Parenting humor: My Son Jack

When a nappy chappy becomes a man
"Mummy, when I was inside your tummy, did I have to wear nappies?" our son Jack, 4, asked my wife Katherine yesterday.
Er ... no, thank goodness.
As a father who changed many hundreds of nappies (diapers) over several years, I don't know how I would have coped had I been expected to change nappies, baby unseen, via the birth canal 22 times a day. MORE ...

The young and the sleepless
Have you ever tried to prise a small plastic toy mobile phone from a sleeping child's grasp?
I did late the other night. It played a stiff burst of London Bridge Is Falling Down, not surprisingly waking up my son Jack, 4. MORE ...

Flying too close to my son
"Daddy, will you make me some wings?" my son Jack, 4, asked the other day.
"Wings!" I said. "What do you mean?"
"I want to be able to fly like Icarus," he replied. MORE ...

An inconvenient tooth
My 10-year-old son Jack accused me today of being the real Tooth Fairy."You just dress up in a dress with little pink wings and go around the neighbourhood, don't you?" he said.I think this is most unfair. I haven't dressed like that for years. Besides, Jack has no real evidence to back up his Tooth Fairy theory. MORE ...

Quiet please, people here are trying to party
I don't know where my four-year-old son Jack gets it from. Last night he told my wife Katherine a whopper of a fib about me.
"Has daddy been looking after you well?" Katherine asked him on the phone from Sydney where she is on business.
"Oh yes," said Jack very dryly. "He's taken me to Questacon (a city children's science museum), to Old McDonald's (McDonald's fast food) and he's letting me eat lots and lots and lots of chocolate." MORE ...

Ascending into heaven on a ski lift
I never figured on God being into winter sports but I guess I was wrong. (If this column ends abruptly, you'll know I have been struck down by a snowball.) MORE ...

Keeping the whiskers at bay
My son Jack announced yesterday that it was time he started shaving.
Kids grow up so quick these days, don't they?
He only turned five last week. MORE ...

Who let the ghost out?
My son Jack, 4, is convinced that one day all my clothes will be too small for me.
My wife Katherine thinks this too. Every time I even look at a Death By Chocolate cake with double cream and red Hundreds and Thousands, she says something like: "Oh, you're going to get soooo fat if you eat that."
But Jack is not just talking about my midriff. No, he thinks, even at 42, I am going to get taller and grow out of all my shoes and clothes. MORE ...

We all have our crosses to bear
Our son Jack, 4, went to his school chapel for the first time last week, and came home fascinated with the Easter story.
"We saw pictures of Jesus," he told me in the car on the way home.
"Do you know he was nailed to the cross?" MORE ...

A lot of hot air about nothing
Who knew? All I knew is that I had no intention of taking our son Jack, 4, up in the hot-air balloon. No way. Not now. Not ever.
"Why are you working yourself into a state?" my wife Katherine asked me last week as I stood in the kitchen reading a newsletter Jack had brought home for school.
"It's Jack's school fete on Saturday," I blubbered. "It says in the program here they're going to have a hot-air balloon." MORE ...

The facts of life, traffic lights and taps
"When I grow up, can I have a baby in my tummy?" our four year old asked as my wife and I drove him home from his child-care centre.
Er. How should we answer that? MORE ...

A rival for my wife's affections
My son Jack, 4, says he wants to marry my wife Katherine.
Normally I would not worry too much about this. It is just a passing stage, right?
But things are getting complicated. MORE ...

Jack and the jellybean stalk
I am in trouble with my wife Katherine again. I became a tad too exhuberant when I prepared dessert for our son Jack, 4, the other week.
Katherine had to go away on a study trip and left me in charge.
"Make sure you give Jack nutritionally balanced meals," she had said. MORE ...

Don't feed the ego of the hands that bite you
I was so happy last week when my son Jack, 4, brought home a new piece of artwork.
Neither myself nor my wife Katherine can draw or paint to save our lives.
We gave Jack all sorts of really good genes but I didn't think artistic flair was among them. MORE ...

Terror at 5000 feet
"What does that button do, daddy?" asked Jack, 4, as the plane soared to a height I am sure man was never supposed to go.
"It's the switch for the air-conditioner,'' I said, trying to stay calm as sweat beaded on my forehead.
"And that one?" he asked, pointing to another button above our heads. MORE ...

Circumcision: Daddy, there's something coming out of my penis
My son Jack, 3, woke me up at 6am the other day and announced very solemnly: "Daddy, did you know I've got something coming out of my penis?" MORE ...

My chills are alive again with the Sound of Music
Look at me, daddy," said Jack, throwing a white towel over his head when he hopped out of the bath the other day. "I’m a nun." A nun? Well, um, yes, I could see the resemblance. That is, apart from an absence of clothes and some three-year-old male accessories that I never imagined nuns had. MORE ...

Send in the clown
My son Jack, who is not yet three, has come to think of me as a bit of a clown. Ever since I introduced him to one of my favourite delights of side-show alley at the Bungendore Show, he wants to insert ping-pong balls into my mouth. MORE ...

Don't shoot me, I'm just the pram driver
"Good afternoon, sir," said the policeman as he ran his eagle eye over the four-wheeled vehicle in my possession. "Does this, er, um, conveyance belong to you?" "No, of course it does not belong to me," I snapped back. "Do I look like I belong in a pram!" MORE ...

Child-care outing: It's no picnic for a getaway driver
I knew I was in for a big surprise when I volunteered to accompany my son Jack’s playgroup on a teddy bears’ picnic. I did not know I had to push a hot shopping trolley though. MORE ...

Child-proof toilets: The humiliation of being locked out
I suppose I should be grateful that our son Jack does not have a fascination for toilets. You hear stories, don’t you, about toddlers conducting scientific tests on how many flushes it takes to propel a plastic car around a U-bend. MORE ...