It’s Saturday and Lizzie and I are about to go for our daily walk with Cedric.
I go upstairs to ask Annie if she wants to come (Jake is out, so I can’t ask him). As I know what the answer will be already – an automatic, uninterested ‘NO!’ from my daughter – I try to think of something which might make the walk seem fun and different, in some way, to help sell it.
I’ve got it, I think. I go into the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror and then pull my beanie up and over my bald head, so it looks like I have a bizarrely large forehead. That will get her attention, I think. And maybe she’ll be so amused she’ll think, yes I DO want to go for a walk with my funny Dad! Maybe we can ALL wear our hats in funny ways!
I go into Annie’s room and ask the question about the walk. ‘NO!’ she barks with barely a sideways look. But then she clocks the strange new way I’m wearing my beanie.
‘Do you know you look like that?’ she asks. ‘Actually…’ I begin… but Annie has already lost interest – and has turned her attention back to Brooklyn 99 on her TV.
I shrug and go down to the kitchen. Lizzie is sitting at the kitchen table, looking at her laptop.
Oh well, I think, at least Lizzie will be amused by the strange new way I’m wearing my beanie.
Lizzie looks at me for a second, clocks my beanie, then looks back at her laptop.
‘Notice anything different?’ I smirk, hopefully.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You’re doing a Megamind.’
‘A Megamind?’ I reply, having no idea what she’s talking about.
‘That’s what the kids call me,’ Lizzie says, ‘when I have my beanie too high on my bald head. Megamind.’
I get it now. Megamind is the supervillain with the huge, blue bald head in the film of that name. Is that actually what our children call their cancer-suffering Mum, when she shows too much of her bald chemo-head?
‘That’s harsh,’ I say. ‘Our kids are harsh. They’re naming you after a monster… but they’re the monsters!’
Lizzie nods, then continues looking at her laptop.
‘Have you heard about The Lost Daughter?’ she asks.
I shake my head.
‘It’s the new Olivia Colman film,’ Lizzie explains. ‘It’s about a female professor who decides to leave her family. Apparently, it’s really emotional. I’d like to see it.’
‘Sure,’ I reply. ‘How about we watch it with the kids?’
P. D. Clifton 
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