No, not that kind of first.
This evening I removed a post from my blog for the first time since it started. It was possibly a bit too personal and would have done no good had it been read by the people it was about.
I seem to have forgotten that although it feels like I’m posting into a black hole, anyone can read it and so some amount of sense has to be put into the content.
So thank you for the reminder. You know who you are.
Right. I’ll start this one off by saying it has nothing to do with it being January and nothing to do with new year resolutions.
I am relatively unfit and relatively out of shape.
I used to work out like a man possessed. Gym however many mornings a week, personal trainers (not your pretty boys, but your ex-squaddies who were hard as nails and believed in making you sick), boxing, kickboxing, circuit training and kettlebells. And lots of protein shakes.
I used to grin like a madman when I could hardly breathe, felt physically sick and couldn’t even lift my arms and then had to do it all over again. Boy was it fun.
Then in May 2010 (I think) I put my back out doing goblet squats with a 16kg kettlebell. Agony. Form was good, I think I just wasn’t warmed up properly.
That put me out of action for some time. Sadly it also made me realise it was much easier to do bugger all and enjoy all my free time. Then we had a baby. Needless to say the last thing I wanted to do was go and work out – that would be using up too much of my family time.
However, since then, muscle tone has disappeared and the weight has gone back on. I initially lost over 3 stone by working out and eating more (yes more) and put on a reasonable amount of muscle (I wasn’t eating enough to put on any more, apparently). But when you stop doing all that, your body thinks it doesn’t need it, so it gets rid of it. Sadly I still have the appetite.
So where am I going with this? Well, basically I need to find a way of integrating some exercise back into my daily routine. But how do I go about this?
I have a kettlebell and a set of skipping ropes sitting gathering dust – that’s all anyone needs to get very fit indeed. Well, that and motivation. You don’t need a gym, you just need your own body weight and some knowledge.
I used to have a circuit put together by my last trainer, which was building me up to do some MMA stuff. That circuit, done 3 times, was enough to bring anyone to the point of passing out. I never managed more than 2. A maximum of 20 minutes work not including warm up. And it could be done in your garden.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? Why don’t I just do that a few mornings a week in my back garden?
Simple answer: I can’t be bothered.
But I need to do something. I hurt. My knees hurt. I miss knowing that my core was rock solid and that I could lift stuff without worrying about posture. I also don’t enjoy my clothes getting tighter.
Maybe by posting this it’ll spur me into doing something. Because you’ll all be watching 
Give me some words of encouragement, please
Ben from Mutterings of a Fool has tagged me in this meme, to answer a number of questions about how 2011 went for me. This is going to be tricky, because in many areas, Ben and I seem to be sharing frighteningly similar lives. I don’t want it to end up sounding just like his!
So here goes…
1. What was your happiest event?
The same as every other dad blogger out there: the birth of my daughter, Olivia. Seeing that big purple bundle whizz past me in the operating theatre, hearing her cry, was just amazing.
2. What was the saddest thing to happen?
This is a hard one. I should say it was my dad getting cancer, but for some reason I never accepted that he would be anything other than fine. Which he is, thankfully.
So what was the saddest? Probably seeing just how hard the various hurdles of motherhood hit my wife. The illness at the start, which ruined her chances of breastfeeding, the subsequent guilt and pain of feeling as though she had failed her daughter and then the general loss of control which hits all new mothers. That really broke her.
But, hopefully through my support and that of her own friends and parents, she got through it and is probably a better person for it, with a far better understanding of her needs and limits.
3. What was the most unlikely thing to happen that actually went ahead and did?
Probably me asking to go part time at work to become a stay at home dad 3 days a week. It’s such a huge thing to choose to slash your salary by 3/5ths during a recession, but at the same time fear shouldn’t stop you doing something you really want to do. It’s only money at the end of the day.
I really didn’t know if my employer would agree to it, at which point some even more drastic choices would have had to have been made, but thankfully they did and I feel like the luckiest guy alive.
Or that I passed my driving test
4. Who let you down?
That’s a hard one. If I had to pick someone, I’d say it was the midwives from Stirling Royal who performed the post-natal care of my wife. It pains me to say it because their antenatal care was first class.
But their inability to accept that there was anything wrong with my wife after her section was the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced. I pleaded, I shouted, I threatened, but no, vomiting, agonising pain, inability to eat, too weak to get out of bed and not enough energy to produce any milk was apparently all normal. Every night I tried, every morning I pushed the visiting midwife, but no, she was fine.
I won’t go into any more detail, I’ve written about that more than once, but yes, I’d say they let me, my wife and daughter down.
5. Who supported you?
Everyone actually. Everyone has been great. My wife has supported me however she could when I felt overwhelmed or confused, my in-laws have been amazing and my wife’s friends have been great.
6. Tell us one thing you learned
To chill. I used to worry about everything. Not a great trait when you live in an old house that needs constant tlc and have a very young baby. Everything concerned me. But, I am now able to prioritise my worries into stuff that needs dealt with and that which can wait. I then deal with the important stuff and don’t think about it again.
