Smelling the Flowers

Spent an hour on the blower to my mate Mike the other day. He lives in Cairns and is a recently separated father of two. No matter what other difficulties he's going through he continues to be an excellent dad and remains one of my parenting idols.

He was telling me how he takes his girls for walks; stopping whenever they want to look at something, explaining which spiders you can touch and which you shouldn't - a fairly easy sorting job for most of us - lying down to look up at the sky and generally whiling away the hours doing whatever the girls want.

I resolved to be more like that with the Noodle. So when I took him and the hounds to Mortlock Park the other day I decided to let him guide the fun.

He decided the fun was to be had playing outside the men's toilet and change rooms, picking up items of interest and throwing them down the drain. These items included used strapping, bottle tops, cigarette butts and pieces of broken glass. At that point I decided I was comfortable with our previous arrangement and dragged him, kicking and screaming, to the jungle gym.

Hmmm, just re-read the previous paragraph and noted that I said my son likes to pick up outside men's toilets.

My other son continues to thrive on mother's milk and now tops 4kg. His oft crossed eyes are beginning to focus, his tiny hands grab and pull at anything they can catch and today he gave me what may well have been the beginnings of a smile.