1 year, 4 months, 2 weeks & 4 days into Daddyhood

In September I was made redundant. In fact in mid-August, I was in a “potential redundancy” situation, so I have been off work since then. And since then, I have been taking my Little One to playgroup once a week, Music, Rhythm & Rhyme each Monday morning at the local library, sundry other activities, as well as generally spending a lot more time with my “little Weeble” (as a Facebook friend of mine recently called her). Anyone else who has been through a redundancy will know of the whole bundle of worries that comes with it; but God, am I grateful for the extra time it has meant I have been able to spend with my little Twinklefish! And her mum, of course.

I may have to return to an office at some point. Or we (my Twinklefish’s mother and I) may be able to figure out a better working arrangement, involving spending more quality time together as a family. I very much hope we can do the latter. In fact… I am determined we will!

The aforementioned Facebook friend – who I shall call Ruby – said I should cherish every moment with my little girl. I have, of course, always known this, but when one is given a gift of time from the Universe, this message becomes all the more poignant. I don’t know what’s in the future, but again and again, my number one priority is being confirmed: health and happiness for my family. I don’t say me and my family, because if my family is happy (and healthy), then so will I be. And I don’t think I am being too presumptuous in saying that my family will be happier if they get to spend more time with Daddy! The point being that this is now my focus. This is the one thing, above all else, to aim for.

Good. Glad that’s sorted. Now then… how to practically achieve this?

1 year, 4 months, 1 week & 4 days into Daddyhood

My daughter can be hard work. She is going through that independent/clingy phase, which means she is constantly testing and pushing boundaries, testing and pushing our limits of patience, saying she wants something then wanting something entirely different, climbing onto anything she can get her bum onto, being something of a nightmare to get to eat anything other than raisins and bread sticks (she used to be such a good eater!), etc, etc and so forth. But as I lounge on the sofa, at 6.10pm this Thursday evening, reading Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, with my beautiful, independent girl sat leaning on my leg, a look of determined concentration on her gorgeous little face, as she flicks through her In the Night Garden books, passing them to me as she finishes with them, then I pass them back, and the process resumes… a smile forms on her Daddy’s lips as I realise…

This is a perfect moment!

I return to Starship Troopers and she returns to Igglepiggle…

1 year, 3 months, 4 weeks & 2 days into Daddyhood

I have just “resumed normal service” on my other blog (The Art of Tea)… but what more poignant way of observing the passage of time, during my blog-break of the last nearly-four months, than by recording the changes that have occurred in the life of my nearly-sixteen-month-old daughter? She is…

> Now virtually running.

> Saying a lot of new words: favourites are… “More!” (while pointing at what she wants “More!” of), “Nose!” (while scrunching up her nose and stabbing hers or that of the nearest grownup), “Hiya!” (either randomly, when you say “Hiya!” to her, while poking her head round the door, when the phone rings or when she picks up something (glasses case, TV remote, slipper, etc) and holds it to her ear) – also “Ear!,” “Car!,” “Ang-on!,” “All-gone!,” “Go-go-go!” and many, many more.

> Becoming a right little groover (*).

> Becoming an expert sorter, builder and stacker.

> Becoming a bit of a nightmare to convince of the merits of sitting and eating a meal.

> Now on the lowest height setting of her cot… after having recently employed the Pivot Method of flinging herself out of said cot.

> Now saying “Brum-brum!” while playing with cars.

> A climber extraordinaire!

And last but not least…

> More beautiful than ever!!!

* * *

* She has moves to rival Michael Flatley, Mettallica, Girls Aloud, Upsy Daisy and the Piplings from Waybuloo… eclectic!

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…