Full-time score: Bonnie 4, Dad 0
I had thought – once the Six Nations Championship was over – that there would be time for some fatherly activity around the house at the weekend.
But it was not to be.
Not only were the Saints on telly playing Cardiff Blues in the Anglo Welsh Cup but the England football team were also playing a friendly against Slovakia.
For a man, armchair sport-watching is a time consuming business which is often misunderstood.
When we say we are watching the game, what we mean is we are watching the build-up, the game, the half-time pondering of the first half highlights, the second half of the game and the post match reaction.
After insisting on quality time and space for the Six Nations, I realised My One True Love would have little patience for yet further interruptions of regular family business.
So it was that I found myself minding baby Bonnie while I hatched a plan to watch both the Saints and England at the same time, by use of a judiciously arranged laptop computer and TV.
Bonnie oversaw my preparations with bemusement and sprinkled her drink over the floor as if to demonstrate that I could barely cope with her when nothing was happening, let alone two simultaneous sporting fixtures.
Buying myself a few minutes to get into the game, I zoomed a breadstick past Bonnie's face until she was properly hypnotised and then gave it to her.
She banged it on the tray of her highchair until it snapped, threw half on the floor and chewed at the other.
Good.
I settled down in front of the screens.
Emile Heskey looked pleased with himself . . . he had just scored.
Clearly, Bonnie was better at distracting me than I was at distracting her. No matter, plenty more sport to come.
To be fair Bonnie is not the worst person to watch sport with.
She loves to clap and cheer. We spent a few minutes clapping and cheering everything that happened as the rugby got going.
Then Bonnie distracted herself with the ripping sound of the velcro on her cute little shoes.
I got back into the action.
A Slovakian player sent the ball streaking across the England goal like an Exocet missile. Bonnie's shoe flew past my face in a similar manner.
"You can do this," I told myself as I rummaged for the catering-sized bag of raisins.
If I gave her one a minute through the second halves that would be 45 raisins maximum. Was that too much?
Bonnie was casually strumming her mouth as the teams returned to the pitch and gave me a look which seemed to say: "What are you looking at me for?"
The next thing to hit the floor was a plastic toy that had once been a sweet dispenser. I didn't even know she had it.
No harm done, nothing broken, just a surprisingly loud noise.
I returned to the screens.
The Saints' Jo Ansbro looked pleased with himself . . . he had just scored. Stay positive, I told myself.
I triple-jumped across the kitchen to collect my half-time cuppa, now a little stewed and Bonnie applauded me, so I did it again, just to amuse her.
Settling down once more I realised Rooney was looking pleased with himself . . . he had just scored. My One True Love appeared as a timely substitute and warmed up some pasta for Bonnie to pick up and chew.
I gave her a run down on the action so far and returned to find Saints were making a game of it and Lampard was looking pleased with himself.
He had just scored.
Next the pasta bowl was spinning on the floor and the England fans were ecstatic.
I glanced up from tackling spaghetti to see Rooney looking pleased with himself.
He had just scored.
Bonnie implacably returned my hard stare with pasta sauce liberally spread across her face.
She threw her arms up in the air and gave a little cheer.
Cardiff Blues and England may have been celebrating at the end of the afternoon, but something tells me Bonnie was the real winner.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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