What other "Dad" things do I need to learn?

[MavisEnderby]

I am now mum and dad since dp died.So here is a lighthearted thread about the Dad things I have learnt to do since dp is no longer here.Any suggestions for other Dad things I need to learn welcome!

1)Assemble flat pack furniture

Nightmare.It took me 2 hours to put together a CD tower thingummy.(Dp,I know you used to drive me mad with a lot of things at times but I take back all the moaning I did when you used to do all the DIY)

2)Taught ds to ride a bike without stabilisers

A park and lots of time and encouragement needed for this one

3)Taking the bins out

Enough said

4)Taken ds to the football

Not even the team I support.2 hours sat in the cold watching mediocre football in midwinter eeeek

5)Playing football in the park.

DS "You're not really very good at this are you Mum"

6)Assembling Starwars Lego (partially)

Ds "Hmm I think Daddy was much better at this" Big fat fail,we never did manage to fully assemble the Star Wars spaceship thingy.There are about 200 instructions.Crazy

7)Mending the broken Wii

Me "Are you sure we can't just turn it all off and then turn it back on again?"

DS (plaintive wail) "But then I'll lose level 200 (or something) on Lego Harry Potter

By some miracle managed to get it going again

Will add more as they crop up.

Oh err sorry shouldnt have posted that misread thread

NEVER follow instructions.

I'm going to bed. (taking a spanner)(It's Valentine's Day after all).

Keep telling him to turn the lights off after himself.
Apply the handbrake without using the end button - gives a nice racheting noise ( oh no back on the wrenches!).
Remind him how handsome he is.

Buy a shit heap car which needs fixing up, leave it on the driveway covered in the most horrendous tarpaulin you can find, one that lowers the tone of the neighbourhood and explain that it will be his car one day... once you have you fixed it up...

Spend a long time and take up a lot of space tinkering with a Scalextric/train set in the living room,which will never actually be fully functional, then leave it there for two or three months.

Keep rolls of electrical tape in various drawers around the house. I am not sure why.

Learn to play the xbox and actually truely believe it is a viable entertainment as worthy as anything else.

Hate shopping specially as an afternoons entertainment.

Tesco, Ikea etc is not a family event. Mcdonalds is.

Don't nag. I find this one difficult.

Some V funny reply's. I am a man - and all of the above especially the rough and tumble

Oooh, have you learned to snore in front of the TV whilst also insisting that 'I'm watching that' if anyone tries to change the channel?

If accused of being asleep, declare you weren't, you were merely 'resting your eyes'.

This is a great thread! You must also aquire an encyclopedic knowledge of every world war II fighter plane / be able to recognise and name every aircraft carrier that has ever been built (and also wax lyrical on how Britain used to be the greatest at building them etc). And you must perfect the male art of being able to turn the telly on at any time of the day or night and find a war documentary (are you sensing a theme here?)

Oh and the Dangerous Book for Boys will tell you how to do everything else

Based on my DH, Mavis, you need to Collect Cables. Specifically, you need to collect computer cables, chargers for random bits of gadgetry and plugs, Then store them in different drawers all over the house so that when anyone else opens the drawers, cables spring out at them like pissed-off snakes. And never never let anyone throw a cable away, even if you have absolutely no idea what it is for and it still has a round-pin plug on the end...........................

Definitely get a hobby and the accompanying hordes of magazines about that hobby which you keep piled up in the bathroom for when you use the loo.

My DH's are mountain biking and pigkeeping. I can't even get to the loo for towers of "MBR rider" and "Practical Pigs".

You must also disappear for hours at weekends to twiddle around with your bike in the garage or do "urgent repairs" on the pigs' fencing (aka hammer in a nail or two then potter around not doing much useful when you could have been inside cleaning the bathroom/helping entertain the children!)

You must also be able to recognise every make and model of car on the road from 200 metres and in a blink of an eye. You should get very frustrated when your wife describes your friends' new car to you as "quite big, oh and it was red!"

Become utterly unable to see anything right under your nose, then mutter in anger under your breath and then shout at the empty upstairs 'where's that T shirt? You know, That T shirt I want to wear?'
Then wonder why no one answers, as they can't hear you very well / know you can see it you just haven't looked / can't be bothered to come upstairs to point out that it is in the drawer at the top just where you are looking

I have just really 'lol'ed here...in an empty house

have you developed the 'skill' of being able to remember the name of every player in every football team in every league, and if non-league then which club they used to play for, but forget to buy bread yet?

LOL re: piles of hobby magazines...so true!

One from my DH - teach them how to burpspeak, essential in wooing the ladies (not).

A month ago my DS's scout troop did a talent show in the hut. DS was going to tell some jokes but, on the night, he changed his mind. Instead, his performance involved him burping the alphabet.

I cannot tell you how fantastically proud I was of him. He's entirely self-taught, too

piprabbit - that's so true about the sneezing. When they were babies, dh used to make our children cry with his mega sneezes. Way to go, new dad...

Also need to add - teach him how to open the fridge, look in it for 5 seconds and then declare what he wants isn't there. Then it's Mum's job to find whatever it is at the front of middle shelf. Man Looking - it's an important skill.

(that's how you have to laugh too!)

Believe that you can fix any household emergency with a packet of AA batteries, a tube of No More Nails or a roll of black duct tape.

Tickle and mess about with DS at inappropriate times - when he's supposed to eating for example, or getting ready for bed.

Use him as an excuse to go to the cinema and watch cartoons and the latest superhero epic.

Have absolutely no knowledge of where anything lives in your kitchen so unloading the dishwasher is a journey into the unknown rather than a mundane household chore.

Find burping, farting and any toilet-related bodily function highly amusing.

still laughing at these

don't forget to go to the shops for light bulbs but come back with a trowel, some drill bits, a cheesecake and a set of bath towels

and without the light bulbs

you have to say "naah, then" when asked to anything important

and you must leave everything till the last minute, like changing light bulbs etc (this has to be done once it's dark, and you only have a screwdriver with a bulb on the end to see by)
except leaving the house for any occasion - in which case, you must be ready to be out ofthe door before everyone has even started getting dresed (yes, even if this means you will be an hour early for said occasion), and then you must complain that everyone's taking ages to get ready, and that you'll "miss the bleddy bus at this rate!" (bus runs every 10 minutes, and you have got an hour )

when asked to do anything