Sometimes it’s hard not to tear your hair out. Things that should be positive — fun even — can still derail the delicate machinery of routine and tip us straight into emotional overload. This weekend we had a boatload of it.

It started Saturday at the gym’s autumn celebration, where they’d decided face painting was a good idea. My daughter became a unicorn, her best friend a fairy, and together they flitted off happily into soft play, smearing greasepaint over all and sundry. There was also live… well, calling it music might be generous, but there were people in costumes enthusiastically producing noises with guitars and a drum kit. She loved it because the bass was so loud the floor vibrated.

Unicorn-face went to the library and the shops and didn’t have to wash it off until evening. That afternoon she had a play date (with the fairy) a few hours of running laps through the garden gates, making loom band bracelets, and generally raising hell. She was joyfully exhausted… right up until I told her it was time to go home. Cue screaming, tears, and the sort of meltdown that makes you question why you ever leave the house.

Sunday was worse. The spoons from Saturday hadn’t regenerated, her usual gym class was cancelled (a fact we’d reminded her of all week), and her grandparents were gallivanting around California instead of being available for her personal entertainment. Outrageous.

We took her to the park — her happy place — where she climbed every single tree, yelled at all the broken equipment, and marched us to the café for cake. But first, handwashing. Apparently that was a personal attack. Some of the trees were sticky (pine), stabby (sequoia), or poisonous (yew), and I explained why washing was important. Naturally, this meant she was now dying. She screamed in the car about the negligence of public tree policy all the way home.

We baked chocolate chip cookies that afternoon. That, too, was wrong. (“Why chocolate chip?!” “Because they’re your favourite!” “No they’re not!”) Offering a bath later was treated as an act of cruelty, despite her loving swimming three times a week. The logic is her own private kingdom, and we are but confused travellers.

None of it was bad — not a bit. It was all good things. Just too many of them, too close together, too far off-script. By Sunday night we were thanking every deity we don’t believe in that Monday was coming and school would restore some order before half-term.

She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m planning to distract her during half-term with a puppy. That’ll help… right?

(Please tell me that’ll help.)

I’ve come to realise that raising a fae child is a lot like living with a particularly sassy genie: she will do exactly what you say, and absolutely nothing that you meant.

I’m not sure if this is a kid thing, a fae thing, or a kid fae thing, but teaching my daughter verbal cues is a fruitless battle that usually ends in exasperation—or laughter. And we only laugh because the alternative would cost too much in therapy.

She does not do verbal cues. To be fair, I’m not great at picking up on them myself, and my husband still kicks himself over some he missed as a teenager. But our daughter simply doesn’t process the implication of a statement. She takes everything at face value and will make assumptions that no one else on earth would.

For example: she wanted a toy from the sideboard. As all children do, she approached this goal in the most direct way possible—by turfing off everything that was either on or between her and the toy. Cue chaos.

I told her, “You’ve made a mess,” with the implied expectation that she would clear it up. She looked at me sweetly and replied, “I don’t mind,” before happily carrying on.

My bad. I wasn’t clear. Expecting her to stop and clean up was what I wanted her to do, but it’s not what I said. I stated a fact: there was a mess. She responded with her opinion: she was fine with it. As far as she was concerned, conversation over.

If I wanted her to a) not make the mess, b) stop and clear it, or c) maybe, just maybe, not pile toys in precarious towers to begin with—then that is exactly what I needed to say. The statement “You’ve made a mess” conveys nothing to her about what I expect her to do about it.

And that’s where verbal cues trip us all up.

Most of the time when we get frustrated or snap, it’s not because our kids are defying us—it’s because we haven’t been clear about what we actually want. We think we have (I know my husband did; he was doubled over laughing at her response), but adults have years of experience to draw on. What’s obvious to us isn’t necessarily obvious to them.

It reminds me of a rhyme I once heard about programming:

I hate this computer,

I really wish they’d sell it,

It doesn’t do what I want—

Only what I tell it.

