ Twenty minutes, half an hour, fuck it – turn up a day late and nobody really cares. Or if they do they won’t say anything because you have a legitimate, living and shitting excuse. 3.When Your Child Laughs There is no other sound like it. When your child laughs, the world makes sense. (Unless they’re laughing at the bollocking you’ve just given them.) 4.When They Sleep Nap time is great (if it happens) but those nights when they go down at the end of th...

1.Told my childless friend I'd had an 'amazing lie in till 7.30am' and he pissed himself laughing. I was deadly serious. 2.In the 18 months since my boys were born I've aged 7 and a half years. 3.Peppa Pig is an obnoxious bitch. 4.Toddlers have bigger ownership issues than BHS. 5.When your child laughs, the world makes sense. (Unless you've just told them off when you'll continue to doubt your abilities as a parent...) Twitter: @samaverycomedy

My guest on this week's episode is the comedian Chris Cairns. We spoke about clown attacks, bunking on the train to Wales and managing his daughter's transition from childhood to young adult. Get it on: iTunes:  goo.gl/gcD6Cs Stitcher:  http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=90435&refid=stpr Podbean:  http://samavery.podbean.com/e/sam-avery-5-things-i-learned/

Forget beautiful sunsets or snow on Christmas Day - my favourite sight in the whole world (even more than my kids themselves) is two empty plates at the end of a meal. (What this pic doesn't show is the rest of the food all over the bastard floor...) 1.Toddlers never run out of fresh creative ways to twat their head into stuff. 2.Applying logic to a child is as pointless as applying sun cream to a piece of toast. 3.Using the bathroom in our house feels like that bit at the safari park when the baboons jump all over your car. 4."Don't dip your spoon in someone else's porridge" sounds like a filthy euphemism. 5.Toddler's moods are like the British weather: constantly changing, hard to predict and guaranteed to ruin a picnic. 6.I spend my entire time at soft play areas ensuring my children don't attack other children. 7.Your child doing a nuclear-level shite as you've just handed them over to your partner on your way out the h...

1.I'd rather see my child's empty plate at the end of a meal than my lottery numbers come up. 2.A toddler can spot stray dummies like a hawk spots field mice. 3.Kids get pop up book. Kids wreck pop up book Parents buy new pop up book. Kids totally fucking destroy new book in seconds. 4.I should have tried a breast milk latte while I had the chance. 5.Reading a book to your child that you haven't already previously read 4,947 times is INCREDIBLE. Sign up to my mailing list via the link on the right hand side or follow my blog on Facebook , Twitter or Instagram .

1.If you're not careful, a day of relaxed nothingness without the kids can easily morph into a 3 hour blitz of the house and a visit to the tip. 2.There's nothing weird about getting poo on my hand anymore. Which is weird in itself. 3.My new motto is 'Ah, fuck it. That'll do." 4.I'll never understand the tastebuds of a toddler: my son will eat coal but refuses chicken. 5.Our house smells like a condemned pet shop. Finally, the highlight of my week was definitely this: Twin 1 cries. Twin 2 crawls to other side of room, retrieves dummy, gives to his brother. Twin 1 settles. Daddy gets something in his eye... I'm a stand up comic and dad of twins. You can follow my parenting blog on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram or sign up to get each new blog via email on the right hand column of my website. I also release a weekly podcast where I chat to fellow parents about what they've learned.

1.Arriving somewhere EARLY with the kids will freak you out. (I expected the universe to implode.) 2.If you're on your third cup of coffee and fourth slice of pizza by 9.30am it's gonna be a long day. 3.Those happy toddlers enjoying ALL their food in the recipe books are CGI, right? 4.When my wife dresses the kids she picks the nicest outfit. When I dress them I pick whatever goes on easiest. 5.It's entirely possible to be so exhausted that you drop a biscuit and call it a c**t. 6.I feel sorry for the snail in our outside bin. Trapped in a pit full of rancid nappies and broken dreams. 7.They should change the name of Teddy Bears Picnic to 'Let's Wreck Daddy's Trousers' 8.Minging food on a floor is more appetising to a toddler than haute cuisine on a plate. 9.I'm pleased my kids are showing an interest in books, if only they wanted to read more than the same two ALL THE TIME. 10.As a parent I've actually listen...

1.The moment your toddler learns how to remove their nappy is scarier than Skynet becoming self-aware. 2.Nap time is the absolute tits. 3.I'm pretty sure there's only three different episodes of In The Night Garden. It's the Status Quo of kids TV. 4.And if you *slightly* mispronounce a character name from that show there's a good chance you'll unwittingly use a racial slur. 5."Who’s your favourite twin?" "The one that isn’t crying." 6.Never mind forgetting what you've come into a room for, some days I forget which room I'm going to on the way there. 7.Wine is the answer. (I just don't know what the question is.) 8.My son can fire nuggets from his arse further than I can throw a frisbee. 9.I still haven't cleaned the inside of the bin. To be honest, I'm so used to the smell now I think I'd miss it. 10.If you criticise when older parents say 'we never had parent and child spaces...

