Nick Adams-King's Blog

It’s a surreal experience watching your home burning.

Standing in our garden, on a cold, damp Saturday evening last February that’s exactly the experience we had.   

A normal evening transformed in minutes.   Our smoke alarms had gone off while the children relaxed watching tv and we cleared the kitchen after dinner.  

People are very kind.  Knowing of my interest in adoption they often alert me to articles about the subject.  So it was this week when no fewer than three of my friends alerted me to Carol Sarler's article for the Daily Mail.

The article's strap line didn't bode well for easy reading: "They open their homes to adopt - then find they've taken on youngsters who wreck their family.  Why do we continue to BETRAY loving parents, asks CAROL SARLER"

Someone told me they were 'over the moon' at Trump's victory.  

I was dumbfounded.  This was my response:

I teach my children to respect others, regardless of race, religion or gender. 

A man who has been recorded disrespecting women in the worst, most mysoginistic way; who denigrates the followers of an entire religion; who paints a whole ethnic group as 'rapists' and 'thieves' has just been elected US President.

I thought my father would never die.

I was sure my father would always be here.  I couldn't conceive that the one constant throughout my life, in my life, would no longer be present. 

I was also afraid my father would never die.  I couldn't conceive of an end to his growing dependency.  The tyranny of care wrought by my familial sense of duty.  The ever increasing list of tasks I needed to complete for him.  The way these ate into our available time.  The fear engendered by my innate selfishness.

This morning my social media timelines are rightly full of Mother's Day greetings.

Children greeting their mothers over the web.  Mothers making plans for later in the day, anticipating the arrival of family, preparing to be taken to lunch or dinner, thanking their offspring for cards and gifts already received.  More poignantly those who have lost their mothers sharing photos of them.  Wishing those departed a happy Mothering Sunday.  Recalling Mother's Days past.  Resurrecting happy memories and equally rekindling feelings of loss.

It made me reflect on Mother's Day.

I feel some empathy with people who knock uninvited at our door.  I’ve done it enough myself when canvassing as a politician.  

In my opinion it takes considerable bravery to walk up to someone’s home unannounced and attempt to engage them in conversation.  For that reason I try to provide a polite and friendly response to anyone who has chosen to call at our door.  

Even if I don’t want them there.  Even if I disagree with them fundamentally.  

When he was seven, our son returned home from Beaver Cubs carrying a pile of what looked like bit of paper.

"What's all that?" I asked.

"Valentines Presents for <girl X>"

"Oh", I replied looking askance.  To be honest, the pile of paper didn't look too promising as a Valentine's gift for the latest object of his affection.

I was pleased to write an article for Toddle About, a parenting magazine covering the Chilterns and East Midlands.  Here it is:

People are funny aren't they?  

Kind.  But often very funny

I thought, however, given the storm of criticism surrounding the issue you might have taken note of my, and far more importantly others', comments and perhaps condemn these and other homophobic statements.

Then I saw your interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight.  In it he asked you about the homophobic comments made by some of your candidates.  Most importantly your candidate in the Newark by-election, Roger Helmer.  

I want to write to you about the comments of one of your council candidates.  I'm sure you know who he is.  He's called John Lyndon Sullivan and he made this comment on Twitter:

The transition in our daughter once she had her feet under the table was remarkable and deserves it's own post over on the adoption pages.  Suffice it to say, it has been a bumpy, enjoyable, frustrating, amazing ride.

One thing we hadn't anticipated was her very.  No.  VERY firm opinions on what she wears.

I was going to write a blog about Grumpy Deaf Grandad today.  But then today happened and I thought an update on my attempt at cooperative parenting would be more appropriate.

Dear Children

I wanted to write you this note to explain the word co-operation to you. 

Cooperation is what happens in families.  Particularly in the morning.  When Dad has already left for work.  It's how families work. It's how they ensure certain family members get to play on the X-box or iPad regularly.

Does your other half, the love your life, your soulmate, the person to whom you have committed yourself for the rest of your life.... do strange things?

Mine does.

When you become a parent, you basically abandon any pretext of gravitas don't you?

Well, at least that's what's happened to me.  I thought I'd share some of my odder moments with you from the last couple of months.

Our three year old arrived in the kitchen one afternoon wearing her fairy costume.  White, with lots of chiffon and a now rather droopy wand and wonky wings it's one of her favourites.

"Daddy," she announced loudly, "I want to be a fairy"

"Careful what you wish for darling, that's how Daddy started!"  Oh how I chortled at my own little grown up joke there.

Consistency.

Challenging though it is, sometimes you just have to hold out. And keep holding out. And keep...well, you get the message.

Grandad isn't great with the phone.  Largely because he's so deaf he can hardly hear anyone on it.  But also because he doesn't really like talking on it.  

In fact, he doesn't really like talking to anyone at all, other than us.  Well.  Other than me actually.  

We have always been careful with our language around the children.  It's common sense to do so.  It's also inevitable, however, that occasionally the odd naughty word slips out from one of us.

OK, well from me.

We did have the morning, quite early on when J arrived in the kitchen to find our then 2 year old daughter had pulled a chair over to the kitchen counter, placed a slice of bread in the toaster and was watching it intently.

"What are you doing?" A slightly panicked J asked.

"Making toast!" Our daughter replied, in the tone and with the look of someone who had just been asked the most obvious question on the planet.

This morning the children discovered one of those gifts, a toy pump action shotgun.  Stuffed at the back of a cupboard I had completely forgotten about it.  

It was in fact our three year old daughter who found it during an impromptu game of Hide and Seek, at 6.30am.  (Yes, our children do play Hide and Seek at that time of the morning, which would explain the enormous bags under my eyes!)

In the dairy section I am suckered into buying cheese string (not on the list), mint chocolate desserts (not on the list) and a new type of yoghurt because it has a nice picture of a cow on it (again, you guessed it, not on the list).

Whenever in these situations there always appears to be a little old lady on hand to view the scene with a look of benign disapproval.  "She has you wrapped around her little finger!" this particular elderly voyeur noted before moving off with her shopping trolley.

I think, for me, one of the most daunting challenges I have faced in caring for our children has been the wall of femininity you meet anywhere you go with your kids.

All went well, until we reached the bread section.  In order to reach the particular loaf of bread required by Grandad I let go of the trolley for the first time and consequently took my eye away from our three year old.

I turned back to find her gone.

Looking across the aisle, I saw her settling herself on the back of a high sided stock trolley.  

I have man flu:

"Please help me, I am dying."

J has little sympathy: "You're alright, you're not systemically unwell"

He's not taking this seriously, I need to get across really how poorly I am: "No, really, I am dying, look, I can't see... where are you?  I'm blind! Agh!"

"You're being melodramatic! As usual! Take a paracetemol."  J even says that with much eye rolling.

Helping children discern what is good and bad and how there are occurrences when it's perhaps OK to be a little bad is really very hard.  

In fact, if I'm honest, our seven year old was right in saying that there are differing degrees of bad (if not necessarily differing degrees of evil).

We try and find our way by encouraging honesty, but explaining on the, luckily, rare occasion that one of us has to tell a white lie why we are doing so.

Our daughter has a tea fetish.

I can pinpoint exactly when it started.  Her favourite Dutch Uncle was visiting.  He hates coffee and only drinks tea.  So she, as a precocious two year old, decided the she would like some too.  She hasn't looked back!