The parental conundrum

Offbeat

 The high-powered young executive was clear and articulate but his eyes looked a bit tired and there were the almost regulation rings round them. I put it down to the rigours of running an establishment of well over a thousand newcomers straight out of undergraduate colleges.

 The going had been so good that the ramping up had simply escalated. And the real challenge was maintaining international standards, having to create a bit of corporate America away from America and deliver the same efficiencies.

 But it was none of all this. The loveable culprits were a one-year-old and a four-year-old back home. The one-year-old, like all no-nonsense one-year-olds, wants to be up and about and play a bit of football with papa by the time the birds say it is time to be up and about.

 The four-year-old, being the apple of her father