Job

When I was made redundant in October I said, on this very blog, that I thought I’d be okay and find another job reasonably quickly. Thankfully, I was right. I start that new job in four days, and I’m excited.

I won’t go into too much detail about it, but it’s the type of work I’ve always thought I ought to be doing, but never quite managed to get into before now. There’s a lot of optimism in my mind at the moment, which is especially amazing when the job I left had done a pretty good job of grinding all that out of me.

But. There’s always a but. It’s the law.

I’m going back to work full time. My previous job allowed me to reduce my hours so that I could share in the childcare duties with Mrs L when she finished her maternity leave. That meant spending a whole day each week with Cam. Just me and him, father and son time. I’ve had that privilege for almost exactly a year, and I have loved it.

As of next Thursday, he’ll have an extra day at nursery, and I will re-join the full time working parent population. I will see him briefly in the morning, briefly in the evening, and at weekends. I will, I think, be quite sad about missing the developments he makes, and the things we get to do, and all the hugs and affection.

I realise that the time I have been able to spend as a part-time SAHD marks me out as one of the lucky ones. Most men don’t seem to have the chance to spend time with their children as they’re growing up. It’s a massive shame. As far as I’m concerned, the more equally shared the parental responsibilities are the better it is for all parties. I’d love to think part time work will be an option for me again sometime in the future.

Still, mortgages need paying; it probably wouldn’t be much fun having lots of time with Cam if we didn’t have a house to spend it in.

I’m immensely grateful for the time I spent as a part-timer, and to any other dad reading this who is considering it as a possibility I say this: DO IT.

Fiction: Love

Hello there. A person I know is running a writing competition at the moment. You can find details of it here: @DustandLove's Competition. Should you wish to enter, I'm sure that would make him very happy indeed.

Here is my entry to the competition. It weighs in at 300 words exactly, although it was originally quite a bit more. Apologies if there are now bits which don't make sense, though I think I've made it so there are not.

Love

Brian, across the road, lives alone. His wife’s dead, and his son moved out long before we moved here. He doesn’t see him, or even speak to him. Hasn’t for years, apparently.

Like most lonely old people, Brian loves a chat. He doesn’t need much of an opening to tell you about his army days, or the many years he spent with his wife. The one thing he doesn’t often talk about is his son. The one time he did, he described him as “a little shit”, but didn’t say why.

There’s a sadness in Brian’s face, a permanent feature, sitting beneath the white beard and deep within the wrinkles. I wonder whether it was one specific thing which put the sadness there, or many. I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out.

Most evenings I watch the news. Tonight, the headline story is a violent armed robbery in the city, the CCTV footage grainy but dramatic; the perpetrator remains armed, unidentified and uncaught. Police advise nearby residents to keep their homes secure. Don’t allow entry to anyone you don’t know. I’m not worried, but I check the house just in case, it’s only sensible.

Later, as I’m going to bed, a car comes into the road at speed, its tyres barely maintaining traction as the driver hits the brakes. Peering out of my window I see a man emerge. He doesn’t look grainy now, even in the poor light. It’s the fugitive, and he’s approaching Brian’s house.

The old man comes to the door, and I’m terrified for him. Why open it? But the two men embrace, before Brian furtively ushers the man inside. He looks up, sees me. I drop the curtain quickly, but not before I’ve seen that the sadness is gone from his face. Brian is smiling.

-

I would love to receive feedback, good or bad, on the story in the comments area below. Go on.

Door

Yesterday, I made my son cry.

My beautiful, perfect, delicate little boy. I scared him, and I made him cry.

“So what?” you may be thinking. “Big deal? Kids cry all the time.”

Yes. They do. My son is no exception to this rule. He cries when I try to clean his face after a meal. He cries when I put him down for a nap. He cries when I get him up from a nap. He cries when I stop him chewing on the business end of a can of athletes foot spray (how dare I?) He cries for seemingly no reason at all.

He is very good at crying when he hurts himself. His mouth goes from its usual wide crescent smile into a downturned trapezium as he emits a primal sound which leaves no doubt as to its meaning: “that thing I just did really, REALLY hurt”.

It was in the process of trying to prevent one of those cries that I managed to make him cry myself. My vicarious fear for him causing himself pain transferred into real fear for him.

I feel lucky, and fortunate, to be able to say that in Cam’s year and a bit on Earth I’ve rarely had to shout at him. Actually, I’ve never HAD to shout at him. I’ve chosen to a couple of times. The times when the dark cloud of frustration comes over me and I wish with all my heart that he would stop doing whatever it is he’s doing. Just for a moment. Please. Stop winding me up.

But those occasions are few. And mercifully so. How easy it is for me to forget that my boy is tiny, and I am large? That he can be loud, but that I can be so much louder? That his actions may frustrate and irritate me, but that mine may terrify him?

Whoever designed folding doors clearly did not have children. Or hated children. Tiny gaps between wooden panels are seemingly irresistible to tiny fingers which are exploring the world for the first time. Cam has recently discovered the tiny gap, which can be peered through for “peepo” purposes. Soon, the peering gives way to pushing a tiny index finger through. At the same time, a barely perceptible shift in his position means the door begins to close.

The tiny gap gets tinier.

The finger remains.

Tinier.

The finger remains.

Tinier still.

I move my foot into the path of the closing door, stopping the immediate danger. But I am trapped. Sat on the opposite side of the door to him and unable to move to his side without removing my foot and  allowing the door to close completely.

I push his finger from the gap.

He immediately replaces it.

I push it away again.

He laughs. It’s a game now.

I wish he could talk. Wish he could understand EVERYTHING I say to him, not just “what noise does a pig make?” He can’t though.

