I wish I was a better dad

God, it's exhausting sometimes.

I love my two boys, but there are times when my patience and my ability to reason are exhausted. I'm talking here about our eldest, who is almost four. He's our first child, so I probably love him more than the younger one at the moment, because we have more history.

Not that this cuts any ice when it comes to one of the day's most stressful points - bath time.

Every night it becomes a battle of wills. He doesn't want a bath, he doesn't want one with his brother, he only wants to wash his hands, face and teeth, he doesn't want his hair washed... every night. We're all tired and fractious by this point, so it's not a great advert for happy families.

Tonight he was being particularly irksome. Kids get more manic the more tired they are and at this stage J gets hitty, bitey and a bit verbally abusive. It sounds awful typing this, because he's still only three, but it's still not very pleasant to be called stupid daddy constantly and told that you're hated and that there is a special lotion he will rub on you that will kill you (where did that come from?)

Anyway tonight I snapped. Not in a 'feel the back of my hand' way, but I was a bit rough, dragging him to the bathroom and dumping him in the bath where he received a thorough wash including a hair wash, which he wasn't due for tonight. Strangely he was a subdued after this - maybe he was in shock. He came out of the bath chatty. I combed his hair into a blonde quiff, which he thought was funny. It was like he was a different boy.

This now makes me feel awful for reacting in such an over the top way. He's already forgotten what went on and tomorrow is another day. (Except that at some point he will lay a little morality line on me about how we shouldn't be rough with each other, which is what I tell him and is what I should practise.)

And he's right. I knew this while I was grabbing him and being rough with him. I knew it was wrong and that it was self defeating because it's just showing him that might is right - not a message I want to convey when he has a younger brother.

It's hard to be consistent with children. There are times when you feel a complete failure no matter what you do. And there are times when you just want them to obey you... just once, without it turning into a junior version of the debating society. "Why? Because I say so."

I dread to think what he'll be like when he's older because at times he seems beyond my limited powers of rationalisation already. Again, I realise how ludicrous this sounds when levelled at a three year old, but he's a smart child and I'm already wondering how he's going to make me feel when he's a cocky, sneering teenager.

Maybe I should just disinherit him now.