"Mummy is fab!"

This was almost the first phrase I taught Eleanor to say when her language skills arrived (with a vengeance!). Its not the most useful phrase but I had my reasons. Lisa is fab. I know this to be an immutable fact, just like the sun comes up every morning, there are 60 minutes in an hour and you will always take one sock less out of the drier than you put in. So what makes Lisa so fab? To be honest I've got so used to it being true that I often don't always realise why it is true. So... here are a few examples of why my wife is fab...

1 - she let me go to bed early last night (9.30pm) as I was feeling exhausted. She then left me to sleep in this morning until I awoke naturally (10.30am). She did this despite being awoken in the night by Ellie and actually getting up with her at 5.30am!

2 - she played two games of 'Carcassonne - The Castle' with me whilst Ellie had a nap this afternoon. She then also played Canasta. She could have had a nap herself or spent some time doing 'Lisa' things but instead she chose to spend her precious time with me.

3 - Lisa does all my ironing! I am quite capable of doing it myself but she is much quicker than me. (When I used to do it all I could see her watching and itching to do it herself).

4 - Lisa encourages me to go to the gym and eat more healthily. Actually 'encourages' is the wrong word...'compels' is better! I have no willpower of my own you see. SHe has instigated a rule that as far as possible we do not use our cars at weekends. Instead we walk everywhere. this is actually really good fun. We can race from lampost to post box to streetsign with Ellie, whilst making shapes with our shadows. Ellie now recognises the letter E on streetsigns and knows that it is "E for Ellie!".

5 - However tired or fed up she gets, Lisa is always a good, supportive, creative mum. She has ennabled me to be the father I am as I follow her lead most of the time. I am constantly impressed by the boundless energy she seems to have where Ellie is concerned.

That is why "mummy is fab!" and why I want Ellie to grow up knowing this to be true jsut as she needs air to breathe and puddles to splash in.