1 year & 2 weeks into Daddyhood

Pre-birth…
Excitement… Anticipation… Fear…
Looking forward to the magic of parenthood – playing, learning, revisiting my childhood; even changing nappies!
And yet… what changes it will wreak…

Labour and birth…
Pain… exhaustion… relief!
Finally, she is here!

The first couple of weeks…
Stumbling through a lethargic euphoria…
We have a baby!
We are parents!

The first few months…
Hard work… adjustment…
Reality hits…
(but what about the magic?)

The next few months…
Her emerging personality… from baby to toddler…
She is a person!
We really are parents!

Now…
Excitement… Anticipation… The intensifying of feelings…
Every step she takes!
Every new sound she utters!
Everything she is learning and becoming!

The magic has returned…

1 year, 1 week & 6 days into Daddyhood

I recently had something of an altercation with my HR manager at work. I don’t want to go into details or get personal or anything, because for one thing, you never know who’s reading your blog. Suffice it to say that it involved me leaving work early due to my child being ill, and, upon talking about this with said HR manager, me storming out of her office, loudly declaring, “I’ve had enough of this crap!,” slamming her door, then slamming my cup of tea down on my desk. This is most uncharacteristic of me. I think it is fair to say that I feel things a lot, but I don’t normally express said feelings in this kind of way.

I put this recent storming-swearing-slamming incident down to recently discovered and growing-by-the-day feelings of Fierce Parental Protectiveness. People speak of such things. They always have – even before I myself became a parent. But now I really, truly understand. That feeling – that knowing – that you will do absolutely anything for your child. You will protect them at any cost. Of course, there isn’t always a logical basis to this – with such as the above-described storming-swearing-slamming incident, I doubt it would have benefited anyone if I had lost my job, over what was, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively minor incident. But in the heat of the moment, while I felt like I, my family and my feelings towards my family were being attacked, it was all I could do to stop myself from hurling said cup of tea across the room, and if said HR manager had come after me and I hadn’t been convinced by my department manager to go and have a few minutes to calm myself, then I suspect thoughts of causing actual bodily harm to whoever got in my way would have been dangerously close to forming in my head.

Like I said… most uncharacteristic. Could it be that most murders occur as a result of parents protecting their children? I would be interested to see the statistics on such…

1 year & 5 days into Daddyhood

On the evening of my daughter’s first birthday, when all the celebrations were over and The Gorgeous One was in bed, I scanned the living room in which I sat, took in all the cards, her new toys and so on, and came over “all strange”…

One year into dadhood!

When does a “baby” become a “child”? Well, in a sense, perhaps never, but when we sat her on her new Smart Trike earlier in the day, as a smile burst forth onto her chops, I felt a surge of pride for my little girl. My gorgeous, almost-talking, almost-walking, so-full-of-wonderful-potential little (but not so little) girl, who has – cliché though it is, but no less true for that – become the centre of my world.

This proper little person who is my daughter…

Who I have learnt so much from already, and look forward to learning so much more.

I look forward to taking her out on her trike!

I look forward to helping her build her Ninky Nonk wooden train (okay, building it myself, with her “supervision”), then having her pull it along!

I look forward to all the stories I am going to read to/with her, to watching every episode of the In the Night Garden DVD box-set with her, to wrestling with her, running around the garden with her (or watching her run around the garden), to the unsurpassed joy at every new word she learns, to my brother (her uncle and Godfather and a drummer) teaching her her first few “techniques” on the drum he has bought her… and so on and so forth… until she turns eighteen and I take her out for her first pint/glass of wine/shot of whiskey (or (more likely) first official pint/glass of wine/shot of whiskey)!

The motto on my desktop calendar for the day of my daughter’s first birthday was…

Take time to play. It is the secret to perpetual youth.

How appropriate!

And what greater lesson can a child teach us, than how to play?

Happy birthday, my beautiful, wondrous, joy-inducing Talise!