He is in a giggling, ecstatic state. He bounces in excitement. This game is fun!

All I can think of is a tiny, crushed index finger and a frantic drive to hospital. This game is not fun.
I shout, because it is the only weapon I have left: “Cameron! No! DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGER IN THE GAP!”

The laughing stops. The finger remains. The smile is uncertain.

“CAMERON, NO!”

The finger is withdrawn. The bottom lip curls and trembles. The eyes well up. The noise begins its journey from his vocal cords to the atmosphere. His eyes question me: “who are you?”

I leap up and remove him from the vicinity of the door. The bastard, bastard door. I hold him tight and stroke his hair. I whisper comfort into his ear. Tell him I love him. Tell him I am sorry. Tell him I never want to scare him.

Ten minutes later we are playing happily together again. I hope he has forgotten all about it. That I am back to being the person who hugs him, tickles him, reads him bedtime stories in the softest tones I can muster. I hope that he is not afraid of me.

I consider smashing the door from its hinges.

I hope I never make my son cry again.

Well

In essence, my son is a healthy human baby. He was ejected from my wife with all the bits and pieces he was meant to have, and without any unnecessary extras. Everything appears to work as it should. I am truly, truly grateful for this.

But fucking hell, he is ill ALL THE TIME.

I reckon, during his short life so far, the baby has been completely free of malady or complaint for about three weeks.

Colds.
Coughs.
Constipation.
Cholera. No, not that.
Projectile vomiting.
Non-projectile vomiting.
Diarrhoea.
Colic.

So many things. Nothing serious. But a lot of non serious things.

This week, he's battling with conjunctivitis. Ever had it? Probably. But just in case you haven't, the main symptom is a copious discharge of gooey eye-crud. The gooey eye-crud then hardens into bright yellow eye-crust, matted into the sufferer's eyelashes like some kind of naturally occurring cement.

Conjunctivitis is a fucker. A stupid, crusty, pain in the arse which stops babies from being able to open their eyes properly.

It is highly contagious, which means you can't go to the party you are supposed to attend, in case your baby rubs his eyes and then pokes another baby in the face, passing on the condition.

It means you have to go and see the nice, but slightly odd, pharmacist who tells you the same thing OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES.

But the worst thing is trying to administer the eye drops which the slightly odd pharmacist furnished you with.

Here is my step by step guide:

It's a two person job. Or a one person with six hands job. If you don't have a second person available to help you, I suggest calling in a favour. Or collapsing into a heap, sobbing.

Maintaining the element of surprise is key. The drops should be concealed in a pocket for as long as possible.

Sing. Whatever song may prevent the baby from sensing the imminent invasion of his personal space.

"Yakki yakki yoggi, goo goo gee, bah bah bah, beep beep noo see…"

Feel wracked with guilt as your baby looks up at you with eyes overflowing with love (and eye-crud, obviously).

Have your assistant pin the thing you love most in the world down, holding his head still. Wonder how his expression manages to convey disappointment, rage and betrayal all at the same time.

Prise open his eyelids, which seem to be clamped shut with similar strength to that of a crocodile snapping at an unfortunate swimmer. Make a mental note to wear earplugs next time you have to do this.

Swear at whatever hateful BASTARD made the eyedrop bottle from such thick plastic that squeezing the liquid out is nearly impossible.

Feel relief as a drop finally lands in the eye, followed by dismay as it is immediately washed away by the flood of tears your baby is producing.

Once you've repeated the last few steps for the other eye, perform all your best parental distraction techniques in order to calm your irate baby.

Spend the rest of the day considering whether babies are susceptible to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Have I missed a really easy alternative method? Could I have cured the conjunctivitis with liberal applications of witchcraft and fairy dust? Will my baby ever trust me again?

Change

A few years ago I was employed by one of the many subsidiary companies of one of the big banks. I was in the Small Change Team. Contrary to how that sounds, I didn't spend my days counting coppers, though it may have been more use if I had. Alas, no. The Small Change Team was supposed to implement process improvements and whatnot, to make the business more efficient and cost less to run.

Eventually, the powers that be decided that the best change they could make was to make eighteen of the twenty-two members of the Change Department redundant. Including me.

No worries, it was a terrible job, and I miss it not one iota.

But it did introduce me, formally, to people's perceptions of change, which is sort of interesting.

Change is inevitable. We all know that, no matter how much we may dislike it (and some people dislike it a lot), change will happen and we are largely powerless to do anything about it.

Next week will see a big change for me, my wife and my baby.

My baby, who is already over nine months old. How did that happen? I have a photo blu-tacked to the cupboard next to my desk at work. It's Cam, just hours after he was born, wrapped in hospital blankets, cradled in the bend of my arm, tiny and screaming. I am looking down at him and smiling. It's a dangerous photo to have in the office, because every time I look at it I remember the swell of emotion fuelling that smile on my face, and it makes my eyes well up with tears.

My life changed that day, and it has changed every day since.

But, next week is a biggy.

Mrs L returns to work, part time. I reduce my hours at work, meaning a day at home with Cam each week. Mrs L's parents will look after him for two full days each week. The final day of care will be taken care of by a local nursery.

For me, this is a positive change. I'm not a great fan of my job, but I am a great fan of spending time with my son.

For my wife, I suspect, it will be harder to get used to the idea. Maternity leave hasn't been the soft-focus, warm and fuzzy utopia she may have liked it to be, but she's happy and comfortable being at home now.

We are immensely lucky to have Cam's grandparents close at hand. He loves them and they love him. They will provide him with the same care and attention as we would. Plus, they're a whole lot cheaper than a nursery.

