There comes a moment.

A moment when you realise your child is starting to develop formidable independent cognitive powers.

Or to put it more plainly.

He’s learning to think for himself. In his own way.

I view this as the moment when you know you can’t get away with the same old crap anymore.

For me it happened at the weekend. We were at Belfast Pride and he asked me why all the people in the parade were laughing.

Without missing a beat I replied: ‘Because they’re all so happy that you’ve come to see them son.’

It’s a stock response. The sort of answer I’ve been using in various forms for a couple of years.

It saves me having to think, you see.

But this time it was different.

This time my son looked at me hard and answered back.

‘But that doesn’t make any sense daddy.’

Huh? 

I was left with the feeling that I’d just been rumbled.

My parenting strategy of mindless constant praise was now in tatters.

But it gets worse.

My son asks questions all the time. I mean….All. The. Time.

My way of protecting myself from this barrage has been to answer nearly all of them the same way.

‘Yeah’.

It’s served me pretty well up to now.

It’s another of the main planks of my parenting skills.

Now it lies in splinters.

The last few times I’ve done it he replies ‘Daddy when you say yeah it means you’re not listening to me.’

He’s 4. And he’s onto me.

With this development comes a scary level of manipulative skill.

This morning he was upstairs with mummy.

She was getting him dressed for the crèche.

I was hiding downstairs watching He-Man and hoping they’d forget I exist. Just for half an hour.

Then I heard him say something.

‘Mummy, do you love me so much that you’ll stay with me all day?’

I winced when I heard it, relieved that I’d dodged the bullet with that question.

I’m watching my son develop his own little personality. It’s both wonderful and a bit scary.

But at the heart of it all he’s still a little boy.

As I was giving him breakfast he asked me if we could have a barbecue tonight.

‘Of course we can son. What do you want? Hotdogs?’

‘No! Barbecued bogies!’

Life is full of choices.

Picture the scene. My son is at nursery and I’ve spent the morning writing. I’ve earned an hour to myself. So what do I do?

And that’s the choice. Is it off to the coffee shop for a cappuccino and slice of cake? Or is it a trip to the gym? (Yes I know it’s the coffee and cake but play along, otherwise this will be a very short post).

The truth is I’m getting to that age where things are starting to happen to my body.

There’s hair growing out of my ears. My previously flat stomach now swells like a balloon being filled with water.

My days of being able to eat lard sandwiches without worrying about the consequences are long gone.

And that’s why I’ve joined the gym.

The first thing to consider is the attire. My old white cotton t-shirt just doesn’t fit anymore (both literally and stylistically).

This brings me to the horror that is Lycra. Tops which seem to attach themselves to my body as if they are an extra layer of skin, revealing my stomach like a bowling ball and threatening to cut off air circulation to my lungs.

Shorts seem to have been replaced by leggings. Leggings for men? Meggings?

When I go to the gym I want to keep a low profile. Not to attract any attention. Thoughtfully the people who make the clothes have attempted to assist this by making all the gear fluorescent orange, pink or bright yellow.

So now I’m nervously finding my bearings in the gym.

There’s a group of large, muscular men in the corner lifting heavy weights and grunting encouragement at each other.

The stench of males confusing strength with being able to lift heavy weights is in the air.

I tentatively try to lift one of the bars. I can’t get it off the ground. I decide to take some weight off it. I realise there are no weights on the bar.

Perhaps weight-lifting isn’t for me. I head for the studio.

It’s spin class. There are 30 bikes. That’s 29 women. And me.

Nothing strange about that at all.

That’s 29 fit women sweating profusely in tight clothes. And me.

Totally normal. Move on, move on.

The instructor arrives. Lean, muscular and loud. She keeps yelling ‘Wooooo!’ Her legs move in the pedals like machines. You could grind coal between her thighs.

I’m turning up the resistance on the bike. Climbing out of the saddle and beginning to work. There’s sweat stinging my eyes and a river running down my spine.

I’m visualising a steep mountain and I’m getting near the top. There’s pain all over my body. My calves and thighs are on fire. I start to lose control of my functions.

A large line of snot drops from my nose and attaches itself to the handlebars, swaying there for a few seconds between my nose and the bike like a tightrope before it snaps.

I’m not going to give up. I fight through the pain. I’m going to do this.

Finally, mercifully, the instructor tells us to relax. I sit up gasping and wailing. Then my head sinks down to rest on the bike.

And she says.

‘OK guys, that’s the warm up done. Let’s start some work now?’

Eh?

The rest of the class passes in a blur of pain and panic. I stumble out of the studio like a marathon runner who’s hit the wall.

I want to go home. I want to lie down. I want to die.

Unfortunately, in my prior enthusiasm, I’ve also signed up for a body pump class. Unseen hands are guiding me into another room.

I’ve got my own bench, and a bar with weights. Again I’m the only man.

