Dan Jackson: Parenting tough, but worth it

FOR years I worked six-day weeks ... bitterly watching the world go by on a Saturday morning as I laboured away in my digger or chopped stuff up at the scrapyard.

Now, due to a change in circumstances, I get Saturday mornings off and so last week I found myself snuggled under the bed covers safe in the knowledge I had no work or anywhere to be ... That lasted about five seconds.

"Get up!" said the fiancee, dragging the curtains back. "We're late for soccer."

I stumbled from my slumber to find two highly excited 5-year-olds running around in bright yellow tops, shorts and sneakers. They had been up since before 6am and their tempo had reached fever pitch.

The fiancee was running around trying to get food into them and I was struggling not to get in her way while I made a coffee.

"Make it a quick one," she barked as she pulled the shin pads on one of the nippers. We've only got quarter of an hour till we've got to be there."

"Dear lord," I said under my breath. "Whose effing idea is it to have junior soccer at this time on a Saturday morning?"

All too soon we were in the people-mover which, when I was younger, I never thought I'd be seen dead in but ended up buying anyway.

When I was a kid, Wembley Park on a winter's morning felt like a cross between Scott Base and Waiouru, but with stickier mud. As we arrived, I was glad to note my memory was still working fine.

Groups of adults dressed in winter woollies huddled around the sidelines while kids went nuts with soccer balls.

I spotted Dave Campbell in the crowd and had a yarn about his old car. "Cheap rego," he said. "Bargain," I said. And then we were back to shivering.

The sun finally rose over the field and it was time for the kids to knock off.

"We want a frozen drink," our two chanted as we piled them - mud and all - back into the previously clean people-mover.

"How about we go to a cafe - you can have a fluffy, while mum and dad have a coffee?" I said hopefully.

"Noooo," they reply and I find we are sitting in the drive-through ordering frozen melon drink things, and cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets.

Finally, we make it home. By now, the 5-years-olds are no longer full of energy. They're tired and cranky and somehow old superdad has found himself trying to teach them the Junior Scrabble game one of them got for their birthday.

"No dad, that piece doesn't go there, you said, remember?"

"Why's she got more pieces than me?"

"Am I winning?"

"Do we get a prize?"

I make some excuse about needing to go to the toilet and deftly turn the telly to a kids' channel. When I return to the room, the two of them are now wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and watching some show about a princess.

Aha - dad wins! But no sooner has the thought crossed my mind than they spot me and tell me - in no uncertain terms - they are hungry. Again.

I pass this information to the missus and I am soundly told where to go ... to the cupboard to get the bread and spreads out and make sandwiches.

A bit like a zoo-keeper feeding lions, I pass them their sandwiches. Still, I must have got it right as there are no complaints as they tear their offerings apart.

I casually mention to the fiancee there's a bit of work I was meaning to catch up on at the yard but it transpires that in some weak moment I'd promised the kids we were going to a park.

After what feels like an age, the day draws to a close, stories have been read and the kids are tucked up in bed. I sit down on the couch with a beer.

"Did you see when she kicked the ball straight at the goal," I ask the fiancee. "She's a natural."

"How cute were they in their uniforms, though?" she replies.

And, staring through half-open eyes at some mindless drivel on the telly, I can't help but think it is all worthwhile.

-Dan Jackson is a Whanganui journalist and part-time scrap metal dealer