Daddy Grizzle and Little Pip
Oh its the sweetest thing…. Piglet has started role playing and, luckily for me, he has adopted me as his sidekick. In truth, the characters Daddy Grizzle and Little Pip are from a book we borrowed from the library a few weeks ago. It’s called ‘I love you Daddy Grizzle” and it’s a subtle celebration of Fathers’ Day as played out between a daddy and child bear. It’s really quite a sweet book that unfortunately I only got to read with him a couple of times, but he really took a shine to it.
The book covers them going off for an adventure in a boat to an island somewhere although playfully forgetting what they need or what they’re aiming to do. In a scenario completely unimaginable to me, the daddy bear patiently humours the little bear as he struggles to match the child’s excitement or enthusiasm. Their interplay is very sweet.
Anyway, a week or so after the book was returned to the library, Piglet started calling me Daddy Grizzle. Then he made the connection and realised that would make him Little Pip. You could see the epiphany of the concept that he could pretend to be that character spread across his face in the space of a few seconds. He now regularly tells me that I’m Daddy Grizzle and that he’s Little Pip multiple times a day, even correcting mummy if she names us otherwise. The announcement is usually coupled with a hug and a giddy excitement and grin. I must hold my hands up and say I now quite actively encourage it because he clearly feels it as a demonstration of a bond with me and, unusually, will prioritise his attention on me over mummy even when we’re all together.
For those of you who are interested, the book can be found on amazon:
However, in searching for it, I’ve found that there are other books in this series. Specifically ‘How many sleeps till Christmas’ and ‘How many sleeps till my Birthday’. I can see a trend here: choose a day of celebration and tailor a very sweet story towards the gift market for that event. Genius. That said, despite my transparent cynicism, the first book is so sweet and the reviews so positive that I’m definitely considering getting the birthday book for a certain 3rd year event that happens to be coming in April:
Something tells me we might be considering the Christmas book as well before the end of the year – anything to narcissistically cling to my no doubt temporary double act. Obviously, if you happen to see Piglet before April – don’t tell him about the book it’s meant to be a surprise!
In other news, I seem to be over the withdrawal symptoms of coming off coffee. The first 2-3 days were definitely tough with persistent headaches and lethargy, particularly in the afternoon. However by the end of the first week I didn’t really feel I was struggling any more and actually I already feel like I might have more energy in the evenings and at the weekend.
Today was tough though. Piglet had one of his, now uncharacteristically, bad nights and I was in his bed for the vast majority of the night. I’m sure I did sleep but trying squeeze yourself into the 1-foot-wide strip of my son’s bed that he allows me, wedged between his delicately sleeping frame and the almighty penetrating bulge of the hinge mechanism of his anti-roll-out bedside barrier; it definitely didn’t feel like a tranquil night of sweet dreams. I’m pretty sure I spent the vast majority of it trying to gauge whether I could remove my now tingling and senseless arm from underneath him or paranoidly trying to establish whether his bed was just body temperature warm or ‘arm soaked in piss’ warm. Pins and needles: check. Urine-soaked-dead-arm: luckily not.
On the back of such a relaxing night; I was grumpy as hell when I woke up and struggled all day in the office. Particularly during the 2pm exercise of holding a video-conference in a boiling hot box-room while listening to a commodity analyst describe in 36 pages what was visibly (quite literally) shown on the screen in 3 graphs. Unintentional semi-conscious head-nodding: check! But I’ve made it through to this evening and even been fairly productive. Piglet put to sleep (not in a Veterinarian sense), dinner cooked, washed up, loaded the dishwasher, hung out the washing and written a blog post (well, very nearly).
In fact, that just leaves me with the task of signing off:
Daddy Grizzle – over and out! Toodlepip x
Blog post: check!
