Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve. I'm waiting at the arrivals gate at Heathrow Terminal 5. It's like watching a long-playing loop of the opening and closing scenes of Love Actually. Everyone here is here to meet some friend or family member flying in for Christmas. There are no business folk looking impatiently for the car sent to pick them up, or weary backpackers arriving home at the end of a world tour. Everyone just glancing anxiously between the two opposite sets of doors that arrivees come through, waiting for the person whose appearance is going to make their face light up with pleasure. I have to wait an hour and a half for my kids to come out, in which time I've grown slightly blasé about cute little toddlers rushing forward to hug their delighted grandparents. Once or twice - sweet. After that, we're in sickly John Lewis Christmas advert territory.
And then finally my children emerge and I know once again what it is I miss about them the most. It's the physicality of seeing them in the flesh, holding them, listening to their chatter. The pleasure I get from just seeing my increasingly lovely and sophisticated daughter, from inhaling the smell of my son's hair, from hugging my youngest tight to my chest.
It's all I want for Christmas

Get your motor running...

A first for me when I visited the kids this time - driving from the airport. I've never been confident about driving in the US. In fact, my last visit was the first time I'd felt bold enough to even try it at all. Something about the way they overtake each other on both sides which freaks me out, that and the turning right on a red light. But not having a car in the US suburbs really does limit what you can do, so on my last trip, I summoned up as much nerve as I could and rented a car from a place near where the kids live. Still didn't have the temerity to take the car on any major freeways, or into the city, but I did get to drive the kids around a bit and found it far easier than I'd feared.
So this time, I'd arranged to pick up a car from the Hertz rental place at the airport and navigate the big, scary roads out of the city. First nasty moment was before I'd even got out of the airport building - got through customs and realised I'd left the paper part of my driving licence in London. Did a swift about-turn and started heading back before realising this was a bit fruitless. Decided to brazen it out at Hertz instead. Needn't have worried as it turned out, they didn't ask for it.
Next sticky bit was trying to work the satnav which was, awkwardly, different from my one at home. I'm a creature of routine and always find it mildly upsetting when I have to learn new ways of doing things. Even learning to call it a GPS rather than a satnav was mildly distressing. After a good half an hour making myself happy with that and the car's controls, I set off, through the security barrier (well, not literally through it, more sort of under it, but you know what I mean), out of the car park, took a left turn as directed.. and found myself right back in the car park.
I set off again, found the exit, found the right road, and found the freeway. I also found a fourth thing - myself heading in the wrong direction. My satnav immediately piped up "Do a U-turn at your earliest opportunity." A U-turn. Righto. That's going to happen. I turned off at a convenient exit and gingerly - with the reluctant help of the satnav, which seemed to be sulking that I hadn't done a handbrake turn across three lanes of traffic - made my way back to the freeway, this time heading south.
By now, the sun had gone down, and the roads out there were no longer just big and scary, they were big, dark and scary. The satnav, showing its growing contempt for my driving skills, opted to take me off the big ones, and onto the back roads. Now the back roads in the area where my children live can be even scarier at night than the main ones - less traffic, but also fewer lights and much more wildlife. It's not unknown for startled deer to jump out in front of you - and I'm not greatly keen in wiping gore and raw venison off my front grille. I rapidly lost all sense of direction and it came as a great relief to see my children's house some two hours later.
However, that little adventure aside, I got pretty confident by the end of my trip. A journey in and out of the city to go and watch the local ice hockey team - no problem. Driving Orla to work at the weekend - piece of cake. Taking Kitty on a trip to find a pet store at a giant shopping plaza - pffff! I was even making journeys I didn't need to make - just for the hell of it. There'll be no stopping me next time - environment, you have been warned.

