The return of the question kid

"Why's he saying Marmalade?"
"Whose Aunt Lucy?"
"What's Peru?"
"What does ripe mean?"

The question kid had returned to terrorise the family. At 5am on Tuesday morning I took a hit for the the very sleepy and disgruntled family team and took William into the Kitchen to hopefully shut him up for another couple of hours and watch the ipad.

The experts aka "My wife and daughter" reckoned he had woken up needing a pooh and felt that it wasn't enough just to either....

1) need a pooh quietly to yourself in his bed until everyone woke up naturally
2) Need a pooh and go and quietly take yourself off to the bathroom to have said pooh
3) Any other option that didn't involve prematurely waking anyone else in the house.

We had returned mildly refreshed from three nights staying with my family. Three nights of your mum doing bath and bedtime stories and my Dad making my wife gin and tonics where it's mostly gin filled up with two fingers of tonic had made us feel refreshed.

William had found a genuine ally in my parents bouncy Labrador and together they had spent three blissful days partaking in all the best elements of modern day life

1) Posting tennis balls, flapjacks and probably the odd driving licence down a large rabbit hole.
2) Stealing socks
3) Falling asleep curled up in front of Paddington 2
4) Eating flapjacks
5) Weeing outside (standard for a Labrador an area for development for a four year old about to start school!)

While staying with my parents The MC Wrapper had made a brief visit and had done some filming. If this song creation was done at the expense of more important jobs like  hanging up the family's washing and looking for socks in the garden is still yet to be seen. But to watch the latest song click the link below.

                                                   "My Pedigree Chum!" (song link)

"Daddy I feel hot inside and out and I don't even have a blanket wrapped around me!"

This revelation  from my daughter on Tuesday one day before the start of school mean't the help of a reliable friend "Mr Calpol"


We also had my niece visiting for a couple of days before she went back to University, She was signed up to run the Brighton Marathon for "Mind" next April and today was their first training run.

Wednesday morning Grace started year 1,William started reception and my wife started worrying about being judged for William having wet shoes.

"I am almost certain that the last thing on the reception teacher's mind on the first day of the school year is why one of her children's trousers are slightly damp around the ankle area!"

On Wednesday night we had the last two foreign students for this year. Two 14 year olds from Como which I imagine must be nearish to lake Como arrived with suitcases on wheels big enough to smuggle their siblings in.

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this lot below. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or stuck in an anxious moment.

To watch some songs about life and the trials of parenting from a MC (Middle Class) Wrapper click this link below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw9kvycTNN_S2TTfAoIWTkg

To read the official blog of the Middle Class Wrapper

http://middleclasswrapper.blogspot.com/

Or just come and say hello or Twitter or Facebook

https://twitter.com/DadMissions2018

https://twitter.com/ClassWrapper

Copyright James Macdonald 2018

"Auf Wiederschauen"

On Wednesday at about 4.30am our last two EF students said goodbye to our family to return home to theirs.

In total this summer season we hosted.

1 Danish girl,1 Spanish girl,1 French girl,1 German girl and two Austrian's.

The Danish girl who like all the others, was polite, friendly would have definitely got Grace's vote just for her sheer endurance at playing unicorn games designed for a 5 year old in another language! That said Anna text me halfway through the Austrian's stay to tell me these two had the potential to win this season's golds.

Their making her a cook book of traditional Austrian dishes clinched it four days before their departure.

"They must have read "How to win over a primary school Mum,1st edition."

1) Take your shoes off.
2) Scatter your dialogue with descriptive language.
3) Offer to wash up
3) Tell her she cooks as well as her Mum.
4) Look away when her son is licking a puddle of milk and Cheerios off the breakfast table.

This was I think Austria's first two summer Gold medals since the 1923 games in Stuttgart when the late great "Heidi Von Edelweiss cowbell the 3rd" won gold in the hammer throw.

At 4am ish on Wednesday our three children were uniquely asleep!

Anna was fussing about hand luggage dimensions and best before dates of yoghurt.