11 months, 3 weeks & 6 days into Daddyhood

My LO (Little One, in Internet Forum Speak) is of an age where she has become fascinated, enthralled, intrigued and besotted by television. This is, in one sense, useful, specifically in relation to her utter beguilement in the face of In the Night Garden, which causes all other actions to cease (or pretty much so), so I can more easily change her, get her dressed, trim her fingernails, etc. The Night Garden Factor is, in fact, so significant in our present family lives, that we have just ordered the box set for her imminent birthday, to prevent Mummy and Daddy (if not necessarily the Little One herself) from being driven irretrievably insane by the viewing (semi-conscious though it is, changing/dressing/nail-trimming still necessitating a substantial degree of concentration) of the same five episodes, over and over again.

However…

Both Mummy and Daddy believe in limiting the availability and use of television, in the life of our LO. This is on account of it being a (largely) passive and uncreative medium of entertainment (and, in perhaps a more limited sense, education). We both believe in the value of books, and we both want to encourage activities and the use of resources which, apart from being simply fun (which is, of course, important!), spark her creativity and her imagination. TV can do these things – but it is far too easy for TV to become a “pacifier” – which, as explained above, has its uses, but we don’t want to fall into the trap of going too far down this path.

But…

Where to strike the balance?

How much TV is too much TV?

And what sort of TV should we encourage/discourage our LO (now and in years to come) to watch?

And furthermore…

What (if anything) is the value of PlayStation?

Parenthood is full of questions!

11 months, 3 weeks & 2 days into Daddyhood

I am working on greater tolerance. It isn’t easy. Every fibre of my being (he said, perhaps a little over-emphatically) cries out, Dirt is bad! – but I do, I really do, want to overcome this. Ever since being a child myself, I have always had something of an aversion to it. But… dirt is not just not-bad… it is good! Mess is good! Dirt is freedom! It is a better immune system! It is fun!

Yesterday Talise’s mum said, when we were having a bit of family time outside, in the garden, in the sun, that I should, upon removing a dirty nappy, leave the nappy off…! The horror! What if she gets grass on her bits?! (“What if she does?” said Mummy)… What if…? (“What?” said Mummy; “What’s the worst that can happen?”)

So I did.

I left the nappy off.

And you should have seen the smile as her cute little squidgy bare bot touched grass!

She crawled… she sat… she played with stones and grass and bits of God-knows-what-else… and what we couldn’t wipe off with a cursory waft of a wipe, we sluiced off in her bath that evening… and all was well and nothing disastrous happened and a pleasant hour or so in the garden was had by all…

I shall now work towards permitting paint, Play-Doh and plasticine…

11 months & 3 weeks into Daddyhood

Here’s a great idea that I’m determined to get my little one into as soon as she can hold a camera!

A Midsummer’s Scavenger Hunt

11 months, 1 week & 1 day into Daddyhood

Far from finding children’s TV the necessary evil/tolerable annoyance that, pre-parenthood, I thought it might be… I am (dare I say it) enjoying it!

Take, for example, In the Night Garden (which I believe I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog)… what’s not to like? It’s funny, positive, has nice music, rhymes/song you can learn and recite/sing with/to your little ones, it’s in a beautiful natural setting, and it’s great for keeping aforementioned little ones calm and still whilst changing them, dressing them, etc.

Similarly re Teletubbies, The Tweenies, Charlie and Lola and my/Talise’s new discovery, Waybuloo – which features yoga, spiritual (ish) themes, lovely tinkly music and more natural settings!

She’s not that fond of Pingu, though…

11 months, 1 week & 1 day into Daddyhood

Nature’s purpose is not beauty. And yet it is the epitome of such. How so? Is the height of beauty that which tries least to be beautiful? Then what of human beauty? What of created beauty? What of art? Art does not always try to be beautiful, at least not aesthetically so, but… is art which seeks to emulate nature the most beautiful? Is my child beautiful because she is unaware of her beauty…?

