Previously published as ‘Half Dad, Half Fish’ but now revised and updated, ‘The Swimming Pool Years’ is the first full length book in the ‘Best Dad’ series, featuring nearly 100 of my earliest columns. See the teenager she’ll be one day – as our daughter rehearses for the nativity play Find out why my 7 year old son was arrested as a terrorist And discover that you’re not the only parent struggling – and failing – to keep up with modern life I started writing about my children when they were 9, 7 and 4: that’s where you join the family in this book. These columns were written between 2003 and 2005. They’re the years of party bags, nativity plays – and the sheer hell that’s a family changing room at the local swimming pool. Over the course of this year and next I’ll be publishing all my 800 newspaper columns in a series of 8 full-length books. You’ll see the children progress to hormones, teenage angst, boyfriends it’s best dad doesn’t know about, serious exams and – ultimately – leaving home. But for now, welcome to ‘The Swimming Pool Years.’ It begins with Jessica proclaiming that “George’s party bag was absolutely rubbish” and ends with an exhausted little boy falling asleep after a serious – and expensive – bout of carol singing. And along the way there are the usual problems for mum and dad to deal with… Should we encourage the children to lie – even if it saves Dad a lot of money? Is it really possible to ‘be consistent’ as a parent? Or are the textbooks just talking nonsense? And how do you convince a weeping 5 year old that Speedy, the dead goldfish, is going to a special, watery Heaven? The next full-length book – ‘The Hormone Years’ – will be out in the summer.

The Swimming Pool Years: 1 family, 3 children, the first 100 stories… (Best Dad Book 2) PDF

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