Our New Life Begins

23 Mar

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Good morning everyone. Just got on the train with a coffee after dropping my daughter off at nursery. Yes. That’s right. Nursery. This is how every Thursday and Friday for the foreseeable future is going to be. I’m certainly going to need the coffee!

Yesterday was Ollie’s first full day at nursery. I was fairly ok about the whole thing, fully expecting her to be absolutely fine. She’s a sociable little girl and as long as there are people for her to rudely stare at and toys to abuse, she’s happy. In typical baby fashion though, she has a stinking cold and what sounds like a smokers cough. Mmm. So first day at nursery plus not feeling great isn’t the best combination.

Not long after she arrived at nursery my wife got a call from the staff asking of they could give her some Calpol as she was clearly under the weather and had a bit of a temperature. Good of them to ask I have to say. Shame they needed to though.

As she didn’t settle after the medication, my wife suggested that she came and picked her up as there was no point in her being miserable at nursery when my wife was at home on her own. So Ollie’s first day at nursery ended at 3pm. Not bad going really.

So today is a new day and I was hoping she’d be fine and be happy to go to nursery. Again in typical baby fashion she woke up shortly before 5am so had an hour and a half less sleep than usual. Wonderful start :-) She seemed cheery enough when we drove up to the nursery, albeit a little sleepy, but then so was I – so I knew how she felt. As soon as I handed her over to the nursery staff she started to howl. Poor little thing. Maybe she’s not quite as resilient as I had thought. But at the same time there’s not much I can do about it. I know in no time at all she will love nursery and will get excited as we get to the door, but it’s hard when you just want to take her back home and cuddle up to make her feel better. I guess that’s not always possible.

Fingers crossed today will be a success and be the start of a great new life for all of us.

On a separate note, Ollie is now able to stand on her own, which is amazing to see. She will be on her feet playing at her table and she will take her hands off the table, not realising that she’s standing on her own. When she does, she gets excited and starts jumping. That always ends with a bum on the floor :-) Great to watch though!

So have a wonderful weekend people and I may post on Monday as my official first StayAtHomeDad(PartTime) post.

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The More Things Change

12 Mar

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s what a wise man said some time ago. Apparently.

I’m not so sure. Sorry Robb.

This morning Olivia has her first settling in day at nursery. This means many things. First off, it means my wife’s maternity leave is coming to an end. Secondly, it means my part time working is coming very soon. Lastly it means there’s a whole new normality on its way.

If you hadn’t noticed, we find change hard. We are looking forward to things becoming what will hopefully be the norm for some time. Going back to work will do my wife good. She loves being with Olivia but being a stay at home mum is not for her. She feels that she should want to be at home and so feels bad that she doesn’t. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing to return to work. There must be thousands of stay at home mums who feel trapped because they feel they have to be at home when they want to be elsewhere. Likewise, there are probably more dads out there than you’d think who would like to be at home with their child who feel they have to work harder to support their family. Gender stereotypes at their worst.

That’s one thing I want to teach Olivia: that she should do what her gut and emotions tell her and not what she thinks other people expect of her. I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. You have to do what feels right. Within a framework of course.

And so that’s why we are where we are now. My wife is stressed about Olivia going to nursery. We know she’ll be fine and probably won’t even notice we’re gone, as long as there are toys and other babies to harass. But my wife is going to miss Ollie. I don’t blame her. She’s been with her every day and hour since she’s been born, pretty much. But that’s not practical long term. Ollie needs to learn how to operate without us for periods as does my wife without her. They will both do great, I know that.

Then there’s the return to work. Normally this wouldn’t be a biggie. She’s great at her job and knows it inside out. Except this year she’s returning to a new curriculum, which hasn’t been written yet. Who will be writing it? She will. That’s a lot to deal with after a year out of the loop. But she’ll cope just fine and we’ll be at home waiting with big cuddles for her coming home.

Then there’s me. I am positively shitting myself. When we decided this was what we were going to do, Ollie was a placid little bundle of joy. Nappy changes contained no tears of stress. I was thinking “yeah, I can do this”. Now, she is a machine that has some sort of sensor on the back that causes her to flip when pressed. Nothing will keep her on her back during a nappy change. There’s screaming, elbows and stress on both sides. How on earth am I going to cope? I know what you’re thinking, because I said the same thing to my wife – its only a few changes a day and they only take 10 minutes or so, how bad can it be? How naive. But just as she did, I’ll have to cope and I’m sure I will, but it is very daunting.