Talking to my fae child is very similar to programming a computer. Except my computer doesn’t argue with me about bedtime, eat peanut butter with a spoon, or ask if we can have ice cream for dinner.

At least when the computer crashes it doesn’t demand snacks and paw patrol. 

Does anyone have a translation book, app, or—better yet—a small yellow fish you pop in your ear that will tell you what your fae child actually means?

I understand she’s still getting to grips with language. I understand that, because of the way her brain works (ooh look, fireworks!) she sometimes says things she doesn’t mean. That part I can handle.

The problem is when she says things she does mean… and they still make no sense.

Most of the time they’re harmless little statements that can be batted aside with vague noises of agreement. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard something incomprehensible, nodded wisely, gone “uh-huh,” and she totters off perfectly satisfied.

But sometimes. Sometimes. They’re not statements—they’re questions. And apparently, I’m expected to produce a coherent answer on the spot.

Well, shit.

For example, could anyone explain to me:

• “What time will it be tomorrow?”
  
• “Why doesn’t the kangaroo make me fly?”
  
• “Daddy, you should be mummy. Why aren’t you a mummy?”
  

I promise you, context does not help. I don’t get any context. I just get the question, then the question repeated with more irritation, then the question shouted at me, followed by stamping feet and the occasional small fist.

At this point my usual response is to declare “no hablo inglés” and suggest we watch Paw Patrol. Tactical retreat, problem solved.

And yet—I would still very much like to know why the kangaroo doesn’t make her fly, and more importantly, why she thought it should.

I asked ChatGPT for answers to the questions, this is what it had. 

Parent Survival Guide to Impossible Questions

In the spirit of helping other bewildered parents, here are some tried-and-tested whimsical answers you can keep in your back pocket:

• “What time will it be tomorrow?”
  
  Tomorrow will be 7 o’clock until further notice. We’re waiting for an official update from Father Time.
  
• “Why doesn’t the kangaroo make me fly?”
  
  Kangaroos only hand out flying powers on Tuesdays, and only if you’ve had three carrots. Check the fine print.
  
• “Daddy you should be mummy why are you a mummy?”
  
  Because every family needs balance: one mum, one dad, and one person who secretly eats the last biscuit.
  

Will she buy any of these? No. Will you feel marginally less like you’re failing a pop quiz written by Dr. Seuss? Absolutely.

So, hey, at least even the AI is stumped. Alas, this means we cannot add childrearing to one of the jobs robots will take from us. At least not for fae children. 

We’re not quite sure what happened last night. My husband and I have chalked it up to a glitch in the Matrix. If my fae child knows, she’s not telling.

School has been back for nearly a week—not the longest time, but long enough for routines to start settling and for us to spot the pressure points. Last night, we hit a new one.

Our bedtime routine—set in stone for years, and mentioned more than once on this blog—has worked without complaint.

Until last night.

Last night, she suddenly decided she didn’t want a bath. Or a shower. In fact, wiping her face with a cloth and brushing her teeth was apparently pushing it.

With some coaxing, we got her up the stairs. With more coaxing, we almost got her in the bathroom… before she collapsed on the floor, screaming that she “didn’t want to get wet.”

This, from a child who willingly spends two hours in a swimming pool twice a week.

We pointed out that she likes being wet. She was unmoved.

We reminded her the shower doesn’t have to be long. No interest.

I tried the classic: “You’ve done PE, dodgeball and yoga today. I just don’t want you to smell.” Nothing. No budge. She was holding that hill.

Ten minutes of cajoling (you can choose the bubble bath), bribery (you can have your favourite book after), and negotiation (what if you choose which shower we use—yes, we have more than one, no, don’t ask)… all of it: useless.

Eventually, we caved. We told her: if she pinky promises—because everyone knows a pinky promise is more binding than any magical oath—that she’ll shower tomorrow (yes, she can use Daddy’s shower), then we’ll compromise: just face and hands washed, and brush your teeth. Non-negotiable.

She sniffled, nodded, pinky swore…

Then got up, wiped her eyes, and marched straight into her father’s bedroom.

