Family Snippets - 6. It's Not Polite

It was a week before my wife’s birthday. I took the boys into town to buy their mother birthday presents and cards, while their mum went off to do the weekly grocery shopping.

With my recent experiences of Mother’s Day behind me, I knew this was a task fraught with peril, but I gamely stepped up to the plate and headed out the door. Of course, the alternative was to put up with a year of forlorn looks from Janine (she’s too polite to constantly complain). The boys wouldn’t be so kind to me, as they love giving presents, so there wasn’t really a choice.

As there were several shops we needed to visit, I parked roughly in the middle of all of them.

First mistake.

“There’s the toy shop. We can get Mummy a present there!”

Now, I couldn’t fault Andrew, as every four-year-old knows that the only place to buy presents is at a toy shop. With Colin quickly agreeing with his younger brother I had two choices: tell them no, and start the shopping trip with a couple of sullen kids, or tell them yes, but insist on being able to veto any of their selections. I took the sensible option.

“Okay, but Mummy may be a bit old for some of these things. Let’s see what we can find, but there are lots of other places we can look, too.”

We entered the shop and the boys had a good look around. After I’d suggested that their mum may be a bit old for a toy make-up kit, Andrew lost interest. Colin found some cards, and I let him pick one for a birthday card.

“What does it say inside?” Colin asked.

“There’s nothing inside,” I answered. When his face dropped, I quickly added, “but that means you can write whatever you want inside!”

He seemed happy with that answer, and with a quiet sigh of relief, I gave Colin the money to pay for the card.

One item down, but we still had lots to go.

The next stop was the hardware store. I had another chore to do there, but Janine had clued me in on what was likely to happen. As usual, she was one-hundred-percent correct.

“Look Daddy!” Andrew exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the garden hose fittings. “Do you think Mummy would like these?”

Why he likes looking at hose connections, I don’t know. I’d never noticed it before on previous trips, but Janine said he did exactly the same thing when they were looking for presents for my birthday.

“No, Andrew. Why don’t we look over here for something to get her,” I replied, point to the other end of the store.

I’d read Diary of a Wombat to the boys the night before, and a scene from the book had given me an idea. Not exactly a romantic present, but for the boys it was the joy of giving that was key.

I found what I was looking for.

“Look Colin, Andrew. What do you think of this?”

They looked at me, and then what I was pointing at. Their puzzlement was obvious.

“Do you remember the story last night? How the wombat tore up the welcome mat? Why don’t we get Mummy a welcome mat for the back door?”

My attempt at enthusiasm was partially successful. Colin decided it was good idea, while Andrew wandered back to the hose fittings. At least he was happy to just look at them while I paid for everything.

While the mat was something we could use, it was really just to distract the boys while I bought the other things we needed. After putting it into the car, it was time to buy birthday cards from myself and Andrew, and some wrapping paper.

I took them into the newsagent.

“Why don’t you try to find a card for Mummy, Andrew?”

You’d think I would’ve learnt my lesson by now, but no. Andrew started looking at totally inappropriate cards. Not the adult humour ones – the ones for birthdays in the one to ten age range.

“Look, Daddy. Numbers!”

Andrew loves numbers. With no intention of picking a card, he just started going through all the numbers written on the cards.

I decided to leave him for a few minutes while I found a card I could give to Janine. It didn’t take me long before I picked one, and I headed over to where Andrew was still busy.

“These cards are for young boys and girls, Andrew. Mummy’s older than that.”

“How old’s Mummy?” he asked.

I made a mental note to explain to him at some stage that it’s not polite to ask a lady’s age. The middle of the shop was not really the place to do that, though, so I took what I thought was the easy way out.

“Mummy’s [this word has been deleted as a matter of national security: Editor*], but there are no cards for that age, so you’ll have to pick a different one,” I explained, feeling proud of myself for finding a way out of the dilemma. I knew Andrew was fussy and wouldn’t pick a card with the wrong number.

“Yes, there are,” came this voice floating down from the front desk. “They’re up here near the counter.”

