Daddy Cool: 'His comedy sneeze is a real hoot'

MANY moons ago I watched a programme on parenthood in which the late, great John Peel said his biggest struggle therein was constant repetition. Amused and intrigued by the concept in my then childless state, I thought our John, my brother and now father of four, might have something to say on the subject. He did.

Oh, the repetition, he cried, intoning the phrase with more fearful menace than Kurtz delivering "the horror! the horror!" in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Two weans on, I get why. Two weans on, the repetition – nay, the repetition! the repetition! – exposes my piddling parental skills.

Well, not all repetition. Some is entered into with gusto. I delight in nodding, shaking my head, saying "hiya" and, best of all, Aaatchooo-ing again and again into the face of my ten-month-year-old Corin in efforts to prompt him to respond in kind. I mean, you gotta have a performing seal routine for social occasions or else what's the point in bringing along your babe in arms? And his comedy sneeze is a real hoot.

No, the repetition that grinds you down, causes you to scrape your molars down to Shane MacGowan stumps, is that necessitated by any action required of a talking, walking, mind-of-their-own child. In this case, my four-year-old Sylvie. It starts at the breakfast table, which she makes her way to from her mum and dad's bed, a sleeping facility that seems to shrink from king size to postage stamp the moment she climbs into it, what seems like seconds after adult heads have thumped on to the pillows.

With cereal, her "favourite milk" (soya) and fruit juice ("no daddy, not red") placed in front of her, the following scene is played out. All ellipses represent a time gap of between two and five minutes, by the way. "Hey Sylvie, now I know you love this, let's see you one spoon after another, sooo fast" (delivered with motivational, life-coach enthusiasm) ... "Right, how fast you can scrunch this down" (still geeing up, only with a little less vim) ... "I'll race you, quick before I beat you" (change of tact to incentivise the task) ... "Come on now, eat up now" (tone shift to plaintive) ... "Sylvie, please, hurry up (the desperate pleading kicking in) ... "For God's sake, we're late (cue dinger-doing despair) ... "Eat it!" (the horror! the horror!).

And so the daily reflection is that it's all my fault. The key is to keep your composure, as it says in How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen. I've read and re-read that book but still it doesn't sink in. It'll be better tomorrow.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on September 26, 2010