I want my twin boys to be clever and smart. But I hope neither turns out to be a child genius. This morning one of them shat himself awake while the other spent an hour licking the sofa. It seems unlikely that MENSA will be in touch anytime soon. And I’m fine with that. Not that I don’t want my kids to flourish or be successful, you understand. I hope they show drive, ambition and a willful enthusiasm to accomplish beautiful, remarkable things that I could only dream of. But I hope they enjoy their childhood first. And I’m not sure they would if they were certifiable Einsteins by the age of 3. Imagine wiping the arse of someone significantly smarter than you. “Father, without wishing to appear rude, uncouth or in any way ungrateful I would strongly suggest that you stick to a clockwise motion to minimize the increased statistical inevitability of your index finger slipping through this competitively priced but ultimately inadequate latrine paper and becoming reacq...

Twice in my regular Sunday night blog I’ve written about parent and child spaces being used by people on their own.  These are the comments I made: 1.People caught parking in the parent and child spaces without kids should be forced to do their weekly shop with teething triplets who haven’t napped. 2.When politely informing a motorist that the parent and child spaces are for parents with children, they often turn out to be a weapons-grade c**t. Both have been met with support and criticism. Those with gripes can be separated into two camps: A. People With No Kids Fair enough. You don’t understand what an absolute pain in the shitpipe it is to try and get a pair of wriggling, screaming, unaccommodating toddlers out of a car into a space more narrow than a hamster’s skinny jeans. (N.B. It’s the extra space we crave, not the proximity to the shop.) You also won’t understand how severe sleep deprivation renders previously simple decisions as confusing...

1.The first time you discover your toddler can climb the stairs is TERRIFYING. 2.I've set my alarm tone for 'Celebrate' by Kool and the Gang because if I EVER hear it again it will be cause for a fucking party. 3.Changing sheets the same day that your child pissed on them is nothing to be proud of. (But sadly, I am.) 4.Baby gates are great and all but they can be right pricks sometimes. 5.I'm now scared to flush the toilet after 7pm. 6.Few things in life are as funny as a baby noisily filling their nappy, staring you in the eye and laughing. 7.I've yet to see a bad episode of Hey Duggie. 8.Turns out it wasn't worth spending 20 minutes changing the batteries of that toy the kids are now fucking petrified of. 9.Babies don't realise the louder they protest the more it convinces us they DEFINITELY need a nap. 10.I saw a dummy on the street on Tuesday and went to pick the frigging thing up out of habit. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME...

1.Some nappy changes are like Brexit - tonnes of build up, nobody really knows what's going on and there's a horrible mess to clean up afterwards. 2.I love the twins in their Toy Story pj's but I'm not keen on my wife constantly shouting "Awww, look at my little Woody..." 3.Guests who complain at the Furchester Hotel have obviously never stayed at Milton Keynes Travelodge. 4.The quickest way to go from 0 to panic is for a 14 month old to snatch the glasses from your face. 5.The only silver lining to your toddler being under the weather is that at least they want a proper cuddle for a change. 😩 Sign up to get every new blog via email at the top right of my website :)

Latest episode of my '5 Things I Learned' podcast is available now. My guest this week is the co-host of Radio City Talk's 'Dad's Hour' (and father of two) Iain Christie. Download and subscribe on  iTunes   https://    ,  Stitcher   Podbean Sam x

MONDAY Sometimes it feels like nobody understands me. IF I THROW SOMETHING ON THE FLOOR IT DOESN’T MEAN I DON’T WANT IT. I’m expressing myself. TUESDAY Had a raspberry conversation with my own arse this evening. Really enjoyed it. We chatted about all sorts. Tried to start it up again later but things got a bit heated and I accidentally shat myself. WEDNESDAY Spent all morning trying to put my fingers in the plug socket. Surprise, surprise, the bloody big people wouldn’t let me. Spoilsports. Decided to scream and head butt the wall. Hurt like fuck. Cried more. Big person picked me up and moved me away. I went straight back to the sockets. They moved me away again. This is not over. THURSDAY Saw my reflection whilst having a poo today. Christ almighty. Have I been pulling that face the whole time? I look like the big people when they stand on Lego. FRIDAY Really wanted to go to nursery with no clothes on today. Why is this never an option? I reckon most other ...

1.Toddlers have a 'sweet spot' for napping when they're just sleepy enough but not overtired. That 'sweet spot' lasts approximately fifteen seconds. 2.No matter how exhausted I am during the day, the second the kids go down I suddenly have more energy than a puppy with an amphetamine issue. 3."I'm gonna have to go mate, my teat's leaking" is a terrible way for a man to end a phone call. 4.If you have porridge stains on your crotch nobody sits next to you on the bus. 5.Watching your son crawl over to the telly so he can wave at the contestants on 'The Chase' may cause you to melt. ( This week's podcast has my chat with comedian, writer and mum, Jessica Fostekew :)