Leaving us baffled in the corridor.

A few minutes of bemused communication followed—a mix of words (us), noises and signs (her), and possibly semaphore (everyone)—and then…

She brushes her teeth.

She hops in the shower.

Wait, WHAT?!

I’m sorry, what just happened?

Weren’t we half an hour behind schedule because you didn’t want to do that?!

Didn’t we say you didn’t have to do that?!

Why are you doing that?!

I’m so confused.

She showers. She gets dressed. And bedtime routine resumes its regularly scheduled programming, if a little behind schedule. So… yay?

I guess?

But seriously.

What just happened.

Anyone?

Socks in our house are a bit of an odd item of apparel. I’m the only one who can stand to wear them indoors—and I have to wear them. My husband, I think, believes they’re evil and does his best to destroy them with alarming alacrity. And our daughter… well, she has her own rituals.

Admittedly, some of that is my doing.

She used to come into the house and immediately strip off her shoes and socks. And I don’t mean she moved to a convenient spot and carefully placed them somewhere sensible—I mean the moment she crossed the threshold, it was like she lost the ability to walk until her feet were unencumbered. She’d become an instant trip hazard to anyone following her (because obviously, she had to be first in), and you couldn’t move her without triggering a full-blown meltdown.

If—by some miracle—you did manage to get her to budge, she’d leave a trail of destruction/trip hazards down the corridor and possibly up the staircase until her task was completed. So, in an effort to avoid broken legs and to be able to enter my home in a reasonably efficient manner, I got a box in which all socks could be put.

This box has three drawers:

One for everyday socks One for wellie socks One for dirty socks to be returned

I thought I’d covered all the bases—until I was informed that school socks and day socks are, in fact, different things.

Sigh.

So we negotiated: school socks can (and do) live with her school uniform (hooray), but are returned—on arrival—to the dirty sock drawer. (No idea if there’s logic here, but whatever. At least they’re not on the floor.)

Day socks are put on if:

You go out again after returning home from school It’s a weekend or holiday You change at the gym

If Mummy forgets your day socks and you have to wear school socks into gym class, you are—apparently—entitled to have a full-blown hissy fit and refuse to wear any socks for that session.

Finally: day socks must not, under ANY circumstances, be worn as pairs.

They must be odd.

I don’t care anymore—I just buy the sodding things in sets and let her mix and match.

School socks, however, must be in pairs. But, thankfully, one white sock is much like another, so if you buy ten identical ones and the washer/dryer eats five, you still have enough to get by.

I have just run the washing machine purely to clean all her sodding socks. She doesn’t even like the things but somehow owns more than royalty—and I still don’t know where they go, because she never has enough.

I’m assuming we have a sock-eating monster living in the appliances, devouring the left one of every set. I can’t be sure, however, because—since she never wears matching pairs—who knows what even goes into the machine in the first place?

On the plus side: I never have to throw away a pair just because one has a hole in it.

So now, all I need to do is train her to put her shoes in the rack.

How hard can that be?

For most of the time, I forget that our normal is actually insane. That most people don’t need three calendars for one small child and a meal rota published on the dining room wall, colour-coded so she can choose from it. Most children have two options for dinner: take it or leave it.

So last night, when my husband and I had crawled onto the nearest bed after battling an exhausted, out-of-spoons fae child to sleep—despite her protests of “I’m not tired”—having fed her, bathed her, and generally done all the basic things that most parents do every day without batting an eye, we evaluated how this summer holiday had gone… and how many weeks it would take me to recover from it.

(Spoiler: more than one.)

I should be on the gym floor right now, but it’s the last day my fae has been at home, and we’ve been preparing for the new school year. She now has a new lunchbox, a school bag—with working zips—a uniform that fits, and we even waxed her shoes, so at least on the first day they’ll be waterproof. We made sure she has everything she needs.

Yes, I know—I probably should’ve done this before today. But honestly? I don’t care that much. I was 90% sure the uniform would fit (it does), the shoes I’d bought at least a week or so ago, and everything else is “optional.” In other words: her school will be over the moon she’s there, wearing clothes.