Then there’s the job front. How am I going to balance the part time working? There are going to be periods of fast paced project work that are bound to require me to work more than my 2 contracted days. Thankfully I can work from home, but only in the evenings. I can’t just nip upstairs and write some code while being a full time parent. We are also not doing this so that I disappear upstairs the second my wife comes through the door. No, this move was done to give us more time together, not less.

But, I need to be flexible. I know I’ll need to do the odd late night, either when I’m in the office or while at home. I will also provide holiday cover during the summer, which is fine by me, because my wife will be off at the same time. I need to get the balance right and I don’t know what that balance is yet. I guess I’ll just need to wait and see. I will make it work, whatever it is.

So that’s what’s going on just now. It’s very much all change. It’s all for the best, but as you know, we are rubbish at change ;-) Maybe Mr Flynn was right. There’s constant change, and we struggle to cope with it. So nothing has changed there.

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These Knees Were Made For Crawling!

21 Feb

Hello hello hello. Hello.

Yes, me again. I have actually found the time to do a blog post! How could that be I hear you ask? Well….

I’m currently lying in bed, doing my best not to put any pressure on some angry nerves in my back which are currently making my leg cramp and my foot numb. To sum up the last week, I’ve been drugged up to my eyeballs while people have done their best to keep the house going and getting it ready for the next kitchen to arrive.

So other than kitchen stuff and back injuries, what’s been going on?

Weeellllllll……

Olivia is crawling! And I don’t just mean wobbling along. No, she’s flying along, exploring all the places she’s been desperate to get to but hasn’t been able to. Note that in the video below, she did not start in the kitchen.

All this in a week. She went from not being able to stay on her knees for more than about 5 seconds to being able to crawl to something and then pull herself up to a standing position in exactly a week.

So my wife is currently out at Mothercare buying stair gates because we’ve discovered that you simply cannot let her out of your sight for even a second – she manages to find stuff on the floor, or under a sofa that you didn’t even know was there.

So along with needing to get the kitchen ready for the new delivery, we also need to make sure the house cleaner and tidier than it’s ever been! No easy task!

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What’s On My MP3 Player?

21 Feb

I’ve been tagged (sort of) by Ben from Mutterings of a Fool for the meme What’s On Your MP3 Player. The idea being you write down the first 5 tracks that come up on shuffle on your chosen music player of choice.

I haven’t had much time to post lately, but I couldn’t miss this one. I love music and am listening to it right now.

So without further ado, let’s begin.

Track 1: Halo, by Machine Head from their album The Blackening

 

this is a modern metal classic, if you ask me. It is anthemic in its spectacular quality, energy and guitar work. It has one of the best face melting twin solos of all the music I own. It never fails to give me goose bumps. Seeing them perform this live is even more spectacular. I’d say this album in general finally broke me into the world of proper metal music. Thank you Machine Head.

Track 2: Sea of Everything by Prince, from the album 20TEN

Image of Prince

You Sexy Mutha Humper.

sadly this track is a pile of shite. As is most of that album in fact. That album is the reason I bought the Daily Record for one day only. Prince was releasing his new album through the newspaper. That should have been enough of a warning, but no, I bought it anyway. In fact I have no idea why it’s on my iPhone at all!

Track 3: Metrolpolis by Adam F from the album Colours

 

this is an odd one for me to have, I’m not even sure what genre you’d put this in. Drum and bass? No sure. But it’s quite funky. Bought it on a whim and it still surprises me every now and then.

Track 4: How Do You Want It by 2 Pac from the album All Eyez On Me

 

gotta love a bit of old skool hip hop. There’s something about decent hip hop that I really like. Laid back, good lyrics (if a little sweary for some people). My wife introduced to me this album many years ago when I first moved in with her. She picked this album up, purely out of interest after getting caught up in the funeral march of TuPac in New York. I’ve listened to it ever since. Mind you, I should stop referring to everyone as beeatches.

Track 5: Mannish Boy by Son of Dave from the album 02

 

I confess that the above video is not the one from my playlist, I couldn’t find one of Mannish Boy, so I substituted it with his version of Dizzee Rascal’s Bonkers. I thought it was fun.

I’ve talked about this guy before and he is awesome. So unique. It’s just him, a box of harmonicas, a shaker and a sampler. He created his own beats, vocals and everything required to make some down and dirty blues. If you ever get the chance to see him live (plays in London a LOT) then do – you won’t regret it.

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An Evening of Firsts

26 Jan

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.

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Time To Up The Game

9 Jan

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 :-)

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Tag: What are your highs and lows of 2011

6 Jan

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.

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