Most of the woman have heavier weights on their bar than I’ve been advised to try. It’s my first time.

But my pathetic male pride kicks in. The bar doesn’t seem so heavy so I add on extra weight.

The instructor gets us to lie back and  soon I’m bench pressing the bar above my chest.

It’s fine at first. At first.

Then the pain begins. In my chest, my back, my biceps.

The bar gets heavier and heavier until it feels like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks are attached to either end.

My arms are shaking uncontrollably. I try to keep going but it’s no good. I have to sit up.

And right there, in the middle of the class with all the women merrily bench-pressing, I start to reduce the weights on my bar. That’s where male pride gets you.

But if I thought bench-presses were painful I’m horribly unprepared for the sheer naked cruelty of lunges and squats.

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down with the bar on the back of my neck until it feels like a million tiny silver swords are being stuck into my legs. There’s a fierce cramp crippling my hip.

The instructor sees that I’m struggling, starting to waver, and begins to talk directly to me. To motivate me. To wind me up.

‘Come on Jonny! Keep it going!’ Stick that butt out! Stick that butt out!’

‘Uggghh! Arrrrrgh! Uggghh! Ummmm!’ I respond, impressed at my own eloquence.

‘Nearly there Jonny! Keep it up! Think about getting that butt you’ve always wanted! Think about that perfect butt!’

In truth I don’t really think often about my own butt. I can’t see it and I’m flaky like that. My stomach worries me more because it’s right there in front of me.

Generally when I think about a perfect butt it belongs to someone else.

But it doesn’t seem like the right moment to mention this.

And then it’s over.

Some of the women console me and tell me I ‘did great’ but I can see the pity in their eyes.

The reality is, I’m thinking about cake.

I stumble, waddle and drag myself back to the changing room. Sweat is dropping off my body.

I’m thinking that I might need a crowbar and blowtorch to remove the Lycra.

Just what am I supposed to do with all this crap?

Please forgive me for posing the question quite so bluntly but I think you know exactly what I mean.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it when my wee man brings home his art and craft creations. I’d sooner hold one of his illegible scrawls in my hand than gaze upon the bloody majesty of Carravaggio’s Beheading of St John the Baptist any day. (Really?)

It’s just that, well, there’s just so damn much of it.

Between nursery school and daycare he seems to be working on a steady production line of colouring, drawing, building, painting, pasting and sticking.

Some days when I pick him up I need a sack to transport the weight of paper and cardboard back to my house. It never seems to end. Every day. ‘Look at what I made today daddy’.

And to be even more blunt, and at the risk of sounding like a terribly unsympathetic daddy, it’s all tat.

The truth is all kids can’t be good at all things. My son shows great aptitude for stories and words and his imagination is remarkable (wonder where he got that from?).

He’s frankly less interested in drawing and making things. That’s fine, I was exactly the same as a kid.

And it could just be something that develops later for him. His true artistic talents may simply be disguised.

Although if they are, I have to say, it’s a flipping good disguise.

The tricky moment is when he shows you a picture and you have to try and guess what it is.

‘Ah, that’s brilliant son. Is this me and is that you? Are we going for a walk? What? No? Ah, it’s one of your poos going down the toilet. Yes, I see that now.’

So here’s the conundrum. My house is coming down with all this stuff. I know I’m given to hyperbole but there will come a point soon when I may have to build an extension just to store all the art.

So should I throw them out? Well that would be logical but each time I try to do it I feel like I’m in that scene at the end of The Omen when Gregory Peck has the child Damian on the church altar holding a dagger aloft.

He tries to steel himself for what he knows he must do but the little pleading voice stops him. ‘Please daddy, don’t do it.’

Somehow throwing them away feels like amputating part of my own body. Like Niall of the Nine Hostages as he sailed for Ulster and hurled his bloody red hand.

So there we are. How to square this circle?

I was discussing this very point on Facebook recently when an old school friend, now a mother, told me what she did. She has created a computer database which has all the art her child has created recorded for easy access and virtual storage.

That’s brilliant, I thought. Like all the best ideas, so simple and obvious.

If you’re an organised person.

The truth is I’m the kind of guy who takes six months to get round to replacing a blown lightbulb. The database is a lovely idea and something to aspire towards, but much like financial stability, I know it’ll never happen.

There must be some deep psychological reason why we, as parents, are afraid to let go of these things. Why we keep the drawings, the first tooth, the lock of hair.

Yes, it’s lovely to have as a record but it must be more than that, some innate desire to slow the clock down. To hold onto these moments like a man overboard desperately grasping at a rope.

I’m off to pick up my son now. To enjoy time with him and to take possession of his latest masterpieces.

There isn’t any more room left on the front of the fridge. There just isn’t. New drawings are now covering old ones like layers of wallpaper over the years.

