{"id":1342,"date":"2017-11-06T22:02:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T22:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/?p=1342"},"modified":"2017-11-06T22:02:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T22:02:19","slug":"days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2017\/11\/06\/days\/","title":{"rendered":"Days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/38224490911\/\" title=\"Rawr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4505\/38224490911_13c58edce4_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"369\" alt=\"Rawr\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Joshua is at that delightful age when he is yet too young to be able to reliably, unaided, clean and dress himself, yet old enough to resist getting ready to leave the house in the morning. <\/p>\n<p>When he was younger, he might not have helped me when I was trying to get his coat and shoes on, but at last he wasn\u2019t actively thwarting our attempts to catch the 7.44 from Gravesend, by throwing his other shoe across the hall or waiting until I\u2019ve got him strapped into his buggy before deciding that now he needs a wee-wee. At least he\u2019s toilet trained, so when he has to relieve himself of the previous day\u2019s meals in the smelliest manner possible I\u2019m not left trying to safely file everything into a slightly too-small nappy sack. <\/p>\n<p>I have to admit that some mornings, when I had to sit on him to hold his hands away from his mouth so I could clean his teeth, my mood might sometimes have tended towards the intemperate. I\u2019m fairly certain that most working parents have found themselves in similar situations, trying not to strangle a little bundle of destructive energy while at the same time wanting to hug it with every fibre of your being.<\/p>\n<p>The other guilt trip is of course the iPad babysitter. Now I know that I should always be spending quality time with Joshua making scale model Nicaraguan quinoa farms or whatever*, but occasionally I have to make dinner or sort out a crisis at work or simply pour myself an industrial-strength G&#038;T (\u201cWhy yes sweetheart, ethanol is daddy\u2019s favourite backup carbon source\u201d) and giving him screen time is\u2014contrary to hysteria\u2014not going to cause any lasting damage. <\/p>\n<p>Jenny and I did make a dragon outfit for him to wear to a little friend\u2019s fancy-dress birthday party last weekend. Which he wore for all of 3 seconds before making off with Captain Hook\u2019s sword and setting about St George with extreme gusto. Some kind of poetic justice, there. <\/p>\n<p>Today the dreaded caller ID\u2014Smart Start Day Nursery\u2014flashed up on my phone. At the time, I was swotting up on a new (to me) therapy area so that I could sound learned and sensible in the kick-off meeting with the client later in the afternoon. My boss is at an event in the US and the only other senior writer capable of tackling such a project (or \u201cbullshitting at extremely short notice\u201d as it\u2019s technically known round these parts) happens to be at the same event, so my mind began to race through all possible scenarios even as I answered, \u201cHello, Joshua\u2019s dad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Turns out that he\u2019d been playing outside, jumping across some stepping stones, but slipped and managed to bash his face on a concrete slab. Maria was calling to say it\u2019s OK, he\u2019s fine, but \u201cI wanted to warn you because he looks a state\u201d. Big bump on his forehead and a cut under his eye.<\/p>\n<p>And indeed, when I went to collect him (after the client meeting, which actually seemed to go very well), it looked like he\u2019d been ten rounds with the aforementioned St George, and I wanted to ask him what the other guy looked like.<\/p>\n<p>Now he\u2019s sleeping peacefully, and I think, once again, that I must be the most blessed man on the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joshua is at that delightful age when he is yet too young to be able to reliably, unaided, clean and dress himself, yet old enough to resist getting ready to leave the house in the morning. When he was younger, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2017\/11\/06\/days\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,50,29],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-1342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-me","category-nonsense","category-personal","tag-joshua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}