The most important person in all of this is the cheeky faced little boy who now welcomes me home from work every day with a beautiful chuckle and an excited wave. Somewhere in that little head he'll be processing the changes and deciding how to deal with them. Will he feel it's acceptable for both me and my wife to leave him with other people on a regular basis? Will he still feel as loved, as cherished, as central to everything that we think, feel and do?

Nine months old and he'll be going through his first big change (well, there was a pretty major one when he was born, but he seems to have coped alright with that), and we're the ones putting him through it.

I'm nervous. I think we all are. Next week feels important and exceptional. But, soon enough, it will just feel normal.

Thanks for reading.

Norovirus

A fair indication that you may not be having the best night ever: it is 4:21am, you are stood in your baby's bedroom. You are holding your baby, facing away from you, with one arm. Your other arm is covered in vomit. The carpet you are standing on is covered in vomit. The cot you have removed the baby from is covered in vomit. The baby is naked because its clothes were covered in vomit. You are wearing just your pants.

Last Sunday, all of the above applied to me.

Mrs L started feeling a little unwell around lunchtime. By three in the afternoon she was in bed. Apart from when she wasn't in bed because she was doing one of the things that Norovirus makes you do. You know the ones. Erk.

So the 4:21am alarm call (is there a worse alarm call than the sound of a baby doing proper vomiting for the first time in its life? I think not. I haven't changed the alarm sound on my phone to it.) was mostly for me. Mrs L did get up, because she's hardcore, but was soon back in bed.

Seeing your son lying face down in a two foot diameter pool of his own vomit is quite scary. Especially when he's not moving. Sleeps well that boy. Without thinking too much about it, I picked him up and started changing his clothes and nappy.

At the point where he was most naked, the viral invaders resumed their attack on his tummy. I picked him up to comfort him. He vomited over my shoulder onto the carpet.

I stood on the vomity carpet for a bit, feeling lost. I couldn't work out what to do first. Despite Cam's recent stomach and bowel evacuations he was in a ridiculously chipper mood. He certainly wasn't going to sit still while I cleaned up the rest of the room. Especially since Cam is to vomit as a magnet is to ferrous metal: irresistibly attracted.

Being a parent is weird. Things happen on a regular basis that make me think "I don't know what I'm doing", but somehow I muddle through. That's what we all do. There is no definitive manual for parenting (there may be things which THINK they're definitive manuals for parenting, but they're not). There is nothing in a book which will instruct you on how to grow a second pair of arms in order to hold the baby and simultaneously change the bedclothes and clean the carpet.

But we manage.

I don't remember what order I did things in, but somehow he ended up with a new sheet on the bed. A clean nappy, vest and babygrow. A hastily cleaned carpet. A dazed and confused father.

My Christmas wish for all of you is that Norovirus doesn't come to visit.

Day at Home Dad

Hard to believe, but in the six months Cam has been on the scene I've never once had to look after him for a whole day on my own.

There was the day when Mrs L went to a friend's wedding, and we decided we didn't want to inflict our noise-mongering son on a congregation of nearly five hundred Hindu wedding guests. But that turned out to be just a half day in the end. Also it was entirely uneventful, so not really worth mentioning.

No, I've been spared the arduous early days of colic-y screaming, the endless hours stranded at home with no company other than Cameron and the inane warblings of daytime television. I've had mixed feelings about it, I'll admit that. Sometimes (when Cam has been sleeping well, and until a reasonable hour) I've bemoaned the early morning hauling of arse from beneath our toasty duvet. The daily routine of traipsing to the office and enduring yet another 450 minutes of work which I have very little love for seemed like a cruel alternative to spending time with my beautiful new son.

Other times, it seemed like going to work was just the break I needed, and I felt bad that Mrs L didn't have the same option.

We're just starting to get into the fine detail of how we'll be arranging childcare and work once Mrs L returns to work in January. We can't afford for either of us to be a full time stay at home parent. Short of a lottery win it just isn't feasible. We're lucky to have one set of Cam's grandparents within walking distance and willing to take him for a couple of days a week. We've booked him into a local nursery for one day a week. The rest of the cover will (hopefully, because neither of us have actually had it formally agreed by our employers yet) be done by us both going from a five day week to a four day one.

All of which massive preamble leads me to last Thursday: Mrs L's first "Keeping in Touch" day. Which is a grand way of saying "going to work even though you're still on maternity leave" day.

Finally, I would have a taste of the SAHD life!

Which was great, although I'd have preferred it not to start at 3:30am with a scream of teething related pain. Bah.

No matter, we got up properly at about half seven and commenced with all the stuff which goes on in the world of a six month old being looked after by a parent: throwing lumps of spittle infused pear around the living room instead of eating them, being decidedly disinterested in a bottle of milk, vomiting on various textiles around the house. You know. The usual.

Then he had a nap. I had a shower. I felt a little tired from the early start, but this was going well. I'd managed to fit in my own breakfast. I was clean and dressed. I had prepped his next lot of bottles. I was ON FIRE. I was kicking parenting arse. I was winning.

So I decided to go and do a Tesco shop.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. We did the shopping. I realised about half way round that getting back in time for his next bottle was going to be pushing it. So I rushed. He had a bottle as soon as we got home.

The shopping stayed in the boot of the car for the duration of the feed, plus its immediate, sicky, shouty aftermath. Some of the food which should have been refrigerated looked a little bit, erm, limp.

Some other stuff happened. I forget. I think probably at least a little bit of my brain had fallen out of my ear by this point in the day. I was certainly having to think pretty hard to accomplish even simple tasks. But I thought I was coping okay.

