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Can you believe it? The tiny human being who screamed her way out of my wife is now two years old.
I mean in a lot of ways it feels like I've been a dad for a thousand fucking years and if I look at myself in the mirror, it's certainly taken its toll. But blimey it all happened yesterday surely?
Or earlier today.
And I just did my last o level an hour ago.
I think I might be in a hospice and having random memories.
Anyway, it was a great excuse to have a day off with my two marvellous, if slightly ill girls. And we went out to an industrial estate in Acton to go trampolining. I remember being taken trampolining by my parents back in the mid-seventies, but back then it was a big trampoline set up in a hall and we took turns to take a few bounces before someone else had a crack.
We were going free jumping at Oxygen and there was a whole room full of different sized trampolines and pits full of foam and basketball hoops and swings. It was fucking crazy. You had to put on special yellow socks. I ask you.
It's not really my kind of thing, as averse to risk and danger as I am. But Phoebe was in her element. She's happy to chuck herself into things and give it a go. And even though she's not properly mastered jumping yet, she still tried and towards the end started doing pretty well.
I took her across a very wide balance beam, maybe two feet above a big pool of foam and I was still nervous, because I am a total coward. Phoebe wanted to fall off. So reluctantly I had to do so too. Sweetly after I had pulled her out of one foam pit she wanted to return the favour for me and reached down to help.
There was a feature where you could run along a runway and then jump into a big inflatable. I carried Phoebe over the last bit and we jumped together and banged our heads. This is the kind of thing that I was worried would happen. The back of her head hit the front of mine and I came off worse. A child's skull is very hard. I tried to forewarn my wife that there was a good chance that I would now fall down dead at any second, but she didn't seem worried. Like that's what she wanted.
Hey look I managed to bounce up and down on some trampolines and get out of foam pits almost entirely without the assistance of my 2 year old daughter and only nearly cry once.
But we went out and relaxed and had fun, even though it's Phoebe's proper party tomorrow and I hadn't finished my AIOTM scripts. But something has changed since two years ago and I wasn't worried about it. Family is more important than work. Jim Carrey was right.
What a delight to celebrate both two years of this not so new life and two years since my incredible magical wife produced this rabbit from a hat (with a twist). They are so alike and are also the two best things that have happened to me so far. Even if one of them does a powerful reverse head butt.
I didn't die on her birthday, but surely I won't make it through the night.