Two 14 year old Austrian's were sat at our kitchen table, drinking tea, eating toast and staring out into the mist of a day that was only minutes old.

"What is you say in English? Are you wanting of a cuppa?"

I was trying to work out if my appearing like a bleary genie to carry the suitcases downstairs and say goodbye in my Wife's dressing gown because mine still smelt of sour milk and flash would put a sour milk smelling dampner on the grand departure?

It didn't.

Saturday,two days before his actual birthday William had his birthday party which contained everything you would expect from a 4 year olds birthday party.

A Mum up at dawn to clean skirting boards in pre-emptive defence of the judging eyes of other Mums.

Two wildly over excited children who were surely minutes away from a sugar induced crash.

A Dad who was taking his "Head of Hot beverages / putting the pizzas in for the parents assistant coordinator role!" very seriously.

William's smiling face at bedtime was all the thanks we could have needed. He even made an effort with his piddling.

"Look Daddy I'm weeing like you! I got most of it in the loo!"

"Well then you've achieved something I'm yet to William!"

An idea from "Mr Dadmission" was created and launched onto the Utube channel on Thursday night.

But not before I had cleverly hid it behind the,way too small, shield of self deprecation. A barrier I disguised as comedy  to deflect bullies and harsh comments away since at least 1981.

To check out this latest of ventures,click the link below.

Are you PHIT-ENUFF!

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this lot below. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or stuck in an anxious moment.

To watch some silly songs about life and the trials of parenting from a MC (Middle Class) Wrapper click this link below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw9kvycTNN_S2TTfAoIWTkg

To read the official blog of the Middle Class Wrapper

http://middleclasswrapper.blogspot.com/

Or just come and say hello or Twitter or Facebook

https://twitter.com/DadMissions2018

https://twitter.com/ClassWrapper

Copyright James Macdonald 2018

The arrival of the Crow and sleep! I know?

Cometh the, way too much spare time, cometh the 42 year old man messing around in a kitchen.

This week apart from some regular late night stomping which could only be a traditional pre sleep Austrian decompressing ritual from our two students, it was quiet upstairs in the spare room / the Austrian quarter.

This week apart from my oldest son waking up every time one of our students forgot the most important of house rules, never, ever turn off the bathroom light, it was pretty quiet in the kids room!

This week apart from my wife doing her "genuinely athletic cat burglar" move. A matrix like move that involves an inverted, triple salko, double twist with back flip to take her from fast asleep lying flat to peering over the edge of a Moses basket investigating if that (fart, wriggle, snuffle) was just as innocent (fart, wriggle, snuffle) from baby Jack. Apart from waking up to see the tail end of that, a move that would have definitely put her in a strong medal position at the last 3 Olympics, it was fairly quiet.

This is all great but will this new, very odd state of affairs makes the "Sleepless in Saltdean" blog title a bit silly?

Should I change it?

Would anyone care?

What is genuinely threatening my sleep at the moment is my giddy excitement at the prospect of getting dressed up in a crow costume and writing, filming producing silly songs  late into the night.

Please check it out and subscribe to the Utube channel if you want to see how this evolves.                                                
                                                       "CAW CAW CAWWWWWW!" 

                                            Shouldn't you be making up bottles (song link)

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this lot below. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or stuck in an anxious moment.

To watch some silly songs about life and the trials of parenting from a MC (Middle Class) Wrapper click this link below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw9kvycTNN_S2TTfAoIWTkg

To read the official blog of the Middle Class Wrapper

http://middleclasswrapper.blogspot.com/

Or just come and say hello or Twitter or Facebook

https://twitter.com/DadMissions2018

https://twitter.com/ClassWrapper

Yes,Take Pride,but also maybe your rubbish home?

It seemed a lot longer than a week since I had been rolling Brazilian Jui Jitsu on the mats.

A lot had happened or maybe it just felt like that.

1)      We had exchanged our second round of foreign exchange students for….foreign exchange students. Our students from France and Germany bid us a fond farewell. I know Anna was trying to give a sincere heartfelt goodbye especially to the one that got eye liner on the carpet. 

