The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

8:30 AM

Dear Diary. The kids are in the kitchen eating breakfast. I decide to put some music on, something to get them in the mood for school: Without Me by Eminem. That's the kind of song to get kids in the mood for school, right? A song with lines like "Cum on your lips and some on your tits".

My oldest son doesn't seem to like the song though. Maybe it's the explicit language. Maybe it's the offensive content. Maybe it's Eminem's personal attacks on celebrities and public figures. Or maybe it's jut because 5-year-old is five years old and the song has no dinosaurs or space rockets he can relate to.

"I know, I have an idea," says 5-year-old. "Play a song to dance."

So I play Cotton Eye Joe. "Where did you come from, where did you go?" goes the lyrics. "Where did you come from, Cotton Eye Joe?" As the song's playing, I stomp around the kitchen and swing my arms in time with the music, like a cowboy at a hoe-down. Sometimes I add claps too, just to keep things fresh. At the wh-tch sound of the whip, I mime cracking a whip. Then I swing an imaginary lasso round and round my head. 5-year-old watches me carefully and tries to copy my dancing as if these are the real dance moves and not just dance moves I'm making up.

Next I play 5,6,7,8 by Steps.

"This is exercise," says 5-year-old as we dance around the kitchen. I'm glad no one can see me because my dancing is embarrassing.

And I don't mean "cute Dad dancing" embarrassing. I mean "that guy dancing over there genuinely looks mentally retarded" embarassing.

I've no idea where 1-year-old is. He's probably in the living room destroying something.

9 AM

I drop 5-year-old off at school. Then I take 1-year-old to nursery. There's about eight kids in 1-year-old's class. One of the kids, a little 1-year-old boy called Sami Buck (I'm using his full, real name in the hope he googles himself someday and finds this webpage) is distraught. He's crying, probably because he misses his mom and wants to be at home instead of nursery.

"Is it his first day at nursery?" I ask the practitioner.

"Oh no," she says. "He's been here three weeks."

Sami cries on and on, with no signs of abating, like a faulty smoke alarm that you can't switch off.

It must be awful working here, having to listen to this kid crying all day. Thankfully, once I've dropped 1-year-old off I can leave, and so I go home to my cushy job where I sit at the computer doing hardly any work at all.

6:30 PM

I have a new phone case. It's an army-grade case, with rubber bumpers to absorb shocks when dropped. This is good; I need a case like this. I bought an iPhone 13 only a couple of months but it already has all these spidery cracks on the back from where I've repeatedly dropped it on concrete. I remember clearly running to the Verdo Lounge in Wylde Green a month ago, and my phone jumping out my back pocket and landing on the concrete pavement. I must have dropped it like that at least five times so far.

My new case is waterproof too, which is good because I caught 1-year-old putting my phone in the mop bucket the other day, which luckily had no water in it. Let's see 1-year-old try to drown my phone now.