Kung Foo

I'd hate you to think it's all bad.

Sometimes my executive lifestyle means I return home late in the evening after a few days away. Most of the children will be asleep and as every parent knows, children are very easy to love when they're asleep. So, I creep into their bedrooms, sit on the edge of their bed and imagine we are the Waltons and I'm the ever patient, ultra wise, uber-dad. I stroke their precious little heads, say a little payer and all is well in Coates Towers.

However, the last time I enacted this lovely moment I received a very different response.

Lotty half opened her eyes and a loving smile beamed from her face as she wrapped her arms around me with a love supreme.

I rocked, I am the man. I am the Daddy. I floated out of her room with a feeling of unsurpassed wellbeing.

So, onto Flossy.

Flossy half opened her eyes a look of abject terror flashed across her face whilst she simultaneously  threw a perfectly aimed karate chop at my neck.

I am used to a certain level of child to parent violence and normally adopt a perpetual state of readiness, however I had not anticipated this reaction and was initially subjugated.

After a minor scuffle, peace was restored.

My intellectual understanding of the hyper vigilance in children has now been developed through learned experience.

I can't help wonder what she dreams of.