“I think we should buy a paddle board,” my husband announces one day over lunch.
He used to dream about us all snowboarding through the back country or downhill mountain biking in the Alps, but those activities involve an enormous amount of faffing with chains and bindings, and face-planting at speed, which is just about acceptable without kids, but probably illegal with them.
He has chosen stand up paddle boarding (SUP) based on an experience we had in Greece, before we had Milk and Mayhem. We wobbled and laughed and splashed about in the water. Then we lay on the beach to dry off, sipping cold beers and admiring our tan marks.
We are lucky to live near a reservoir, which has a SUP club, and a pile of stones covering a muddy slope, which they call the beach. My husband says we can wear wet suits and “really get into it.”
I need to stop this from becoming a reality. “We can’t fit a paddle board on the car.”
“Car,” says Mayhem. “Car. Car. Car.”
He is learning to talk, so we have to be patient and smile a lot.
“Yes we can,” my husband says reaching for the gravy.
“What’s a paddle board?” Asks Milk.
“No we can’t. They are massive!” I picture a paddle board blowing off the roof and into an electricity pylon.
“It will be fine.” Says my husband. He says everything will be fine all the time, even if he hasn’t the slightest idea if something will be fine or not.
I am flummoxed. “They are bigger than a canoe!”
“Canoe?” says Mayhem. “Canoe, Canoe, Canoe?”
“What’s a paddle board?” Asks Milk.
I keep my eyes on my husband as I explain paddle boarding to our four-year-old. “It’s good for your tummy,” I add.
Milk’s eyes widen. “Like a pirate?”
No, not really I think. Not really at all. I have no idea why he would think paddle boarding has anything to do with pirates, but I say: “Yes darling. Like a pirate.”
“Pirate!” shouts Mayhem throwing potato on the floor.
My husband smiles. “They’re inflatable.”
I stop eating. “What? Paddle boards? No they’re not, they’re hard like windsurf boards.”
“That was ages ago – they’re inflatable.” He is most definitely smirking.
“Pirates wouldn’t do that mummy,” says Milk.
“Mummy” says Mayhem. “Mummy, mummy, mummy.”
I stroke Mayhem’s hair to silence his excessive and pointless use of my name, and turn to my husband.
“You’ve just read something about them being inflatable, and you’re pretending you already knew that, and making me look stupid.”
“I’m not making you look stupid, I’m just telling you paddle boards are inflatable.”
“Pirates wouldn’t do that mummy,” says Milk.
I close my eyes in the hope everyone will disappear, but when I open them Mayhem is pushing a piece of beef into his ear and Milk is waiting for me to tell him that he is right, and that pirates probably wouldn’t do core exercises.
My husband is enjoying his lunch, pretending this conversation is normal.
I say very quietly, “You didn’t add the word ‘now’.”
“What?” he looks confused.
“You should have said paddle boards are inflatable ‘now’, instead of making out I am behind on the paddle boarding news.”
He pushes a carrot around his plate trying to cover it in gravy. “You are insane,” he says.
“Insane. Insane. Insane!” shouts Mayhem.
Milk and Mayhem 