We took a trip into Bristol to meet up with @jbmumofone. Cam got a bit stroppy after a while. I wasn't sure why. We got in the car and headed home. He napped. I felt pretty good. Mrs L would soon be home and I could tell her all about the day's events.

Which I did. Which is when I discovered that I'd forgotten to give him one of the four bottles he's meant to have in a day. Whoops.

Please, dad, stop taking shit photos. I could do with some food.

So, here's my top tip for anyone having a stab at staying at home with their baby for the first time: don't forget to give the baby 25% of its sustenance for the day, or you'll feel like a bit of a twat, even if you did manage to do everything else right.

Grab

A few weeks ago I watched as Cam worked out how his hands work.

It was fascinating to watch, the tiny fingers opening wide, then closing into a fist, over and over again, Cam’s bright blue eyes watching with an intense concentration. That was level one.

Level two came shortly afterwards, little digits opening and closing independently of each other. From a fist to a flat palm, one finger at a time. Wonder in his eyes at this new ability.

Just as I do every time he does something new, I felt an overflow of pride and excitement.

It was short lived.

Because, it transpires, level three of the development of dextrousness is “The Grab”.

The Grab is Cameron’s new trick, and I don’t like it.

Want to take Cameron away from his Rainforest Gym play mat? No. The Grab means he’s clinging onto the hanging parrot toy and Freddy Firefly with the sort of grim determination I’d expect to see when being dragged to the electric chair.

The Grab means he is now able to wait until we think he’s just about to drop off to sleep, before curling his fingers around his dummy and deftly removing it from his mouth, followed up by a triumphant smile and newfound alertness.

Oh yes, The Grab is truly a great development in the arsenal of weapons at our baby’s disposal. It’s most devastating deployment though? The one which truly puts fear into my soul? His Streetfighter 2 style special move?

The Chest Hair Grab.

Owowowowowow!

What begins as a lovely skin to skin cuddle, a pairing of father and infant son in unmatched closeness, descends with lightning quick rapidity into an infliction of pain.

There is no warning, no chance of taking evasive action. The first you know of The Chest Hair Grab is the sharp stab of pain spreading outward from ground zero.

Clever too. You try to pull away and The Grab inflicts more pain than if you’d just stayed still. Like a crocodile clamping down on its prey, then letting the victim’s struggles do the real damage, it is as perfect as it is simple.

You have no-one to blame but yourself for that fetching new bald spot on your chest. You battle with the shame of knowing that you have been defeated by a baby. This is the changing of the guard. The apprentice becoming the master. The end of your run as Alpha male.

Then he lets go, and smiles, and you forget it all.

Normal

Our little boy is just over ten weeks old now, so we thought it was about time we started trying to do some normal things again.

Things you do before having a baby (no, not that thing). Things like going to the pub, or playing a bit of sport. Or eating a meal at the same time as your wife. Or sleeping.

Last night, we did the first of those things. We left The Creature with one set of grandparents and we went to the pub.

Because all our friends have forgotten we exist/what we look like we started organising the trip to the pub forty-eight hours in advance. I sent everyone a picture message of mine and Mrs L's faces, so they'd know who they were meeting, I specified the time and the place and made it abundantly clear that there was every possibility we wouldn't be going at all actually, if The Creature decided to play up.

Still they agreed to come. We're like celebrities, or a passing comet, people can't resist the opportunity to catch a glimpse. That or they just fancied going to the pub and we were giving them a convenient excuse.

Cam was playing the "of course I'm not going to sleep. I know I usually am at this time but I can sense something's different. There's a disturbance in the force and I'm suddenly alert, like Yoda with a whiff of Sith in his nostrils" game. When his handlers for the evening arrived he was in his Moses basket, but far from sleeping.

Well, you know what, we went anyway. I practically had to physically remove Mrs L from the house, but with a little (lot) of helpful reassurance that Cam would, in fact, survive a few hours without us, we left.

We did a quiz. We came second. But that wasn't really the point. It was an evening where we could feel a little bit of what used to be normal to us. Adult company. Stupid jokes and sharing anecdotes. No fear that a tiny person may soon be yelling at us or needing food or a new nappy. Mrs L got a bit drunk on one glass of wine (this is not new, she's a proper lightweight) and I had a few bottles of cider. We both had a nice time. A really nice time.

Wobbly legs juice. Hic.

It hasn't been the easiest of transitions for us. Neither of us had truly realised how much we valued our independence and freedom until Cam came along and essentially robbed us of it. For Mrs L especially, there's been a feeling of captivity, of losing who she is and only being recognisable as a mum. Yesterday, for a few hours, we both managed to shift our focus from Cam and back on to ourselves.

I didn't even feel my usual, trademark, guilt. I knew he'd be fine and he was. In fact, he had a better night than he has in a while and for the majority of today he's been cheerful and smiley.

Perhaps we should go to the pub more often.

The Creature is our "normal" now, but it was amazing to take a trip to a pre-child world, even if it was only for a while, and a complete optical illusion.

Fathers' Day

I was going to post about Fathers’ Day yesterday, but I was far too busy having Fathers’ Day.

My son has a sense of occasion already. My wake up call was my wife shouting for help with a truly apoocalyptic nappy. The classic “up the back and all over the arms” variety.

Happy Fathers’ Day dad, here’s your present, a baby, babygro and vest covered in runny shit. Nice.

Following the clean up operation I was given my card, a copy of Teething Pains and a lovely canvas with tiny, painty footprints on it. Definitely preferable to The Creature’s original offering.

