Stupid idiot things that you think are hilariously funny at the time, but will bite you squarely on the arse #1: Nightmare Cheese

The white bits are safe, the blue bits give you nightmares. FACT!

One of the problems with being a "silly daddy" is that sometimes you carry a joke too far, and sometimes that joke becomes a rearing venomous snake, and bites you back - hard.

Now, picture the scenario where you - the ardent cheese lover - try to convince your child (in this case, Princess C) that "Veiny cheese gives you nightmares" and the blue bits are the worst for doing so.

Amazingly enough I never had to beg or plead with Princess C to get her to eat anything weird like Blacksticks Blue or a really good piece of stilton. She just does but oh yes, that nightmare cheese thing really did kick me (or rather my poor long suffering other half) squarely in the pants. I put Blacksticks Blue in Princess C's packed lunch yesterday. She ate it, enjoyed it, but the closer we got to bedtime, the more apparent it became that I'd done something really stupid. No not necessarily putting the cheese in a sandwich for her to eat, but starting off the whole nightmare cheese thing ages ago only for it to 'pay out' some way down the line.

First she bellowed for me to come into her room shortly after we'd put her down for the night.

"The nightmare cheese made me dream that there's a skeleton in the middle of my floor!" she said (not ten minutes after we'd closed the curtains and turned out the light, and the little blighter hadn't even been asleep).

I switched on the light. No skeleton. Tucked her in and kissed her goodnight. Again.

Then of course at 3am Princess C had the mother of all nightmares, and woke up wailing. My wife dutifully went down to her but there was the unspoken promise that because I'd 'slept through it' (I hadn't, but it wasn't my turn for the night-time thing) I would be made to PAY later on...!

Of course, it now means that Princess C has shot herself in the foot as well as making me look like a terrible dad who doesn't know when to quit on a joke. She'll never experience the tangy melting deliciousness of really good cheese ever again during her childhood because I'm durned well not going to carry the blame for any more nightmares. She'll also never get to watch the rest of the Harry Potter movies (they've recently been airing on TV over here, and I bought a box set to finish them off - but as the series goes on, it gets darker and darker, and more harrowing - so that little avenue of enjoyment will also be cut off just in case...)

Random nightmares will come and go, undoubtedly - and it's impossible to shut off a kid from everything that might scare them during the night - but stubbornly I'm going to dig my heels in. No more nightmare cheese, no more monsters before bedtime. That way at least I won't get the blame!