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The kids had their school carol concert today, conveniently at 2 o clock in the afternoon, but I am a man of leisure so I went along and a surprisingly large number of parents made it too. I was glad I didn't bunk off as both kids looked delighted to see me in the pews and waved and did thumbs up, even the usually cool Phoebe. Supposedly kids will remember for their whole life time if parents didn't turn up for stuff like this, but I can't remember if my folks did or not (my dad was at most things though because he was my headmaster and my mum also taught in my middle school for a while, so I guess she had no excuse either). Catie was too busy to come - did the kids notice or care? I guess we'll only find out in thirty years time when they produce self-funded independent films about how ace I am and how awful she was (I just watched Martin Landau's daughter's vampire movie partly about how evil her parents were, which has won loads of awards, but I thought was a self-indulgent mess that reminded me of "The Room" and made me side with the cast of Space 1999).
I am glad I made the effort and it was fun to see my kids singing and to be touched by the reception and nursery kids singing together too and then try to get my head round the fact that a heartbeat ago Phoebe (and even Ernie) was that little. I can't picture them as anything but who they are now. But I guess that's aphantasia for you. Also the fact that parenthood is so exhausting that your memory is wiped so that you might accidejtally do it again.
Tonight I recorded a podcast with Phoebe. She's very keen to become a social media star, but I am less keen about that. But she's pretty funny and I think a cross generational podcast where the kid out jokes the adult might be fun. But for now it's just for us. She was somewhat of a blocker, mainly telling me to shut up if I asked her anything and also swearing quite a lot (she said it didn't matter because the podcast was for adults, but I am not sure about an 8 year old dropping the F bomb - I blame the parents). She was actually a lot funnier the second we stopped recording, but with a bit of practice and maybe (unlikely as it seems) her taking a bit of advice from her dad, it might become something. If not, I think it will be fun for us to look back on in 10 years time.
