I’M not old, exactly, but I’m not getting any younger either. Or stronger. Physically, I am at the summit of life, peeking over the cliff edge on the other side.

My kids certainly haven’t peaked. They seem to be gaining inches and kilos every week. My youngest feels like he’s made of lead. And when I go to scoop up my eldest, as I have ever since he was born, there is now a moment where I’m not entirely sure I’m going to manage it. I grimace and groan involuntarily.

There is still one arena in which I am completely dominant, though. The arena of competitive wrestling. Admittedly, my adversaries are my kids. But they are certainly no pushovers. It’s actually pretty realistic. Perhaps more so than TV wrestling. My kids never let me tap out. They are almost frighteningly merciless. Which is fair enough. I am, after all, the villain.

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Of course, any good wrestling villain knows that you can’t win all the time. Sometimes I let them get the better of me. I go down and they leap on top of me, my eldest pummelling my back, my daughter kneeling on my head, my youngest sitting on my legs and, as far as I can tell, head butting my butt.

Then, when it seems as though I am utterly defeated, that’s when I start to growl, then roar, and with almost superhuman reserves of raw powerrrrr, I rise, lifting them all bodily into the air as they screech with fear and joy.

I lift them all into… the air. Hang on. I’ll just give that another try. I growl. I lift them all into the air… OK, Er… kids? I can’t actually move. And that hurts. Quite a lot actually. Kids? Kids? I can’t breathe properly!