To allow myself the time to wallow in self pity I have turned to the ‘melancholy playlist’ on my Ipod, which includes such teary classics as Sad Songs by Elton John, True by Spandau Ballet, and the song I am currently listening to – Night And day by Al B Sure.

I’m walking through our new home which at this point is still a shell – no paint on the walls, no interior doors or taps or anything remotely home-y. The completion date has been put back again and again and our predicted six month stay at the in-laws has moved on to eight and possibly ten months. I can still see the glaring positives of our situation, but I find myself stuck in a mental battle which I navigate daily.

As I walk down the long corridor of our new house (sad but still grooving and even spontaneously shimmy-ing because of a freaky genetic ability that forces me to respond skilfully to all forms of music) I notice the empty take-away packets the dozens of tradies have left behind and my feet drag through the rubble and broken tiles.

For this week’s Fantasy Foto I thought I’d hijack the Mum’s Lounge FacebookPage and place myself in their hugely popular segment: Arsenic Hour.

Arsenic Hour basically amounts to a ‘drool pic’ of a male celebrity hottie. It allows a Mum to disassociate from her day-to-day mayhem and recharge courtesy of her deviant base chakra and all the earthy things it offers.

I always click over to see the Arsenic Hour pic in the hope that it’s me and, so far,I’ve been bitterly disappointed. I’m thinking I haven’t made it yet because I’m the pinnacle and when they put me up every other male pic to follow will be a bit of an anticlimax. So they’re holding out.

Dads! Stick this song in your IPOD and listen to it while you change the sheets on the marital bed, or poof your wife's pillows, or pick the lint from her favorite jumper, or fold her underwear and I challenge you NOT to fall more madly and deeply in love with her! You'll be so crazy with lust you'll be like a starving ferret in a rabbit burrow as soon as you see her cherub face again. And she'll be so happy with the attention you've been heaping on her and the time you've allowed her by doing your share of the housework that she'll grow teeth and claws and beady little eyes and match (even overwhelm!) your ferret-like intensity and you'll be so hot for each other that you'll entwine your slinky long bodies together and fall to the floor to create a warm and furry little pile of love among the recently devoured rabbit carcasses.

This is not a parenting blog. And I don’t consider myself to be an expert on children. This blog is more of an insight in to the inside of my braincase and while I know my own kids very well and can give you advice on how to handle Archie, Lewis, Tyson and Maki specifically I wouldn’t even call myself an expert on them because they’re human and humans have this crazy ability to change and grow and manipulate and have good days and bad days and all that jazz.

For those reasons I don’t often dish out unsolicited advice on baby management or child-rearing so please don’t assume I’m ‘up me-self’ for offering you these instructional videos.

I’m thinking about condoms as I’m pushing a trolley loaded with about $300 worth of groceries through the local supermarket. Toddler Tyson, who’s in the child seat, is storing about another $20 worth of food internally and that’s because I’ve fed him an insane amount of food including – but not limited to – a bag of grapes, a banana, two yoghurt tubes and half a packet of dried biscuits. 

Apart from stuffing him with food I’ve also let him spray a bottle of Lynx deodorant at the eyeballs of any people that attract his attention on the various product packaging. I believe this will help him to develop the mace-spraying skills he’ll need to survive as he grows up on the suburban streets of downtown Reservoir.