They were here. And now they're gone again

Right. I know I haven't updated this blog for some time. Well, weeks. Well, ages. The last time was on the eve of my kids' arrival in the UK. While they were here, I hardly had time to blog - I was trying to make sure that every second they were here was great and fun and wonderful. And when they left? Well, I wasn't really sure what to write, what to say about the vast yawning chasm their departure leaves in my life. To be honest, the pain of the departure gets less every time. The first time I saw them off, I was almost dizzy with the emotion, so much so I almost felt drunk - fuzzy-headed and unsteady on my feet. This time - as they walk through security at Terminal 5 and give me a wave, there's a piercing feeling inside like my heart's been twisted and wrung out, but it doesn't last long. I watch them go, I turn and head back for the car park. And get on with my life without them.
What was it like when they were here? Strange at first. Orla wasn't there for the first couple of weeks, which meant we were doing slightly less older-orientated activites than we would otherwise do. And it was rushed. We went to Spain for a week almost as soon as they arrived, and then packed activities into the time before Orla's arrival - the Harry Potter film, the Science Museum, M'n'M World, trips to see their cousins, their granny, their friends, and so on. Sometimes it feels like a checklist of activities that has to be ticked off. But that's deliberate in a way - there's a nasty, selfish little part of me that takes pleasure at them going home to their mum and telling her about all the great and exciting things they did with dad. Not a particularly uplifting part of my character, I'm sure, but there you go.
Orla's arrival is part pure pleasure (she's 16 now, with a deep inquisitive intelligence that makes talking and discussing things with her a sheer delight) and part awkward. I still feel the need to organise activities that all my children can enjoy, but as they got older and their tastes more individual, it gets harder.
One of my favourite things to do is to take all three on a day out in central London, where each one gets a chance to choose one thing to do. No-one is allowed to moan or complain about the others' choices. It's worked well in the past despite some bizarre combinations (one time we went to an exhibition of portrait photographs, to Covent Garden to see the street performers, and to the BBC to see the Dalek and the Tardis from Dr Who). This year, however, it proves impossible to schedule. Great day out, however, touring the Olympic Park at Stratford - a trip the elder girls weren't convinced they were going to enjoy, but they did. And it was free too!)
One of the most difficult aspects of having all my kids in the house, along with my wife and stepdaughters, is how the house should operate with so many people in it. It gets busy, and messy, and stressful - and to try to control it, we set some rules out, on behaviour, and chores, and bed-times. This was not a success, and after a clear-the-air session, we scrapped most of them.
That's quite an important change. When the kids lived in England, our house was sort of like an extension of their home. Homework had to be done, rules remained the same, bed-times were kept. Now? It's like they are visitors on holiday. Rules relaxed, bed-times bypased. In a way, this is great, that they feel this is a place to get away from stress and schoolwork and so on. But I also think it's somewhat sad that they've begun to regard their time with me differently from the way they did before.
The two youngest, Joe and Kitty, flew home at the end of August - Orla a couple of days later. I spent one beautiful day out with her in London, just me and her. We went to the National Portrait Gallery (photography is her obsession), we ate at Giraffe, and then I took her to Tiffany's to buy her the 16th birthday present I'd promised her. An expensive day, but really - if a father can't spend a day every now and then pampering his daughter, what CAN he do?
Almost as soon as Orla's plane had left Heathrow, I'd booked a flight to go and see them in October. It's for tomorrow, and I'll be spending four days with them at their home (my ex is away on business). I'll be cooking for them, and tidying up after them, supervising their homework and getting them ready for school - all the domestic duties that I've been wistfully bemoaning the loss of. Whether I'll still be bemoaning, wistfully or otherwise, by Wednesday is a moot point. 

One Day To Go

I'm distracted, I'm fidgeting, I can't sit still, can't concentrate, I'm a roof on a hot tin cat, a July on the 4th of firework. I am - in the immortal words of Mr Frederick Mercury - like a shooting star leaping through the sky, like an atom bomb waiting to oh oh oh explode. I am, in short, excited. MY KIDS ARE HERE TOMORROW!!

Right now, they'll be packing their bags, getting ready to go to the airport. Well, that's not actually true - it's about 4 o'clock in the morning in Philadelphia as I write this. But very soon they will be. Or at least, two of them will be. My eldest, Orla, isn't coming over till the middle of August - she wanted to get a summer holiday job and save some money up to try to buy a car. So she's been waitressing in a tea shop for the last month - I hope the tips are generous. They're going to need to be.

So it's just Joe and Kitty, who are flying by themselves for the first time. They are looked after by a special  BA escort on and off the plane, but it's still a big step for them - especially Joe who is hoping to be put "in charge" of all their passports and documents for the duration of the flight. It will mean a lot to him as he rarely gets to exercise much leadership and responsibility. His big chance!

The last week or so has been difficult, with my ex-wife emailing me constantly for details of what we will be doing and where the kids will be staying and who will be looking after them, and what I must do with them while they're here, and so on. Communication between the two of us tends to get a bit fraught in the run-up to their visits. I'd say that it doesn't matter, that nothing can temper the joy of seeing my children - but that would be a lie. It does temper it a little bit. Part of me suspects that's why she does it.

However, I did make a mental vow at the start of this blog not to get into criticisms of my ex-wife. This is about me and my children, and that yawning 3,000-mile gap between us. A gap that will be getting rapidly smaller in about 12 hours time. I'm picking them up at Heathrow at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I will, as always, get stupidly emotional when I see them, and embarrass the crap out of them. But hey. That's what Transatlantic Dads are for.

Dead hamsters, summer camps, and boyfriends in the basement

A long chat on the phone the other night with my youngest daughter Kitty, who was in surprisingly eloquent form. Very excited to tell me that she and her brother Joe had managed to play on the computer for five whole minutes without shouting at each other. Welcome news. If they even managed to stay in the same room together for five minutes without kicking lumps out of each other, it would be a substantial and significant step forward in the field of domestic harmony. When they're with me, I usually deliberately sit them apart - in the car for example, or at the dinner table - for the sake of everyone's sanity. This means my eldest daughter Orla has to sit between them and act as mediator. However, when they come over this summer, Kitty and Joe are coming first, Orla two weeks later. It could be a long fortnight if they spend it at each other's throats.

