When my son (2.5 years old) is playing up, ie refusing to go upstairs/to the kitchen/to bed etc etc we ask him twice and then we say something along the lines of “I’m going to count to three and if you’re not up those stairs I’m going to get very cross.” And it works like a dream. I mean, he’ll always wait until we’ve got to two, but it just WORKS. It’s amazing the power numbers have. I wonder if Kim Jong-Il did it that way too?
It’s certainly made an impression on him. Yesterday I was in my study writing when I heard these words: “Nanna sit down. SIT DOWN NANNA! One … Two …” Brilliant! And it worked on her too! It was the BEST thing ever. My wife reckons her mum should say no to him a bit more but I disagree. We need to keep his faith that the numbers work. The day it fails, the day we get to three and he sees that “very cross” is just shouting or time-out, will be very sad indeed, a total Wizard of Oz moment. And if his nanna has to sit down once in a while on his command that is a price worth paying.
My other best thing is my lack of hangover. How good is that? And I drank all the wine. Aaaand, I have nearly finished my first poem for the Hornchurch project. It’s from the point of view of a young-ish woman about her great lost love, set against a backdrop of Rainham boy racers. I want the guerrilla performance to take place in a pub on the High Street in Hornchurch. Maybe I’ll post it when it’s done. Or maybe not. It strikes me that these guerrilla performances might be a bit less guerrilla-ish if I keep banging on about them, to my knowledge Che Guevara didn’t have a blog. But then he didn’t do performance poetry either, turns out there are more effective ways to bring on a revolution.
Talking of revolutions, here is my New Year’s resolution:
TRY HARDER
It’s the same as the one I had last year. I think I did OK last year but this year I am determined to do better. By TRY HARDER I mean at everything. From being a more attentive father and husband to bleaching the black sludge off the double glazing a bit more regularly. I genuinely believe the more you put into life the more you get out – I am doing this for myself, I want MORE.