Friday 23 September 2011

Teaching an old dog new tricks.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little harsh on myself but then again, thinking about it, in dog years a human 30-something would be pretty ancient.

One of the nice things about being a parent and having a 3.5 year old with a 30 second attention span is that you’re continually bombarded with requests to do new things. ‘Daddy, build me a tower, draw Mickey Mouse, draw a dinosaur, make a paper aeroplane, juggle!’ etc etc…

This works pretty well for me. As a child I enjoyed drawing cartoons and so making a few recognisable shapes with the crayons is not a problem. Although for some reason, despite Miss D being more than happy with my efforts, I just can’t get Mickey Mouse looking perfect - I would post a picture to illustrate my point but I fear I’d be sued for breach of copyright by the ever litigious Disney Corporation so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Building stuff is great fun too. Being a past user of Lego and Meccano, coupled with the fact that my dad taught me bricklaying at the tender age of 11, I’m pretty happy with my recent construction projects involving the Duplo bricks and Early Learning Centre’s ‘Build-It’ kits.

However, every once in a while, life throws you a curve ball. At a recent day out to meet Peppa Pig, one of the entertainers gave Miss D a balloon animal dog which she immediately fell in love with. He was red and she named him ‘Woofy’. I stress ‘was’, he lasted well considering he was played with all weekend but eventually he started to fade. Then the inevitable happened:

‘Daddy, can you fix Woofy’s legs?’
‘Um, okay, I’ll try’
* POP *
‘Waaaaaaaaaahhh!’

Despite my best efforts, this was one toy that daddy just couldn’t fix. Miss D’s genuine sadness at Woofy’s passing meant that within a few minutes of consoling her I was Googling ‘balloon animal kits’.

The kit arrived today, along with a large bag of back-up balloons. Thankfully, included is an instruction book with a ton of step-by-step pictures of things to make. I’ll have to put in some practice before Miss D gets ‘Woofy II’ but this will be another random skill I’m looking forward to acquiring!