Speech

Some say hearing a baby’s first words is one of life’s finest moments. Indeed, the rhythm guitarist from ‘Fluffy’s Chain’ rates this over the high of our first gig. Of course, if the first words are: ‘f*ck off’, this takes the shine off things. You should therefore consider the environment in which you will raise your child.

Play

This is where kids clean up. First, because they make you feel inventive. Second, because they then leave you for dead in terms of inventiveness.

When a friend brought over her seven-year-old daughter, it was with some satisfaction that I produced a vial of ‘Slime with Maggots’ (oh, to be at the pitching meeting for that one…). The child watched me exhaust my permutations for the toy, then swiftly tripled them. Several I have been too afraid to attempt since.

When the nine-year-old son of my ‘Age of Empires’ rival visits, it’s open slather in the alternate universe of Lego. How I wish I had the courage to tip my bricks nightly in front of ‘Wheel of Fortune’. It’s such fun! But you can’t unless there’s a kid around, or you’ve dropped acid. And then those little people with their crazy hook hands and superior smiles can really freak you out. The same goes for the Fuzzy Felt ‘Carnival Fun’ Edition. What a bugger those demonic merry-go-round horses are so pivotal to every tableau. Only children have the imagination to work around them.

At Christmas, the potency of the play phenomenon is increased ten fold and even my flinty heart softens at tykes going bananas in pyjamas.

Immortality

All our cells die except those which go on to create new people. By having a child we cheat death - literally ‘living through our kids’. Whether you have your mother’s lips, your father’s palms or your nanna’s sense of adventure, you are a part of them that has not expired. And on rare, unsettling occasions, you can feel their blood coursing through you as they view life through your eyes.

That’s got to be some trip.

The End.