I think I’m going to have to call the builders.

I’ve been writing at home all morning so I decide to take a break.

I drive to the shops to buy some food for dinner and grab a coffee and cake.

I don’t remember ever being in this coffee shop before but my phone already knows the wifi and the password.

This means either I have been here before or my phone has been off having adventures with somebody else behind my back. The bastard.

The barista asks me if I want my coffee in a cup or a glass.

To me this is like asking if I’d rather have my coffee in a cup or a hollowed-out rhinoceros horn.

‘A cup,’ I reply.

Then she asks me if I want cream with my cake.

Well you have to have a bit of cream.

I’m half horrified and half delighted when she produces a bottle of squirty cream.

I didn’t realise this even still existed, assuming it had been banned back in the 80s alongside 4 star petrol and corporal punishment.

My mind races to a different time. A different age. Squirty cream. Angel Delight. Dream Topping. Cremola Foam. Fray Bentos pies. Supernoodles…..

I sit down, eager to reacquaint myself with the squirty cream. I have to be fast because it’s already starting to lose its shape and form. Becoming a thin white water.

But there’s a problem. The cream is in a black tub which is tiny. The spoon they’ve given me doesn’t fit into it.

I could try pouring it but the squirty cream is melting so quickly that I fear it will just slide straight off the edge of the plate onto my feet.

This only leaves the option of me licking the cream out of the little tub like some half-starved feral cat.

And I’m obviously not going to do that in a public place.

No, definitely not.

Not a chance.

Ho-hum.

I start to lick the cream out of the tub like some half-starved feral cat.

It tastes of…..nothing at all. Ah, happy memories.

I’m almost finished when I spot two smartly dressed women, professionals presumably, staring at me.

I seem to freeze there with my tongue flapping like a teddy bear’s ear.

The sound system is playing Stand By Me by Ben E King.

I give a half-hearted smile. The women look away.

Yes, sometimes it’s good to take a break. Get away from the blog.

Remind myself that there’s a world out there.

A world full of people. And I’m just like them.

Well, almost.

It was sunny on the day. That much I know.

It’s more than four years ago and time plays its funny tricks with memory. But it was definitely sunny on that Saturday.

My wife had now been in labour for longer than 30 hours and we were still waiting.

Our child was determined to delay his or her arrival into the world for as long as possible, until mummy and daddy’s nerves were stretched to the point of being loose and flabby. It was giving us a tiny aperitif; a taste of how our lives would be from now on.

Finally, two weeks after due date, on the very Friday morning my wife was due to be induced, the labour started. We were to be parents imminently. Only it turned out not to be as imminent as we thought.

We arrived at the Ulster Hospital maternity unit and were asked to sit in a room and offered tea and toast. Some time later my wife was given a bed and examined. Then we were told to wait. So we waited.

As I sat there by the bed a hospital ward was as unfamiliar to me as the far side of the moon. Perhaps I’d been in a hospital five times in my life, visiting sick relatives and always hurrying out as quickly as I could. I had no idea how familiar the surroundings would become to me over the next few years.

I remember my impression of the place. One of controlled panic. Almost of wartime stoicism as doctors, nurses and midwives rushed around trying to deal with problems which were arising quicker than they could be solved.

I remember asking one midwife if this was a particularly busy day. She said it was just average.

We stayed that way right through the Friday. I suppose we were too timid and polite to raise much fuss, to add to the obvious burden.

I watched midwives start and finish their shifts. My wife was becoming more and more uncomfortable and afraid. I felt totally useless and foolish.

Eventually in the early evening a midwife came to check on my wife. She was reassuring and lovely and told us that our child would be born on that day. On the Friday. Then she left and we never saw her again.

At some point later in the night a doctor checked my wife. I could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t entirely happy but he didn’t tell us anything. A machine was attached to monitor the baby’s heartbeat.

I remember sitting there for hours watching the machine slowly blurt out a long roll of white paper with coloured lines scratched onto it. Nobody ever seemed to come to check the lines.

Late at night my wife was distressed and I finally cracked. I found a midwife and pleaded with her to be told what was going on. Could nothing be done to speed things up? My wife was given an injection and I was told that things were all fine. It was very busy and we would just have to wait.

Near midnight I was asked to leave the hospital. Men weren’t allowed to stay overnight. My wife was hysterical by now and, at first, I refused. It seemed inhumane to make me leave.

Eventually I relented rather than cause a disturbance for other patients.

I stayed the night in my car, directly outside the maternity ward. As I struggled to get some sleep I remember thinking that this was not how I imagined the best day of my life would be.

I was waiting outside the doors of the ward on Saturday morning before the birds began to sing.

I was right back at the bedside, holding her hand and whispering my useless platitudes and reassurances. There are only so many times you can tell someone ‘It’s going to be alright’ before they can reasonably tell you to ‘shut the fuck up’.