A bottle of milk later and The Creature fell asleep. Seizing the moment, so did me and Mrs L.

Naptime over, playtime began, followed by more milk. Then, somewhat unusually, another poo. Clearly I hadn’t looked like I enjoyed the first one enough. The Creature mixed it up a little; this poo went down the left leg, out the bottom of the babygro and onto my jeans.

Variety is the spice of life, I’m glad Cam has learnt this lesson early.

The rest of the day was spent soothing, playing, napping, chatting, watching some TV, drinking cups of tea and eating cake. It was a day with a baby. A day with friends. A day as a dad.

I’ve never been too keen on days like Fathers’ Day. I’m fairly sure it’s just one of those “Hallmark Holidays”, fabricated by businesses to sell more cards and make more money out of people who just can’t say no.

But I think we did it quite well. No excessive spending, no over the top celebration, pretty much a day like any other since becoming a dad ten weeks ago.

I don’t need a day designated to celebrate being a Father. I celebrate it every day. I feel elated every time I pick up that dinky person I helped create, I feel loved every time he fixes me with his eyes or rests his head into my chest for a cuddle. I hope that we will raise Cam to have the same quiet but obvious appreciation for his parents as I have for mine.

Parenting is hard work. Far too hard to give each parent just one day each year to think about it.

My first Fathers’ Day was great, and I hope all of you had an ace day too. But that’s my hope for every day, not just the ones we mark with cards and presents.

*instigates group hug*

Thanks for reading.

Wedding

Weddings. They're nice aren't they?

All pretty and full of lovely foods and brimming with people you like. There's always plenty of booze, and plenty of dancing. The people getting married are having the best day of their lives, and they usually let everyone else ride on their coat tails for the day.

I've got a lot of love for weddings.

But weddings are different now.

Weddings used to go: dress up smart, enjoy ceremony, eat nice food, laugh at speeches, get drunk, have great chat with other guests, get a bit more drunk, do some dancing, have plentiful hugs, maybe fall over a bit, go home, wake up with hangover but feeling like you've had an awesome time getting it.

We took Cam to a wedding reception on Saturday. We'd have been going to the ceremony before we had him, but we didn't want a grumpy baby (or grumpy parents).

Saturday's wedding went like this: dress up less scruffy than usual, but not smart because it'll only get puked on, miss ceremony, soothe baby while wife eats nice food, eat food while wife soothes baby, position self near exit of marquee during speeches, in case of tantrum, stare at wine on table longingly, chat about babies with other guests, stare at pints in people's hands longingly, dance with the baby in a quiet corner away from the dancefloor, have far less hugs than usual, go home, wake up feeling like you have a hangover you don't deserve.

Don't mistake the above for not having a good time. A wedding with a baby is still lovely. I am incredibly pleased that I was able to be there to share such a special occasion with two of my favourite people. They had the happiest day of their lives and that's the most important thing.

We enjoyed the day, but it's a world away from how we'd have enjoyed it a year ago.

We have five more weddings to go to this year. What are your top tips?

Thanks for reading :-)

Protection, Part 1

When I was little, about seven years old, my dad bought a similarly little motorbike for me to play on. It was red and noisy and exciting. Truth be told, I was a little scared of it. It felt pretty fast to me, and I wasn’t confident enough to get the most out of it.

We went on a family camp with the cubs one year and took the bike with us. My dad looking after maybe twenty excitable boys and their desire to ride the dinky machine. I went first, and out came the show off in me. I went far beyond the area my dad had marked out for riding, and onto the slicked down grass of the route that cars had taken into the campsite.

My fledgling ego dictated that the throttle remained pinned open, despite the increasingly bumpy terrain and my distinct lack of ability.

Moments later I was bucked from the bike, cartwheeling over the bars and onto the ground in a tangled heap. I had run out of talent in dramatic fashion, and had no chance of holding back the tears. My dad (and the other boys) ran over to me and assessed the damage: a bleeding lip where my tooth had pierced it, and a bruise on my ego, but nothing more. I still have the scar on the outside of my lip. I’m not sure whether my ego recovered.

Like this, only more crashy.

At the time, once the tears stopped, I didn’t think anything more of it. I didn’t ride the bike again for quite a while.

I’m grateful for the masses of fun stuff I used to get to do as a boy. Our back garden was a small, disused quarry which me, my sister and brother treated as our own personal adventure playground. Climbing trees, skidding down muddy slopes, running through the masses of nettles and brambles. Fantastic stuff.

Scary stuff.

When I look at my little two month old son, I can’t imagine ever thinking: “I know, I’ll sit him on top of an engine with two wheels attached and let him loose on a field”. What if he too displays more ambition than ability, but instead of an inadvertent lip piercing ends up with broken bones, knackered nerves, or worse?

I imagine an impromptu mini-motocross event is the sort of thing which cub scout organisers will not allow in these days of risk assessments and liability insurance, and our garden will only take thirty seconds for even the least daring of children to explore.

But I don’t want Cam to grow up cocooned in cotton wool. I don’t want him to fear the unknown and to suddenly realise, later in life, that he’s paralysed by fear when faced with anything more exciting than an Xbox game.

The urge to protect is as strong for me now as it must have been when my dad strapped that helmet onto my head, sat me on the motorbike and watched me disappear in a blue tinted cloud of two stroke fumes.

So how do you, as a parent, balance the risk of pain, injury, even death, against the desire for a well rounded, well adjusted child who has experienced a range of the awesome things that the world has on offer? Preferably without having some kind of nervous breakdown.

What activities do your kids do that make your heart stand still? Are there things you just won’t allow them to do, for their safety and your sanity? Let me know in le box du comment.

