Scary Monsters.

The general consensus is that it was a Brazilian wandering spider which wandered into the garden at my daughter's daycare this morning and was promptly captured and sealed inside a plastic box. In case you didn't know, the Brazilian wandering spider is the most venomous spider in the world. In addition, the venom gives you involuntary priapism which is, however, excruciatingly painful, so your loved ones don't even get to say you went out with a smile on your face, even though, by all accounts, you should have done. It is hard for me to reconcile myself to the presence of such a creature at my daughter's daycare, because I love that place with a passion that borders on mental. It's a tiny, brightly-coloured utopia with a swing and coloured flags strung everywhere and amazing food and a little jabuticaba tree that grows shiny black fruit on its trunk every few months, thereby winning it the award for weirdest tree in the world. I like to think of it as a microcosm of what the world would be like if it wasn't run by dicks and there was a much higher percentage of three and four year olds running around covered in paint (which would surely be a good thing).

It seems to me that the mother and daughter team who run it have harnessed all the most exuberant, warm-hearted and joyful characteristics of Brazil and married them to a sophisticated intelligence that makes it playful in all the best ways and rigorous about the things that matter, like caring for people, being creative and having really nice coffee. So, like I said, it was hard for me to reconcile myself to the presence of a Brazilian wandering spider in the garden because my natural response as a father was to run out there and napalm the garden then demolish the house and run like shit for the nearest shopping mall, where the only nature is in the passion fruit scrub.

To any Brazilians reading this, please understand that this reaction originates in the fact that I am English, which means the most poisonous creatures we have in our country are several geriatric adders with lifelong contracts at the BBC documentary department and UKIP politicians, who only recently emerged from the Protean swamp to gurgle into a proper English pint glass. I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with all this, except to say that it was a strange morning. (The video is of a forró band playing at last year's festa junina party, which I include here specifically to offset the bladder-loosening effect of the picture above.)

Existentialism for Beginners.

Sometimes, to provide relief from the occasional (wonderful! rewarding! heartwarming!) monotony of hanging out with the kids all the time, I talk nonsense. Occasionally, this strays into cod-existential blatherings. 

For example, if my daughter tells me she’s scared, I now think I am being very funny by telling her ‘We’re all scared. It’s the human condition. Better get used to it, kid.’

Because I am funny, you see.

And that would all be very drôle and clever if if weren't for the fact that my daughter has decided to play me at my own game. 

It all started yesterday. We were walking to school as usual, talking as we went. My daughter was busy telling me that there were crocodiles in the gutter. And dinosaurs. And lions. Then, in a blinding flash of revelation, she had her epiphany. ‘Everyone is monsters,’ she said. 

'Everyone?’ I said, kind of worried. 

‘Yes! Everyone is monsters.’

I had no idea. I mean, sure, in my darker moments, the thought had occurred to me. But to have it confirmed like that, well, I’ll be honest, the air took on a sudden chill, the sun shone a little less brightly.

And the worst part? The worst part was that she found my anguish so damn funny. 

Needless to say, I've hidden all the Kierkegaard.

Money Problems.

It is midday and the kids are off school and getting settled for their afternoon nap. I have gone into the next room, leaving them playing with their rucksacks, as they’re in a rucksack mood. I go back once to help my son with something and notice that my daughter's asleep. As I leave, my son is busy filling up his rucksack with all the junk that normally lives in the drawers of his bedside table. Fine. Whatever gets him through the nap. But then, after another five minutes or so, I hear the unmistakeable sound of money rattling around as a piggy bank gets banged repeatedly, rhythmically against the bedroom floor. I don’t bother to go in this time, just shout from the next room, telling him to get back to bed. The noise continues unabated so I go in, a little angrier now. I find my son squatting on the floor with the rucksack, now full, on his shoulders. ‘Get into bed,’ I say, really not messing around by this point. ‘I can’t,’ he wails mournfully. And then I realise what the sound is: every time he tries to get up, he bumps back down again, dragged inexorably earthwards by the weight of his rucksack, which is really far too big for him and which now contains – at the bottom, beneath a multitude of books, toy cars and action figures  – his piggy bank. I help him into bed and soon after he falls asleep. 

A Headful of Stars.

I was just lying on the balcony with my daughter after breakfast (cereal for her, toast for me). She looked up at the high-rise opposite, at the crowded nest of aerials on the roof. Space rocket, she said. Then she looked at the next block over, another mighty omphalos crowded with aerials. Look, she said, another space rocket. It was a lovely bit of magical thinking, I thought, which time-machined me right back to when I was a kid, when I thought anyone who did repair work on a TV aerial was inherently mysterious, quasi-magical. These people climbed up to the highest points in my infant world and communed with the magical forces that brought me the Daleks and Doctor Who. They were practically spacemen themselves, up there, sifting through the ether, talking to stars. 

The Rubicons of Parenthood.

No one tells you this, but you don't become a parent overnight. It happens in stages. Terrible incremental stages, rubicons you cross and across which you can never return. These stages are marked by the things you say – things that once said cannot be unsaid, the selfsame things you used to hate your parents for saying.

These phrases include:

You can't have any dessert until you finish your vegetables.

Well, where did you last see [insert name of lost object]?

Pick it up yourself. We’re not your servants. (This will subsequently evolve into ‘This house is not a hotel.')

I’m sure there are a lot more, but I haven’t said them yet. Make no mistake, however: I will. It’s inevitable.

Perhaps the worst part of all this is that it’s only when you become a parent that you realise, with a sinking awareness of what an awful brat you were, that there is a mutuality to saying this stuff; you only talk this way because you’re trying to find the most effective way of communicating with something which is basically an idiot. Don’t take this the wrong way, I love my kids, but seriously, right now: idiots. I don’t know, perhaps the real problem is that parents keep using these dumbed-down phrases long after their usefulness has expired. Along with forgetting how to dance and telling crap jokes, this is how you become the quintessence of future embarrassment that will your force your children to pretend they don’t know you in public and, ultimately, leave home and forget your birthday. And quite right, too.