2)      With the arrival of two Austrian girls our upstairs spare room now sounded more like downtown Vienna. Unbeknown to them their unprompted acts of clearing their plates, loading the dishwasher and taking their shoes off before being asked probably put them in instant silver medal position behind our first week Danish student. She did all of that but also brought Anna chocolate and offered to try and get William to eat his breakfast.

“William you need to listen, taking your spoon in your hand and eat your breakfast, you are a big boy starting the school soon!”

“And you need to ring and tell your Mum you’re never coming home you’re a keeper and maybe our best chance and training our son slash wolf cub.”

3)      Our friends who had moved to Gran Canaria last year came to visit for their annual trip back to the Motherland. I saw this as a great opportunity for booking in two sea swim round the buoys followed by Doom bar and curry nights. These were sanctioned by Anna in the name of friendship and international relations. And quite possibly the chance of a discounted family holiday in the future.

4)      My mate Dave will also find himself in several of MC Wrapper’s future songs. I am hoping two bags of crisps and the third round of beers will satisfy him in the way of royalties.

5)      Pride descended on the city and you would have been correct in thinking that it was the end of days if you had accompanied me on my seafront patrol on Sunday morning. The fact that we always have two officers for this patrol highlights the obvious risks.

“Did it rain last night?”

“No mate that’s not a puddle of water, it’s yellow and steaming!”

“Whoever dropped their wallet in it might want to give it a wash!”

I had thrown myself into creating songs for the MC Wrapper to perform in an attempt to build a Utube channel. Getting shots for the accompanying video wasn’t easy and clearly testing my wife’s patience.

“Darling can you just hold this for five seconds!”

“Yeah nice try! I’m not falling for that one again!”

So as you can see important as rolling and trying to perfect my lasso is there is often other family and life stuff that will have to trump it.

This was the first class I had ever done taken by the new black belt Mario. It was a great class and running through a lot of drills was really helpful especially for an old duffer like me with a head full of life and work stuff.

There was about 45 minutes of rolling afterwards which also gave me the chance to get the three shots I needed for the next two MC Wrapper songs.

My climb to base camp "Blue belt first stripe" continues as to does MC Wrapper's attempt to become the 3^rd maybe 4^th most famous white rapper in Saltdean, East Sussex.

For a very childish song about flatulence please watch this space. It’s on it’s way…brraaaaap! Sorry!

                                                               MC Wrapper songs

                                           

MC Wrapper goes West

My first MC Wrapper parody song "500 Jobs"  literally took all week to create.

In a fairly obsessive way I found myself using any available spare time to make it all happen.
Scribbling down lyrics on the back of an envelope. Listening to the backing track while hovering. Counting and checking to see that the lyrics match up in my lunch break. Pushing the limit of how much sleep you can survive on by editing the video into the early hours.

On Friday at about 02.15 am following a day at work, a sea swim with a mate that turned into four pints of Doom bar and a curry and a bike home in the dark I uploaded it to Utube.

I'm not sure exactly was I was expecting to happen by after 48 hours of posting it.Maybe Jay Z texting me to see if I fancy going for a pint after work and to discuss a collaboration?

Eminem face timing to see if I fancied if fancied meeting for a halloumi wrap and a chat about how we could move it forward, together.

Lulu emailing me to say she liked my sentence structure.

The 23 viewing it had and 1 extra subscriber wasn't really satisfying me enough.

You be the judge. Am I justified in feeling put out not to instantly have 100,000,000 Utube subscribers.No okay you're probably right

500 Jobs by MC Wrapper

My brother had rung twice on Saturday while I was at work battling the carnage that annual Pride festival brings with it.I had ambitiously said I would ring him later once I had stopped telling drunk people also high on horses tranquilizers that even though they may well have been a strong swimmer at school going into the sea was not making our lifeguards job any easier.

