Chapter 3: Bronies

A/N: I thought I would give Richard a wee break today, before he gets hit by his next big challenge. This may be a little unbelievable…

Richard frowned at his parenting book collection. Harry was safely deposited at school for the day, albeit with a slight hitch when Richard found his son had no clean underwear left. Though Richard had done a load of laundry the night before (he always did a load on a Tuesday, he would never be the sort of husband who let their wife to all the housework) but he had forgotten to take it out and hang it up to dry. As a consequence the pants were still damp, and Harry refused to wear them – and also wouldn't accept going to school wearing his swimming trunks as an alternative. In a fit of desperation, Richard had actually put his underwear in the microwave for 10 seconds. It worked quite well, in fact Harry was so delighted with the feeling of wearing warm undies he requested they get the same treatment every day. Richard spent the entire walk to school explaining why that would not be happening, and trying to convince Harry not to tell his entire class.

He was frowning now because he wanted to find a way to spend some quality Father-daughter time with Alexandra, and the books simply offered too many choices. Should they do arts and crafts of some kind? Or perhaps he should read to her? Take her to the park? Alex was a big fan of dancing with Camille, but Richard didn't think he'd be any good at that.

In the end, Alex picked for them, toddling over to him holding a paintbrush she had retrieved from toy box. Richard spent an exceptionally long time covering the floor in newspaper, double checking the paints were non-toxic (of course they were, hadn't he checked when he bought them?) and then attempted to make a fruit bowl arrangement for them to paint. Whilst doing this, he realised how ridiculous it was – Alex was never going to understand the concept of trying to paint an accurate image. In fact her reaction to the fruit was to pick up an orange, roll it in paint and then roll it along the paper. Which Richard felt was really rather creative.

By the time Alex went down for a nap Richard was feeling really quite exhausted. With Alex being so subdued the day before, he had somehow forgotten how much energy she had normally. After painting, Alex had wanted to play with Sniff and about 6 other toys. He didn't know exactly what they were playing, but it involved her tossing the toys as hard as possible across the room and giggling like crazy when he went to retrieve them. She could achieve impressive distances. She then took to running repeatedly around the sofa whilst Richard chased her, only to have her somehow wriggle out of his grasp whenever he did manage to catch her. They had lunch as a picnic in the garden, though Richard didn't get much eating done – he was constantly trying to prevent Alex consuming her apparent preferred lunch of grass and various flowers.

It had been his intention to try to sort out another wash whilst Alex was resting, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to sit down for five minutes. The next thing he knew he was woken by his daughter's agitated cries for her mother. He tried to tell himself that she didn't look that disappointed when he was the one who came in to get her. A glance at his watch revealed she (well, both of them) had only been asleep 15 minutes – it was likely she would drop off again later. He sat her on the sofa with him for story time. He ended up having to sort of just make up the story, as Alex enjoyed turning the pages of the book irrespective of if it was time to do so or not. After they were finished Richard decided that they surely must have done enough quality activities for it to be ok for him to just turn on the television. He still shot a guilty look over his shoulder before reaching for the remote, as if Camille might randomly appear to berate him for being a bad father.

Richard didn't have to pick Harry up from school today. Fidel had called to tell him that he and Juliet were taking Rosie and Timothy to the hairdressers after school, and had asked if he wanted them to take Harry at the same time. The unruly thing that grew on top of Harry's head was always in need of taming. Camille had been a little disappointed that Richard's genes had not had a stronger influence on Harry's hair, it was at least as curly as Camille's – possibly even more so. He gladly took Fidel up on the offer. They agreed he would come back with Harry and Timothy who could play whilst Juliet and Rosie had their hair done – a process that for reasons he did not fully understood took far longer than the boys' cuts.

Alex had crawled up into his lap and sat enthralled, watching the children's television channel he had located. She babbled along happily, pointing and occasionally using one of her few words, often incorrectly.

"Chat!" Alex cried loudly – pointing at a Cheetah on the screen. Well, that was pretty close.