This wasn’t even a pimply-faced youngster without appropriate social training that I could blame. This was a mature-aged lady who really should’ve known better. I was ready to kill her. While I struggled to work out what to do, Andrew wandered down and found the appropriate card. There was only one card for that age.

“Look, Daddy. The number [obscenity deleted: Editor*]!”

After many minutes of patient persuasion, I lead Andrew down to where there were some more appropriate cards – one’s without an age listed.

“Do you like this one, Andrew?” I asked, after showing him a number. I took the nod of his head as an agreement, and I relaxed at having overcome that major problem.

Mistake number two, but one I wasn’t to realise immediately.

With that out of the way, I had Andrew and Colin pick some wrapping paper. By this stage, I was ready to accept anything up to and include Toy Story paper, or even something less appropriate, but somewhere along the line, the two boys had learnt that some things were for boys and some things were for girls. I don’t know where they learnt that, because Janine and I have both been careful to try to avoid gender stereotyping. They picked a couple of rolls of plain pink paper “because that’s a girl’s colour.”

The next stop was the chemist. Janine loves taking baths, and aromatic bath oil was an easy present at any time. With the help of the assistant, we found two matching large bottles – one green and one red. Clearly trying to lull me into a false sense of security, the boys each picked different bottles; I’d been prepared for a fight if they picked the same bottle, but they were being kind to me.

After accepting an offer to have the bottles gift-wrapped, I collected the boys and we headed home. Janine was still out shopping by the time we got back. Andrew and Colin were very proud of their purchases and insisted on carrying their bottles into the house. While mentally cringing at the tears that would follow if they dropped and broke them, I let them go. It wasn’t my place to deny them the simple pleasure they got from carrying the presents.

We put the bottles into a secret hiding place (the drawer under Colin’s bed where we always put the presents that are from him) and wrapped the rest of the presents.

“Okay, why don’t we write on the cards before Mummy gets home?” I suggested when we were finished. The boys quickly agreed.

I gave Colin his card, and he immediately start to write his name. I then gave Andrew his card and brought out mine.

“Where’s my card?” Andrew asked, puzzled.

“There it is,” I said, pointing to the card I’d helped him pick.

“That’s not my card!” he insisted as he looked around. “Where’s my card?” he asked, tears beginning to fall.

This was when I realised about mistake number two.

“I thought this was the card you wanted,” I said, as a feeling of helplessness started to seep through me. “Look, it’s a lovely card!”

“It’s not my card!”

I looked at the clock. The newsagent would be closing in twenty minutes. I gave up and admitted defeat. There was no point trying to argue; you just can’t win with a four-year-old.

“Okay, everyone. Back to the car. We’re going back to the shop to get Andrew’s card.”

“Whose fault is it, Daddy,” Colin asked me as we walked up to the car.

This is a fairly recent trait of his – always wanting to know whose at fault. Most of the time, it wasn’t a big deal. Then there were times like this....

“It’s my fault, Colin,” I conceded. “Daddy’s a duffer.”

It is amazing how often I’m forced to admit that. It’s not even always my fault, but it seems that when he won’t accept that it is no-one’s fault, I’m the one who ends up taking the blame.

“What was that?” Andrew asked.

“Daddy’s a duffer,” Colin explained pontifically to his little brother.

“Oh, okay.”

We headed back to the shop. The same lovely lady was on the counter.

“I bought the wrong card,” I explained through gritted teeth, as Andrew picked the right card and brought it to up to me. The shop assistant had the audacity to smile.

Arriving home, we found Janine inside unpacking the grocery shopping.

“What happened?” she asked. “I thought you would’ve been home well before now.”

“I bought the wrong card,” I explained, again. “We had to go back to get the right one.”

“Daddy’s a duffer,” Colin stated proudly.

Well, at least that’s something the boys admire about their dad. It might not be the most noble of callings, but being a duffer isn’t so bad.

Or, so I keep telling myself.

* Edited by Janine