But I digress.

Today, as she helped me place the icons indicating school is back on her weekly calendar, and we marked off the winter term holidays on the annual calendar, and I changed the month on the monthly calendar (so we could mark birthdays and upcoming events), I started to wonder:

Do we actually need three calendars—all within a two-metre radius of each other?

Yes.

Yes, we do.

Because she has been religiously moving the marker on the annual calendar to count down the days of the holiday, so she could see that school was coming back. This is a child who cried at the end of term last July because it was ending. This child is stimming with joy that we just put the school icon back on the weekly schedule. We also added the evenings when Grandma and Pa will pick her up.

She also made me draw a flower so she knows which days to water her sunflower. So… we need that one.

I need the monthly one because, frankly, the annual planner has so many birthdays marked on it, I don’t know which ones are for real people, which are for imaginary people, and which are for toy pets at this point. I’m not entirely sure she does either—but by the looks of it, every day has a reason to eat cake.

Is it mad? Probably.

Does it stop meltdowns? Almost certainly.

Do we eat a lot of cake? Most definitely.

Now excuse me—I need to go buy another one. It’s someone’s birthday

At the gym my fae child attends for sports club, they keep a care plan on her (a bit like an abbreviated EHCP). It follows her into and out of every lesson. On Wednesdays, she has back-to-back classes in different areas, so to save time and stress, I collect her from one class and take the plan up to the next. It’s a system we’ve used for over a year, and it works because the staff are usually already in situ—and since I wrote the plan, obviously I’m allowed to see it.

Last night, the care plan was not on the clipboard at the end of the first class. It wasn’t on any clipboard. It wasn’t in the folder. It was lost—presumed missing.

Now, I should point out that for most children, the lack of a piece of paper they never see—apart from the odd occasion a parent waves it at someone—probably wouldn’t stop them from attending their favourite activity. In this case: yoga.

That being said, the reason my daughter has that piece of paper is the same reason that, when it went missing, she refused to leave the tennis courts until it was found. I mean a full-on sit-down protest in the middle of the court. She didn’t scream. She didn’t tantrum. But she was not going anywhere.

When I pointed out we were going to be late, she blithely told me that the member of staff now running around like a headless chicken was in charge of yoga sign-in that night—so it’s not like the class was going to start on time anyway.

When I tried to get her to leave, she asked if I had the paper yet. I had to admit I didn’t, and she went back to being a statue.

At this point, there were about ten 3–5-year-olds circling her on mini scooters like sharks around prey. She was in the middle of the court, and they were supposed to be starting their session. Their parents couldn’t leave because the children couldn’t be signed in. The staff were tearing the clipboards apart. I couldn’t leave because my daughter had turned into a gnome, and the kids couldn’t scooter because the gnome was in the middle of the court.

After ten minutes of this carry-on sketch, I managed to get her into the corridor—where she promptly turned into a sloth and started climbing the structurally integral support strut in the middle of the hallway.

I asked her why, and she said, “Because I’m moving to higher ground to hunt for the paper.”

…Makes about as much sense as anything else at the moment.

I coaxed the mighty hunter down after another five minutes and dragged her toward the yoga studio. I was told we had to take the secret way. I replied that going past the changing rooms wasn’t that secret and was definitely much longer. I was ignored.

We arrived 15 minutes late.

There was another group of put-out parents because the session was delayed, they were now late to their own classes, and the staff member responsible for sign-in hadn’t organised the clipboard or paperwork. She was, it turned out, looking for something.

So my daughter has dutifully reminded them all that yes, she does need that piece of paper, and yes, if they go off routine, she is absolutely capable—and very willing—to throw their entire evening into chaos without ever once raising her voice or looking like she did anything.

I will just point out that the document is covered in confidential information and does need to be found.

Strangely, it had been handed in to reception—where no one thought to check. So it was returned within half an hour.

I believe they are now reassessing this clipboard system.

Which is a shame, really, because it’s the best entertainment I’ve had all holiday.