I tell Kitty I have a bone to pick with her. The last time I was in the US to visit them, we spent a lot of time playing with her new pet, a hamster. She seemed very attached to it, and had read up diligently on all the care and maintenance and the proper way to handle them, and so on. But Joe told me last week that the hamster had died - and died some time ago. Not a word about it from Kitty. I quiz her about it. "I haven't spoken to you since it died, daddy, so I couldn't tell you, could I?" she explains. She has, though. About  four times. "Oh," she says, "Well, it must just have slipped my mind." So presumably not as attached to deceased rodent as I'd thought, I guess. Bit sad I can't help her pick out a new one.

She's off to summer camp this week, and very excited about that. I'm still bemused by the idea of summer camp. I thought it was one of those things that kids only did in rubbish 70s movies and Snoopy. But no, they really do. They have to, really, given that the US summer holidays are ridiculously long - nearly three months. No half-terms, only a week at Christmas and Easter, but most of June and the whole of July and August are completely school-free. One of those strange idiosyncrasies of the American education system, like lockers and hall passes, grade averages and permanent records, homecoming balls and prom parties, cheerleading squads and glee clubs. I didn't really believe that they all existed either, until I visited my kids' schools and yes, they are just like Pretty In Pink or Saved By the Bell - well, a little bit like, anyway. Give or take the odd movie-star heartthrob and comedy geek.

I have a quick chat with Joe too, which pretty much runs along the lines of me asking him a question and him replying "yes" or "no" to, until I ask him how much time he's been spending on Facebook and he answers "yes". "You're watching TV rather than really talking to me, aren't you, Joe?" I ask. A guilty pause. "Yes." I let him go and ask to speak to Orla. "She's in the basement," says Joe, "I don't think she wants to be disturbed. She's with Steven."
Hmm. Who the hell is Steven? Why's he in the basement? And  why doesn't Orla want to be disturbed? I'd ask for answers on a postcard, but I'm not really sure I want to hear them.

Lehigh Valley Ironpigs

So if you were wondering, here's how Fathers' Day panned out. Went into work early, no sign of a card from the kids before I left. Constant messages across the social media being left by people marking the day, tweeting about their wonderful dads or updating their Facebook status about their marvellous children... so difficult to escape it, so difficult to ward off the growing sense of disappointment.
When I get home there's a package waiting for me. From America. Inside - a Fathers' Day card from my children, written by my youngest daughter (a sign of how they're getting older - a few years ago, my eldest would have written it out and got them all to sign it), and a present, a T-shirt proclaiming "Lehigh Valley Ironpigs". No, I've no idea who they are either. And then my step-daughters give me a bag too, with a card and presents, and suddenly I'm feeling very overwhelmed. "You're crying!" accuses my wife. "No I'm not. Shut up," I tell her.
Then there's a phone call. All three of my lovely children are on, on the speaker phone. They're rarely allowed to phone me because of the cost. We have a brief, happy, confusing chat, with each of them talking over each other, and me not sure what each one is saying, and they tell me the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs are a local minor league baseball team they went to go and see, and they bought the T-shirt there because they knew I'd like it, and they ask me what I've been doing for Fathers' Day and tell me I should spend the evening drinking a beer and watching the US Open, so I promise to do that. And I'm so proud of them for remembering to call me, and I love them so much, and I think my heart's just going to burst.

I'm still wearing my Ironpigs T-shirt. Try getting it off me.

Keeping up with the kids

This is how my regular phone calls with my kids usually go:
Me: "Hi Joe (or Kitty or Orla, depending on who picks up the phone)"
Kid: "Oh, hi Dad!"
Me: "How've you been this week?"
Kid: "Fine."
Me: "What have you been up to?"
Kid: "Nothing much"
Me: "How's school been?"
Kid: "OK"
And so on and so on. It's hard work getting anything out of kids at the best of times. Trying to get them to tell you about their lives when they're 3000 miles away and on the end of a phone line is not the best of times. I can usually - eventually - provoke them into a bit of loquaciousness by homing in on the right topic. With my youngest daughter it's her hamster; with my eldest it's her schoolwork; with my son, it's Doctor Who.
Yesterday's phone call doesn't quite follow the same pattern however:
Me: "Hi, Kitty, how've you been?"
Kitty: "Fine"
Me: "How was school?"
Kitty: "OK... There was a bomb scare at school today"
Me: "How was.... A BOMB SCARE??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, A BOMB SCARE???"
After I get over my shock, I find out - with a bit of intense questioning of my daughter - that it was nothing too serious, a quickly-uncovered hoax. Don't you just love the way though that kids plonk a corker like that into the middle of a conversation? What's known in my profession as a "drop-intro".