Thanks for reading :-)

Wobble

It was the weekend yesterday. I know this to be true, because I was not at work, longing to be elsewhere. Since The Creature graced the world with his appearance I have looked forward to the weekend immensely. When the weekends have arrived, I have enjoyed them.

Yesterday was still a weekend, but it was different. I wasn’t enjoying it.

I was tired. But that’s fine. I’m always tired now, just as every other parent is always tired. Tired is fine.

The Creature was grumpy. That’s fine too. He usually is.

We had been through the usual stuff we try to calm him down without going walking. None of it worked. So on went the wrap and in went the baby. The screaming, rigid, beetroot-faced-with-incandescent-rage baby.

Ten minutes of artificially bouncy walking and he’s settled. Woo.

Ten more minutes and The Creature has filled his nappy. So forcefully on this occasion that he’s woken himself up.

Surprisingly, even at such a tender age, he has worked out that he DOES NOT LIKE being sat in his own excreta, with two layers of clothes on top, then a further layer of clingy wrap to exert a bit more pressure on it.

He is screaming in his most persistent tone.

I don’t have any of the necessary gubbins with me to change him, because I am stupid.

I consider finding a puddle, cleaning him in it, then fashioning some kind of impromptu nappy solution from the wrap. I remember I’m not very good at knots and abandon the idea. There are no puddles anyway, because of the amazing drought we’ve been having.

The Creature is not the only one who is unhappy about his outfit. I have been fooled by the weather and am wearing jeans, but it is hot. I should be wearing shorts.

Ideally, I shouldn’t be wearing an eleven pound baby shaped radiator either.

I continue walking until I reach his grandparents’, my parents-in-law’s, house, where I was heading anyway to rendezvous with Mrs L for a quiet and relaxing Sunday lunch.

Thankfully they are not idiots and have all the changing gubbins ready to go within moments. Clean bummed equilibrium is restored, lunch is eaten, The Creature does his best impression of a quiet lovely baby for some relatives who are visiting and we go home.

He spends the remainder of the afternoon crying. Neither me nor Mrs L can settle him and eventually I find myself lying on our bed with him next to me.

That’s when Mrs L enters the room. She looks sad. I ask her what’s wrong and she says this:

“I’m worrying. I’m worrying about him. But I’m also worrying about you, you seem like it’s getting to you.”

She was right. It was just one day, and today I’m okay again. Recharged by a good night’s sleep. But I really felt it yesterday. Felt like it was hard. Felt like I needed to walk away and have an hour where I was on my own.

And that felt shit.

PS: Wow this sounds whingy and needy. I'm not looking for sympathy, and there's no need for any concern, it's just a bit of a vent.

Parenting Classes

Here's what I think of the concept of parenting classes:

1.  Hi, my name's James and I'm a really shitty example of a parent.

I don't pay any attention to my kids, they do whatever the fuck they want most of the time. It was probably them who keyed the side of your car the other week, but I didn't tell them off. Shit, I don't even know if it was them who did it. I don't really care how they turn out, whether they have good morals, values and standards or any of that guff.

Apparently, that wanker David Cameron has decided I can get some parenting classes. I don't really know what they're about, I don't really care, because I sure as shit won't be going to any of them, because I'm a really shitty example of a parent.

2.  Hi, my name's Richard and I'm a good, average example of a parent.

I love my kids, I'm in touch with what they're up to most of the time. They get up to a bit of mischief every now and then, but they're given a telling off when they need it and they know right from wrong. I do my best to make sure they're being brought up right, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job.

Apparently, that wanker David Cameron has started rolling out parenting classes. They sound like a good idea, sometimes we all need a little help. But I've got friends who are also parents, all the books about parenting and I know where to go online to get advice I trust. I don't think I need classes on top of that, I mean, what can they tell us that isn't already easily available? Seems like it might be a waste of time and money.

3.  Hi, my name's Gideon and I've got a bank balance the size of a small African nation's GDP, I also have kids and I want what's best for them.

We have a full time nanny, who's very well qualified and always knows what to do when little Tarquin plays up. When the time comes he'll be off to boarding school, just like his daddy. They'll teach him all he needs to know, right up until he gets his place at Cambridge and becomes a board member at a blue chip firm.

Apparently that wanker David Cameron is going to waste a load of our money on some stupid parenting classes. Of course I won't be going; they'll no doubt be teeming with poor people.

4.  Hi, my name's David Cameron and I'm trying REALLY HARD to convince everyone that I think family is the most important thing in this country, while allowing my party to systematically strip away layer upon layer of the support networks that exist for vulnerable families at present.

I've introduced parenting classes because if I go on about loads of STUFF all the time no-one will notice that I'm not enough of a Tory to be good at that, but just enough of one to fuck up everything I touch.

We're all in this together, innit. Brrrrap.

So, where do I sign up, and what do you all think? Parenting classes, yay or nay?

Momentum

Momentum is nice. It makes life easy. When I’m out on my bike and something happens to rob me of my momentum (like a careless driver, an inopportune badger, one of Britain’s many glorious potholes, a hill) my internal dialogue becomes a torrent of spite and vitriol.

I’m already discovering that there’s a definite benefit to momentum in parenting. It’s not proper momentum, before anyone points it out, but a feeling of it.

The mounting sense of invincibility that comes from two consecutive good nights of sleep. The palpable feeling of achievement from getting The Creature to sleep for a while so that we can do something else. Like eat. Or clean ourselves.

This weekend we had momentum. We felt like we were winning at being parents, largely characterised by not feeling like we were having to work at being parents.

We spent part of an evening in our local pub, we both had a drink. We chatted and smiled.

