Gonnae No Dae That – An Introduction

If you haven’t seen Chewin’ The Fat then you certainly need to check out this video before proceeding:

Gonnae No Dae That is going to be a semi-regular feature on the site, in which I vent.  A space to rant.  Pissing me off?  Gonnae no dae that.  Annoying me?  Gonnae no dae that.  It’s almost like the scene in Donnie Brasco when defining “Fuhgeddaboudit”.

I guess it’s also kinda like Peter Griffin’s short stint on “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?” on Family Guy.  It’s also a good excuse to fall back into the Mother Tongue – something I very rarely do and when I do it tends to be when I’m angry.  The vehemence generally brings out the accent and, in turn, the dialect.

There have been a number of things that have really wound me up this week so, let’s dive in!

I don’t drive much – work is about a twenty minute walk from the house and, because I work most days, there is no need.  On my days off my wife usually works so, if I have days off in the week I have to take her to work, do the school run, go shopping, school run, pick her up and so on.  There are two points on the journey that set my anxiety off because almost every time, it happens.

Number one is the roundabout by the Fountain Shop.  The amount of dick heads that are either in the wrong lane or pull out when they can clearly see you coming, forcing you to slam the brakes on is breathtaking.  Number two is a similar affair; the roundabout by Pentrebach and Gethin Woods on the A470.  In the image below, the green and yellow lines indicate the two routes we take (it varies each time depending on traffic or where I am before having to to take Lauren to/get Lauren from work).

 

Apologies for the shaky mouse lines…The red lines depict the typical problems I face each time – I either get cut up by cars in the right-side lane when I am in the left-side as I am going straight across or cars pull out as I’m coming round the roundabout causing me to slam the brakes on.

Being Scottish, I have no control over the language that spews out my mouth when I have to make an immediate reaction to someone’s bad/dangerous driving.  My kids are learning ‘French’ before they even get to school.  Sorry guys!

So, if you don’t know how roundabouts work or don’t have the acceleration to pull out of a junction without causing a hazard in doing so then please, gonnae no dae that!

The next thing on my list is something I’m sure most parents, if not all, can relate to: irrational crying or stropping (throwing a tantrum) when being asked to do something.  Talia’s cry goes right through me.  It’s loud and brash and is way over the top.  She will cry if you just brush past her and claim it hurt.  She will chuck herself on the floor when you ask her to pick her school bag up or pick up a bit of rubbish that she dropped.

Since she was a baby, I have dreaded going out in public because she would have a paddy over ANYTHING.  She often has me feeling like this:

Asking her to do chores is a chore in itself.  Even Kevin Spacey couldn’t talk this one down.  Despite being threatened with early bedtimes, no XBox, no TV, no treats and the usual ‘weapons’ at our disposal, if she doesn’t want to do something she won’t.  Few things make me lose my temper but she does it with very little effort.  Sometimes she will eventually come round and do something – usually a half-assed job, but it’s a win either way.  Most of the time, she pushes me so far that she’ll try and call my bluff and I follow through on my promise.

In public, her behaviour has me embarrassed and/or ashamed and it makes me thing that I must be a terrible parent.  I know she plays up for my wife too but she always seems to be worse with me; as if she thinks she can get away with more.

If she does eventually do what she’s told she does it so slow that, if she had any chance of playing on the XBox or watching TV or whatever, it’s far too late then and she fails to understand the consequences of her actions/inaction.

Seren, while not perfect, can be a wonderful helper and she has helped tremendously with her sisters when they were born and helped my wife and I generally.  There are times she makes these stupid grunts and shrieks when she doesn’t want to do something or when she’s been told off but, for the most-part, she’s a model sibling.

Even Georgia, the youngest of the litter, has the capacity to help and often struggles to lift/carry stuff in order to help while her elder sister does nothing.

So, for the poorly behaved kids who refuse to help and make those god-awful shrieks, grunts and other non-wordy responses – gonnae no dae that!

That’s it for this edition but, I do get pissed off by things quite often so there will no doubt be another post very soon!

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