My wife calls me from Ireland. The baby has been acting up, barely eating and refusing to sleep. Since she doesn’t have a temperature, we’re content she doesn’t have a fever, and wonder aloud if there’s a sleep regression we’ve missed. This is likely, as we realise neither of us have used the term ‘sleep regression’ since our son was her age, when such phrases held biblical significance to us both. Back then, we knew the timelines of sleep regressions and growth leaps as if they were our own medical histories. In the years since, a combination of gained experience, increased confidence and an undeniable amount of sheer exhaustion means this has not been the case with our daughter, who’s been raised, basically, on vibes.
I try to console and counsel, but find I can be of little help. I’m in London and she’s still in Dublin as we have no childcare this week and her parents, with a grace and kindness we can never repay, are minding the baby during the day while she works from their spare room. I, meanwhile, have travelled back home to Walthamstow with our son, for a week of solo parenting. Just in time for Father’s Day, I expected it to be a strong test of my parenting mettle, but my wife’s experience has put mine in the shade, and I squirm a bit as I tell her we’ve been having a wonderful time.
We have, though. Aware that he might miss his mum and sister, I’ve branded this week as a madcap holiday with his fun-loving dad, calling it ‘BoyzWeek’. I had in mind the kind of ‘NO RULEZ’ situation you got in 90s kids movies, where the leash is off and anything goes. Milkshake and whipped cream sandwiches for breakfast, skateboarding inside the house… that kind of thing. It’s a testament to the power of advertising that he bought this, despite the fact my wife and I parent identically, but I’ve had to get creative in turning BoyzWeek into the nonstop thrill ride it’s been billed as.
In the end, I settled on letting him go to the playground for twice as long after school each day and enacting a special, exciting configuration of Snakes & Ladders where he can go up snakes if he wants (I cannot). I drew the line at letting him sleep in his school uniform to reduce dressing time in the morning – a bizarre request, rendered more bizarre still by my immediate memory of having wanted to do the same at his age – but I have allowed him to tumble into bed beside me as soon as he wakes up, so he can use my phone to find videos of giant squids and quiz me on facts about orcas.
My wife finds this all perfectly charming when I tell her about it, but is interrupted by the baby crying. It is only my son who is capable of stopping the tears, taking my phone and pulling faces until his baby sister is reduced to fits of laughter. ‘Can we do GirlzWeek soon?’ he asks his mum, as I unfurl the Snakes & Ladders board with one more quiet woop.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