10 months, 2 weeks & 2 days into Daddyhood

At 3:30 am… she wakes… she has a feed off her mum… I put her back to bed, but she doesn’t want to sleep…

She cries… she is too hot… I strip her down to her vest… give her a drink… she settles a little…

Then I go to stroke her head… say, shhh… speak softly and quietly… time for sleep now, sweetie… and such things…

But now she is lively!

She wants to play!

I go to stroke her head, but…

She grabs my hand! Gurgles at it, gives me that winning smile, chuckles and says, “Daddy!”…

But I continue to try to stroke her head… say, shhh… speak softly and quietly… time for sleep now, sweetie… and such things…

Smile and hold her hands…

My back starts to hurt from half-kneeling by the side of the cot…

She won’t settle!

I change her…

Try settling her again…

She wants to play again…

Mummy feeds her again…

She won’t settle again… we leave her to cry… and cry…

Until I relent at 5:35… get up… take her downstairs… cuddle her… stroke her… but she continues to whimper and cry…

I take her back upstairs at 5:55… hold her hands for a few minutes… she finally slips off to sleep…

And wakes forty minutes later!

I look at her… she looks at me… I feed her banana… give her a drink… (I’m so tired)… I give her Blonde Dolly to play with… she gurgles and chuckles at Blonde Dolly… I smile at her… she smiles at me… she seems to see my tiredness – my premonition of an exhausting day at work – and she seems to feel some baby-ish version of remorse… if she could say sorry, she looks like maybe she would… but ultimately she just wants to play…

Mummy and Daddy are so tired and not happy… and we tried being firm, tried showing her that we are the parents… but she just wanted to smile and play and giggle and gurgle and…

I feel so guilty at making her cry, lying her in her cot, telling her to go to sleep, when all she wanted to do was laugh and smile and play!

I know I shouldn’t feel guilty…

I know it’s all just part of the process of parenting – setting guidelines and all that palaver…

But when I look at her, desperate for a couple more hours kip, and she just gives me that winning smile and I walk away and she cries…

Guilt squared!

10 months, 1 week & 3 days into Daddyhood

Sometimes you can get so caught up in the minutiae of it all that you lose sight of the bigger picture.

I had this thought yesterday, whilst mowing the lawn (I often get very thoughtful during these times). It is, perhaps, more poignant today – more important to remember – after a night in which our darling daughter decided to wake at 00:45 and not go back to sleep again until 3:55. And this after I was feeling pretty crappy/ fluey/ headachey anyway. The joy of parenthood!

But why is it that after a horrible, painful, sleepless night, I always end up feeling guilty? Guilty at feeling frustrated, annoyed, impatient, infuriated – I mean what the heck was wrong with her, that after Jo fed her twice, we gave her cuddles, head-strokes and tried a bit of “controlled crying,” she only finally went back to sleep after a third feed from Jo? But she’s only a baby, she can’t help it. Well maybe she can to an extent – maybe, at 10.5 months of age, there is some intent, some “playing us up,” that kind of thing… but… well… she is only a baby.

So back to the “bigger picture”…

Last night was pretty crappy. Whichever way you look at it. To everyone concerned (although after a bit of catchy-uppy sleep later, Talise will probably be back to normal and giggling and smiling and playing and causing joyous havoc like all is right with the world). At less than a year into it, parenthood is an emotional rollercoaster (apologies for the cliché, but it fits). It hurts at times – a lot. Physically, mentally, emotionally. But… when I’m mowing the lawn or whatever… I do try, whenever possible, to take a step back and think about the magnitude – the miraculous, glorious magnitude – of it all…

We created a life! A beautiful life! She is of us, with us, a conjoining of our DNA, our love, the branches of our hitherto separate family trees, now forever connected… she is our Talise! She is marvellous, miraculous, magnificent! Remember this…

Remember this always…