Simple stuff for most I know, but it has taken having a child to really push that need.
7. Tell us one thing that made you laugh
My daughters facial expressions. She has the most beautiful but expressive face I’ve ever seen. She is hilarious.
8. Tell us one thing that made you cry
I have cried a lot in 2011, I really can’t remember individual instances, some of it has been happy, some sad, some just stuff on TV designed to make you cry. The John Lewis Christmas ad almost got me, but I fought those tears back.
I think I cried when I realised the potential outcome of my dads cancer, I think I cried when I held Olivia – I can’t remember, because 2011 has been such a blur!
9. Tell us three things your child or children did to make you feel proud
Sleeping. Olivia, thanks to her mum, loves her bed. Unless there’s something wrong, she sleeps fantastically. I love her for that.
Eating. Again, unless something is wrong, she eats like a machine. Salmon, trout, peanut butter, bolognese, cheeses sauces, chilli chicken, curry, fruit. You name it, she’ll eat it and want more.
Copying Daddy. She seems to find me fascinating (of course!) and so watches everything I do. I love this. We have such great fun at breakfast, both eating our toast. Her watching me chew and copying. She copies her mum too of course – she’s great too
10. Tell us one thing that made you feel proud of yourself
Coping. I had no idea how I’d deal with becoming a dad. I worried I’d be rubbish at it. I wondered if I’d cope with the responsibility. But I think being a dad is one of the most natural things in the world and I think I’m doing a good job. It’s dealing with the other crap the world throws at you that’s the hard bit.
11. Tell us one challenge you overcame
Tricky one. I see a lot of what I’ve done as overcoming small challenges. Accepting everything our daughter throws at us, dealing with crap at work that I can’t detail here, accepting me for me, but as sad as it sounds, maybe just feeling ready to venture into the world with Olivia. I felt trapped in the house due to her napping and feeding routine, but we are now finding we can get out with her, with good planning. This feels like a lifeline.
That’s where we differ from Ben and Mrs Fool. They went on an adventure and didn’t let having a new baby stop that. We did. But for good reason. We’re not all explorers and it takes some people longer to adjust than others. But we’re getting there and that’s what matters.
12. Is there anything you would like to change about your life in 2012?
To continue with the point above – make more of our time and get out and enjoy life. We will do that. I know that.
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Now I need to tag some people. Most of those I know have already done this, so I will tag just one person: @SunnivaAnne.
There’s been a lot of posts about summing up 2011, so I’m not going to do one here. Suffice to say, 2011 for us has been insane. A new baby, therapy, deciding to go part time at work, cancer and many other small but amounting issues.
It’s been great though and I wouldn’t change most of what has happened.
So now it’s 2012. A new year is all about the opportunity for change. Clearly Olivia knows this. She is unrecognisable from the baby we knew on New Years Eve. She is very very happy and is great fun to be around and is developing every day, but her routine has gone out the window. I think this is bothering her mum and I more than it is her.
You see, we are creatures of habit. We like to know that at 06:30 Olivia will wake. At about 06:45 she’ll have half a bottle and then we’ll make her porridge with the other half, plus some puréed fruit. She’ll then sit with us at the dinner table and share my peanut butter on toast (100% peanuts – no added salt, sugar or oil). She will then fill her nappy. A quick change later and she’s on the mat playing. About an hour or so later she will nap for about an hour. From there it’s play, bottle, big nap, lunch, play, witching hour walk, bath, bottle, book and then bed. Then wine.
That is no longer what is happening. I can’t write down what’s happening, because we don’t know in what order she plans to do things each day. She isn’t taking much breakfast, is refusing to nap even though she’s tired, wolfs down lunch and dinner and then is almost falling asleep in the bath. She will then cry a few times before finally giving in to sleep. Sometime she goes all night, sometimes not. The last few days all of this has happened before I’m even home from work. It’s the breakfast thing that’s hard for both of us. We know she’ll eat as much as she needs but seeing a lot of food left in the bowl at breakfast panics us into thinking that she isn’t getting enough goodness. I’m sure she is, but it’s still hard to see her not take much after all we’ve been through with her feeding since she was born.
So why is all this happening? We know babies change their routines, but we think she’s teething, which really is not helping matters. Her cheeks are red, she’s dribbling lots and is chewing a lot. She also have at least 2 teeth already through the gum (she won’t let us get our fingers in her mouth to feel for any more).
They do say that a teething baby will go off their food, be a bit grumpier and not sleep as well, but good god if this is what it’s going to be like until she stops teething, we are going to be wrecks! Even without the eating to worry about, the lack of naps makes her physically exhausting!
I assume like everything else, you look back on it and say “we got through it, it wasn’t really that bad”. But right now, please send massive hugs to my wife, who is the one who has to entertain Miss Awkward all day. My wife requires structure in her day more than most (guess who the teacher is), so this is extra hard for her!
I will end by saying Happy New Year to you all and I hope it brings everything you wish from it.
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