I went for an idyllic walk in beautiful sunshine. I wore the baby for three hours, the majority of which he was asleep and making the little snuffly noises that still make my brain go all melty round the edges when I hear them. I took these pictures to remind myself of how the world could look on a good day.

Mrs L had a much needed break from the daily demands of maternity leave. The constant attention giving and inability to get anything done aside from feeding and changing, feeding and changing.

My parents visited and we went out for a pub lunch, followed by a wander around the grounds of a local manor.

It was a good weekend, but it was never going to last.

Like a metaphorical badger, The Creature has ushered in the new week with a wave of momentum stopping behaviour. Renewed commitment to exercising his lungs. A dedicated approach to pooing and weeing only once the nappy is off him and he has a clear shot at whichever parent is changing him. Suddenly deciding that, actually, he doesn’t like sleeping in a wrap.

I’m not complaining, but for the time being we’re going uphill again. Grinding the pedals and powering through. Relying on the memories of the weekend to make it through the week. Looking forward to the next stretch of freewheeling momentum, no matter how many soiled nappies, sleepless nights and vomit soaked babygros away it may be.

So, yeah, parenting. A bit like a bike ride, but less sweaty.

Don't Sweat the Small Things

I'm still pretty new to all this parenting gubbins. Five weeks isn't a long time. Not even a full summer holiday's worth of experience under my belt.

I wrote a post earlier this week about dummies. Perhaps you read it. Perhaps you were one of the many people who were kind enough to leave me a comment which would reassure me that, actually, I shouldn't worry about giving The Creature a dummy/soother/pacifier/gobstopper. If you were, I thank you. You made me feel better about the choice I'd made and I'm grateful for that.

A few people expressed the sentiment that is the title of this post. They're right. The one I took particular notice of was @tricky_customer. She has a blog which you should read: http://trickycustomer.wordpress.com/.

She doesn't sweat the small stuff, because she's got too much of the big stuff going on. I won't try to re-tell her story here, go and see it for yourself. Needless to say, theirs is an inspiring family.

It's a great piece of advice for a new parent, along with number eleven on @SAHDandproud's list over here. I am the first to admit I've found it difficult to not be drawn into the swirling melee (how can I put the correct accent on that? I can't be bothered to look it up just now) of conflicting advice and evidence surrounding parenting. It's fucking confusing.

So when your new baby, your first baby, the baby you waited what seemed like forever for, does something a bit confounding, it's easy to panic. To run through EVERY option for calming a baby down in the space of fifteen minutes. When none of it works, it's equally easy to panic again and assume there's something wrong.

There's nothing wrong. It's just that he's a baby. Babies cry. A LOT. But it's just crying. Just a small thing. So don't sweat the small things.

It's going to be my mantra for parenting from now on, because if it's not I might go actually mental.

We're getting there I think. This evening we didn't sit in, in front of some random televised shite. We tried to feel like real people for a bit, took a little walk down to the pub we used to visit every week to do a quiz. We both had a drink. A sit down and a chill out for an hour. Mrs L was wearing the baby in a wrap and he behaved beautifully. For a minute we even forgot he was there at all.

Does that make us sound awful? No, I don't think it does, but there I go again, worrying. Don't worry, I've stopped now.

Dummy

Sucksucksucksucksucksucksuck.

That is the sound of my son.

Last week I wrote about The Creature’s decision to enter himself in the World Screaming Championships (actually, it was about colic, you can find it here).

Empathetic comments were left on the post, and I was pleased to read them. A problem shared may not be a problem halved, but it certainly makes a difference to know that it isn’t just your own child who spends all his waking hours doing an impression of a banshee. 

The final comment on that post was from Mum of One, and it was the one which I was probably most glad to read.

Here’s why: Mum of One mentioned the D word. Dummy. Not only mentioned it, but mentioned USING one to soothe her own teeny person.

By the time I read those comments we had already reached that mindset of “will try anything to make this stop”.

While I had been considering seeking out venture capital to start up Cyberdyne Systems, in order to get to work on development of a retrofit volume control for babies, Mrs L had taken the more pragmatic approach of buying a couple of dummies and trying them out. She’s the brains of this operation, of that I have no doubt.

The dummy works. The Creature is now far more likely to be quiet for a bit, to drop off to sleep, to give us some much needed respite from his vocal stylings. 

The Dummy. Or, Peacemaker.

Hooray.  Or so you’d think.

No. We feel awful about using it.

I’m aware that guilt is becoming enough of a theme on this blog that I should probably make it into a separate category, but WOW, parenting is a daily guiltfest. With a guilt party running alongside it, in case you get bored of all the guilt and need some more guilt.

Neither of us know why we feel guilty. We haven’t gone down the route of researching every piece of equipment we subject our boy to. We don’t have medical journals confirming or denying the side effects of dummy use.

We DO have intact eardrums though, which is nice. Meanwhile, Cam doesn’t seem to mind, and he hasn’t been any worse at breastfeeding since using the gobstopper (though that’s not hard, he’s SHITE at that).

So why the niggling feeling that we shouldn’t be doing it? I must confess, the one thing that I know is bothering me is the possibility it could affect his teeth. As the (resentful) owner of a truly stereotypical British smile I would love Cam to have lovely straight teeth. I don’t want Mrs L to have to endure endless days of inconsolable screams to, maybe, improve his chances of perfect pearly whites though.

We’re making as little use of the dummy as we can, it’s only a last resort, but we are going to keep using it for now. 

Is it just us and Mum of One who’ve pacified our babies like this? Hit me up in the comments to either make me feel better about our decision, or to pour scorn upon my parenting skills.