"Cheetah, it's a big cat!" Richard corrected her. When they tried to teach her a new word, they normally said the French at the same time. Well, Camille did, Richard hadn't the faintest clue what French for Cheetah was. He considered guessing "le cheetah" but decided on this occasion to just let it go. Alex hadn't mastered anything with more than one syllable yet, she was unlikely to start with cheetah.

The presenter came on to announce there would now be a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic marathon. The opening credits indicated it would be a show that would appeal to Alex – she generally enjoyed anything with bright colours and jolly music. He didn't really want to watch, but Alex seemed so comfortable and he didn't have the energy to get up anyway. Perhaps it wouldn't be too bad.

The door slamming made him jump, clearly his son was back and had let himself in. Normally Richard would hear the car pulling up but he'd been oddly absorbed in the cartoon.

"HELLO DAD I'M GOING TO SHOW TIMOTHY MY STICK INSECTS!" Harry shouted as he zoomed by the front room, Fidel's son trailing behind.

"Sir?" Richard heard Fidel call enquiringly.

"In here!" He called back. He would have gotten up to greet Fidel but Alex had fallen asleep in his lap. He turned back to the screen, where a pony was now singing some kind of lament.

"Sir?" Richard realised that Fidel must have asked him something, because when he looked up Fidel was staring at him.

"Sorry!" Richard said. "What did you say?"

"It wasn't anything important," Fidel's eyes had also strayed to the screen. "Rosie used to love this show and insist I watch it with her, but now she claims she has grown out of it. Is this the episode where Pinkie Pie considers chucking it in as a party planner? I don't think I ever saw the ending."

"Sit down," Richard said, inviting Fidel to join him in finding out the ending. Not that he cared what happened, not really, but it would be nice to know…

"Hello!" Juliet called cheerfully from the hallway. "Nobody answered so we let ourselves in!"

She walked in to the front room to find her husband and his boss watching what appeared to be My Little Pony with rapt attention. Admittedly, Alexandra was there too, but she appeared to be asleep in Richard's lap. She roused a little at Juliet's greeting, but Richard hushed her and told her to go back to sleep.

Juliet was a little miffed her husband had not risen to greet her. She told Rosie to go find Harry and her brother whilst she came fully into the room and settled down on to an armchair. Yup, there was no doubt about it, the two men were engrossed in watching the animation. She wondered if she should be concerned, was this normal behaviour? She knew one place she could check.

Juliet slid her tablet out of her handbag and logged on to Mumsnet. A quick search of the forum revealed she was not alone. In fact, many women had provided photographic evidence of their predicament. Juliet decided she might as well add her own, the boys were too captivated to notice. She also sent the picture to somebody else who she thought might appreciate it.

Looking at the men, Juliet muttered, "At least I'm not the only one…"

Fidel must have heard her mumble. "What was that, darling?" He asked, without actually looking away from the screen.

"Oh I'm just glad other women's husbands are also oddly fascinated by My Little Pony," She said casually. "Apparently the show has quite a few male fans, they are known as Bronies."

Imparting that little fact got the attention of both men, who gave her a startled look. Richard quickly stumbled over himself to explain, "Oh, um, no, we are only, you know, watching for Alex." Fidel nodded enthusiastically next to his boss. Juliet didn't believe it for a second.

"Oh, yes, of course you are watching for your sleeping daughter." Juliet was finding this quite fun.

Richard glanced down at Alex and did a jolly good impression of being surprised, "Oh I had no idea she was sleeping!"

"No, of course you didn't, which is why when I came in you hushed her and told her to go back to sleep," Juliet pointed out with a certain amount of glee.

"Sir," Fidel said, with a tone of resignation. "I don't think we'll convince her."

Richard nodded, accepting the advice. He then turned back to Juliet and asked hopefully, "This honestly is the first time I've seen the show…I don't suppose I could convince you not to tell Camille?" Juliet simply smiled. He sighed, "You've already done so?"

"I emailed her a picture."

Another sigh followed.