Sorry I didn’t call last night it was the perfect storm of Anna going out on first girly night out since having Jack,my having to sit and have another polite but awkward meal with an equally uncomfortable French and German 14 year old student,William

and Grace demanding I take them out to look at the moon,Jack needing another ten litres of milk  to get him to sleep and my needing an early night to deal with a post Pride weekend which thanks to Britney was a record number if people. Will call later James

Okay I'm done with sleeping on top of a duvet,Autumn now please!

Monday night into Tuesday morning felt a bit like going back to my one and only ski season in 2001.

Every week we would have the dreaded changeover day. Moving a family out of your chalet, cleaning it, preparing food, cooking yoghurt cakes and moving a new family in.

The main difference being  I was saying goodbye to two polite International students, not 8 arrogant stock brokers. 8 muppets who during their week in the Ski Chalet I was managing had...

1) Broken the lock on the larder to eat all the cheese on their first night.
2) Left a pair of soiled underpants under a bunk bed.
3) Were the only group in the whole season who didn't leave a tip.

Not that I'm still bitter,17 years on.

Our Danish and Spanish students would be making way for a German a French representative. I explained to William that he shouldn't mention Brexit, Refugee camps or the World Cup.

He looked at me blankly and returned to eating the scrunched up crisps he had scattered over the coffee table to eat up like a dog.

Operation "Retire by the end of the financial year" took another step forward,maybe.

I received my two t-shirts and did some poses.

Pose 1 me breathing in and trying not to pass out before the 10 second timer goes off.

Pose 2 me being a Dad in action "caring yet firm". That said in this image I look more like I have my son in a one armed naked choke hold.

On Tuesday there were lots of attempts to get a wriggly bottomed William to sit still for a farewell photo for our wobbly lipped student. Once we had said goodbye at the door and stopped making only half joking comments about "William fitting in her hand luggage and Grace in her backpack" we tried to prep the house for my sister and her three grown up kids visiting to meet Jack.

"William just sit still for a few more seconds!"

"I need to get a toy!"

The house was tidied and cleared up to the same standard as if you were expecting a visit from a health visitor as opposed to royal dignatories or your parents.

Shampoo bottles were lined up straight but not in the alphabetical order they would need to be when Mums are in town.

On Wednesday we were busy confusing foreign students with what probably sounded like a hybrid of Del Trotter meets Gerard Depardieu.

The petit girls,cest the temps por the diner por favour.Vous etes dans la bibliotheque 

Google assured me this was an accurate translation of "Ladies it's supper time." Once they'd shuffled nervously into the kitchen to ask if they could remove the T Rex from the bath Anna let me in on her plan to get William ready for big school is about 6 weeks time.

My primary teacher wife had on this, the first day of the school holidays, actioned operation WIBBLE (William’s- intensive-behaviour-bootcamp-largely-exhausting)

This was to try and get our son, who from his recent habit of weeing outside and eating crisps off the table is looking more wolf cub than a human child everyday. He starts reception in September,will he be ready? My wife who has been a teacher since 2001 thinks she’s got this. As today’s relatively easy test to see if he can respond politely to a teacher indicates I am not so sure. Click here to see how that went.

Operation WIBBLE


The humid weather changed dramatically on  Friday to gale force winds and rain on Saturday. This change in air pressure also meant the following.

1)    Several hours of doing shoreline patrols in driving rain and gale force winds to ensure that  the 100's of International students remained just impressed by the shore dump not victims of a shore dump.

2)    A two day drawn out argument about bin bags.

Even without anyone requesting him to do so, MC Wrapper still felt the need to write and perform a song about it. Click here to see how that turned out.

WRAP OF THE DAY

Galleria Proxima Generacion

La gente del árbol lejano

From what I can see crayon chalk, chocolate from a Penguin biscuit on 6/7 pieces of white A4 paper 

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this lot below. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or stuck in an anxious moment.

To watch short Vlogs about parenting and how to do squats in the kitchen click the link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBq5onzZtj0

To watch some silly songs about life and the trials of parenting from a MC (Middle Class) Wrapper click this link below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw9kvycTNN_S2TTfAoIWTkg

Or just come and say hello or Twitter or Facebook

https://twitter.com/DadMissions2018