Novelty

New babies are great.  Everyone loves them.  They melt the hearts of even the stoniest of unfeeling bastards with the simple grasp of a finger, or moment of eye contact. 

Instinct innit.  Doesn’t matter who you are; you’ve had it hard coded into you to care about a new baby.  It’s all small and soft.  It exudes potential and promise (and poo).  It is wholly vulnerable; it NEEDS you to love and protect it.

This is why, when we are blessed with that greatest of gifts, everyone wants to come and see it.  Wants to be a part of the miracle of life, the excitement of by-proxy parenthood.  I get that.  I’ve been the guy spending a bit too much time in the house of the new parent because I’m busy cooing (sorry @chloehyde81 & @jameshyde80).

Me and Mrs L did a pretty good job of locking down our home to visitors.  We’ve seen our closest family, some of our good friends, but we have also turned people away.  The measly two weeks of paternity leave I am granted was used as it should be, as family time.  I didn’t even have to deflect any of the Unwanted Attention I was expecting (although, there’s still time for that)

We’ve had the help and support from professionals, we’ve had the help, support and food from family.  We have done well. 

We are drip feeding the arrival of our baby to the world. 

Subconsciously, I wonder, are we restricting the supply in order to bolster the demand?

The above mentioned Twitter people said something as they left our house last weekend, something which made me realise how glad I am to know them and count them as friends:

“If there’s anything you need, get in touch, even if it’s in a few weeks.  Because it’s once everyone stops wanting to help you that you’ll really need it.”

It wasn’t something I’d thought about.  But I think it’s true.  There will be people who always want to know about the Creature and what’s going on in his (and our) lives: our respective parents, the three sets of aunts and uncles who we are close to and speak to regularly, some of our friends.  

There are far more people whose interest in him stops once the next newborn comes along, people to whom our greatest achievement is just another baby, a fleeting novelty who they’re only interested in cooing over in the knowledge that he can be handed back at the merest hint of a cry. 

Which is fine, of course.  I don’t for a moment expect the rest of the world to revolve around MY child.  I’m in no way complaining about this.  I wouldn’t want him to be the centre of anyone’s attention for any length of time, anyone but ours. 

It is a relief though, to know there’s support there in the long term, once the novelty has worn off.  Because it’s not always going to be easy.

Now, who’s going to volunteer to be on my “list of people I can phone at 4am when he’s been crying for hours and just emptied his bowels on my last clean pair of jeans”?  *anticipates queue*

Two Weeks

My baby is two weeks and three hours old.  Amazing.

Fourteen WHOLE DAYS and we haven't managed to break him yet, he hasn't gone significantly wrong and (touches wood, caresses rabbit's foot, eats four leaf clover, nails horseshoe to self, seeks out seagull to entice into pooing on me) having a child actually feels kind of, well, *whispers* normal.

Obviously, I still look at him several times each day and think "bloody hell.  That's a baby, and it's mine".  I don't know when or if that will ever change.  He's a tiny life and, in partnership with Mrs L, I'm responsible for him.  Sometimes I emit an involuntary squeak when I remember that.

I can't quite believe how quickly he's changing.  Every day, in amongst the nappy changes, the screaming, the little bits of sick, the lengthy naps, there are new things.  I know they all do this, but this is my one doing it.

Eyes which are a little wider every day.

Starting to look over my shoulder rather than AT my shoulder.

His hair is already longer.

I'm pretty certain the tiny hands are just a tiny bit less tiny.

His cry has developed; from the steady pitch of the newborn to the incredibly insistent, anger and desperation infused wail he is now capable of.

Demonstrating his crying skills (also uppercuts)

If you're already a parent you probably read the above with a wry smile.  Perhaps you thought "yes, but wait for the tantrums, the colic, the myriad challenges ahead of you.  Just you wait, rookie, remember these peaceful days of teeny tiny baby time".

You're right.  I know there's a bumpy road ahead of me, Mrs L and The Creature.  But we're looking forward to it.

Drop

No.  I haven't dropped the baby.

But since we've had the baby, I've pretty much dropped everything else I lay my hands on.  Seriously.  

Today, I have dropped: my phone (I was surprised to find it still works), my keys, a VERY sharp knife millimetres from my foot, a box of teabags and then lots of individual teabags while trying to pick them up to put back in the box.

I'm usually not a complete butterfingers, although I will freely admit that I couldn't reliably catch a tennis ball until I was about to attend secondary school.  Catching's different though, you don't choose when the thing enters your hands.  Under normal circumstances my dexterity does extend to hold things.

But not now.  I am the newly crowned King of Letting Go.  Lord of Lost Grip.

Has having a baby meant that ALL of my fingers' reserves of grip are being used up on The Creature?  I don't walk around with him in some vice grip, knuckles whitened at the effort of holding his increasingly squirmy little body.  Of course, I don't want to drop him (although, after reading @TomBriggs79's post about his paternity leave, I have wanted to check his Moro Reflex, which would require dropping him) but I really didn't think I was trying THAT hard not to.

I really don't know why I'm doing such a good job of losing my grip just now.  But I do know it has brought into sharp focus exactly how scared I am of doing anything to hurt this little tiny person who lives in my house now.

As I type, he's lying on my lap (refusing to acknowledge the existence of night time, looking all cute and squishy, aaaaawwwwwww!) and I'm terrified. Mrs L is in bed, tired from a day of looking exactly like she knows what she's doing, handling the baby with confidence and skill, while I spend every moment with him in my arms wondering when my newfound penchant for dropping things will extend to letting him fall.

Terrifying, parenting.