House Husbands and the importance of Bunny

Am loving House Husbands on Channel 9. And although there are quite a few leaps outside of most family's reality, watching Justin (Firass Dirani) looking for his baby girl's lost pink bunny is a very real situation that I'm sure many parents have faced. 

Our eldest boy is three and a half and at last his beloved Blankie, a treasured baby gift, is starting to cut little less of a figure in his life, but it was only last year that Blankie going missing struck fear into the hearts of men, small and large and one woman. 

Once we lost Blankie in the supermarket and some kind person whom I am forever grateful to, picked it up and put in on the bananas where he waited for us for ten terrifying minutes. My relief was palpable and our then 1 year old grabbed him and held him close like a long lost friend. 

Then there was the time Daddy forgot to bring blankie home from kindy... on a Friday!!!! We realised then how strong the attachment between Blankie and Bang was. It's completely understandable when you think about it, when we'd left the room, gone back to work, had a shower or got forbid gone to the toilet alone, Blankie had stayed with our little man everywhere he went. Blankie was his truest friend and as his devastated face crumpled we knew we were all in for one of the worst weekends of our lives! Again finding him packed in one of the kindy toy baskets on Monday morning was one of those great moments in my recent existence, my heart sang! 

Then there was the time Blankie was left in the car and instead of accompanying his beloved owner into Kindy he went for an adventure to Daddy's workplace, where beyond his wildest dreams he got to go for a ride on a courier's motorbike back to kindy and back into Bang's arms. That adventure wasn't taken under pressure from me, my husband, who obviously valued his life, came up with that one all by himself and just told me about it later.

First rule of comforters is to buy two of the exact same kind. I discovered this rule about 6 months too late, I think I got spooked after the supermarket incident. When I happened upon the same taggie in a local baby shop I almost giggled out loud in a strange unhinged sort of way. When I got it home and patted myself on the back as I swapped Blankie over for a much-needed wash, it was about then that the giggling stopped. Bang looked at imposter blankie and patted it, looked at me, looked back at imposter blankie and then threw it. I couldn't believe it, he knew because of the texture, the new one was much softer and didn't smell nearly the same. I remembered when I had first given Bang Blankie he was only 6 weeks old and I'd spent a night sleeping with Blankie on my skin so it's smell would comfort him to sleep. It had obviously worked far too well. 

Thankfully three years on and deputy blankie occasionally gets a look in but only if absolutely necessary and only if real Blankie is around also. 

So Justin trailing around Melbourne on every possible tram to find a pink bunny, not weird, not extreme, not fictional at.all. Just a great Dad who understands the rules of toddler and baby life. Bunny, Blankie, Ted et al are real friends and irreplaceable, just don't ever lose them...ever.... well not if you value your sanity!

Read More

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it" CB Kelland

My Dad is one of those men who don’t speak much and I’m not sure whether that is why he is so popular or whether it is the easy confidence he exudes, but to know him is to love him. And who was I to buck a trend? The truth is I absolutely idolised him as a child in a way only a daughter can. 

My poor mother was so excited to be having a girl (I have one older brother), someone she could pass on feminine knowledge and ways to, but I turned out a terrible tomboy and was often found under the car with Dad as he showed me how to change the oil or the like. If I wasn’t holding the makeshift electric light over the engine of the car, or passing him a wrench, I was standing on a wooden crate in Dad’s workshop watching him build whatever contraption was needed for that day’s project.

And if you saw this place, inconspicuously hidden under the front verandah, you’d understand why. It was literally a man cave in an epic way with every type of tool you could think of. With the twin wheel grinder and industrial sized clamp front and centre, there were draws of screws, washers, nuts and bolts; every type of spanner, wrench, hammer; and every kind of scrap material from flyscreen to soft lead sheets used to make fishing sinkers of varying sizes. We didn’t need Bunnings in those days, all we had to do was go to Dad’s workshop and whatever you needed was there.

Mum was not a fan of the workshop, it was organised chaos and more than a little bit dirty. And those are two of Mum’s mortal enemies. But I’d venture to say the workshop was just another thing that took him away from her. He was a shift worker for his contracting business and if he wasn’t working, he was fishing, playing his double bass in a ‘70s nightclub or in his dark workshop. I used to long for him to come home as there was definitely not enough Dad time for any of us, especially Mum.

So today, in a time when Mothers still play the primary role in the life of their children I wondered whether it was fair that Father’s got a day, “shouldn’t they just get an hour, it’s good enough for the earth”, I half-seriously considered. Then I thought of my Dad and how he had taught me what electricity is, how to change a tyre, how to hammer a nail so it didn’t bend, the nature of different metals, how to saw wood so the teeth don’t get caught and how to make useful things from whatever we had lying around. And I realised his ever-present patience and generosity to spend hours teaching me things that in the end inspired me to complete a degree in Industrial Design, deserved to be celebrated for longer than an hour.

Even now as I watch him with my two boys I see the same patience and imagination he shared with me, revealing itself again, and like many before them, they can’t get enough of him (only last week Crash, who’s only 11 months old, cried when I took him from his Pop!). 

So despite him being around less when I was young and being much more reserved in the way he showed his love, I knew I was loved and accepted as just me, and not just accepted but adored and empowered. Thanks Dad, Happy Father’s Day.

Why does your Dad deserve to be spoilt all day long on Father’s Day?

©My IdeaLife, 2011, All rights reserved

Read More