Finally, later on that morning, she was moved to her own room. Something was happening! The sun was streaming through the window of the room and onto the bed. There was a little radio and I tuned it to Radio 2. Graham Norton’s pleasant Irish lilt seemed to help in calming my wife down. I’ll always be grateful to Graham Norton for that.

Things felt a little brighter now. One of the nurses told me to take a break, to get something to eat. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that it was more than 24 hours since I’d eaten.

I left the maternity unit and moved across to the main Ulster Hospital building. I don’t know what I ate in the canteen but I remember sipping coffee and watching some of the nurses. They were having their breakfast, chatting and laughing conspiratorially with each other. The intimacy that only shared experience can bring.

I walked back towards my wife feeling brighter. I was met close to her room by a senior nurse with a serious expression who told me there was nothing to worry about. Naturally I started to panic.

The baby was now showing signs of distress. A doctor was taking blood samples from the head. All I remember about the doctor was that she was Asian. She was calm and wonderful and stayed with us until the end.

After our son was born he had little scratches on the top of his scalp for the first few months of his life where the blood was removed.

I’ve no idea about the processes used but they managed to calm the baby (a skill I still haven’t learnt).

My wife was so exhausted and distressed that she consented to an epidural. In my mind I remember asking the doctor if they should not proceed straight to a C-section now, but it may just be time adding in its own details to suit my narrative.

The epidural helped to calm my wife but the baby seemed to be deteriorating.

Finally, mercifully, a full 34 hours after labour had begun, the doctor decided my wife should have a C-section.

I have a blurry recollection of having a gown and mask thrust at me. Then I’m standing uselessly in a room.

Then I hear a cry. I see a tiny purple ball of rage which resembles nothing. My eyes look again and I see a scrotum.

‘It’s a boy!’ I try to shout but my voice is trembling. ‘It’s a boy!’

He’s covered in shit so has to be cleaned up and weighed. Then he’s wrapped in a blanket and given to me. I brace myself for a weight but he’s light as foam.

He looks at me as if everything in the world is my fault. A look I’ve grown to love. One of his little eyes is swollen. It’s been a bumpy ride.

Then I place him on mummy’s chest, his little red face sinking into the familiar warmth. They should be together. They’ve done all the hard work.

The doctors and midwives congratulate me and then get ready to move on to the next family.

But hang on! It can’t be that way. You’ve shared this experience with us, been through this journey with us. We’re linked in spirit now. You’ll have to move in with us, watch our son grow, help him to blow out his birthday candles, wipe away his tears.

Except it doesn’t work that way. The wonderful Asian doctor smiles patiently as she extricates her fingers from my grip.

And then we’re back in the ward. People start arriving with balloons and teddies but we don’t really want to see anyone. We just want to rest and be together. Like a family.

On that first day my son doesn’t make a sound. He just watches everything, taking it all in.

I eventually go home late at night, just to grab a few hours sleep. I’m starting to think ‘This is going to be alright. We can do this’.

I hear the noise before I’m even at the bedside the next morning.

He has started screaming. A screaming that once it begins, you fear it will never stop.

But hey, that’s another story for another day.

Some people just seem to be born to do the job they’re in.

Like yer man Justin who does Mr Tumble. Even though he creeps me out a bit I can’t deny that he’s entirely natural on TV with kids.

I mean I just couldn’t picture him being an MMA fighter.

He’s doing the thing he’s meant to do.

Or her man Andy who goes back in time to meet the dinosaurs.

While he looks like he’d make a half-decent rugby flanker, he’s carved out a niche for himself as the CBeebies action man.

My wee son loves Andy and his adventures.

But there are those who are just not quite as good at it.

And that’s where it becomes interesting.

Yer woman Pui off Show Me, Show Me.

I don’t think I’m being too controversial here when I say she just can’t sing.

Every time she opens her mouth to sing it sounds like a poor suffering puppy trying to alert a negligent owner that it has worms.

But Pui somehow manages to get away with it by obviously having a very good time.

Like the embarrassing auntie who won’t let go of the karaoke mic she seems to embrace her lack of tone, even making a virtue of it.

And it kinda works somehow.

My love of useless trivia leads me to the discovery that Pui used to be inside the Po costume in the original Teletubbies.

And while there were times when I want to stuff her back inside the big red outfit, for the most part I can forgive her tunelessness.

After all I sing to my son all the time and I make Pui sound like Maria Callas.

Then there’s yer man Rory off My Pet and Me.

His problem is the eyes.

The eyes give it all away. You can’t disguise the eyes.

When he’s doing that excruciating twist dance surrounded by children and the Irish woman the eyes betray him.

You can’t pretend you’re having a good time when the eyes reveal you actually feel very foolish.

His eyes keep saying to me ‘I’m classically trained you know…..’