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Thoughts on being a parent

Nothing prepares you for becoming a mother or father for the first time. Sure, we read the books, went to the antenatal classes, and of course we knew friends and family with young babies. You can study and learn and ask questions all you want, but it won’t prepare you for that day when you finally get the little one home and there’s just the three of you.

Babies cry. This everyone knows. However it’s different when it’s your own kid. You can’t hand her back to her parents, or politely make excuses and leave. You have to deal with it. I have never been more stressed out than when I’ve been watching Evie bawling her little eyes out, having already been fed and nappy-changed, wondering what on earth she was crying for. The noise of the crying itself, even though it probably isn’t that loud, is extremely distressing (as was intended by nature I guess) and hurts the eardrums more than it should. Thankfully, she’s settled down a lot since the early weeks when we were both going spare.

Then there’s the poo. Despite the horror stories you hear about babies’ poo, Evie hasn’t been too bad. We’ve had the occasional ‘industrial accident’, where the brown* stuff has escaped the nappy enclosure, but generally things have gone okay. I continue to be amazed by the escape velocity of the stuff, however. One time I had Evie sitting on my knee when she dropped one with such force that some of it shot up her back! That wasn’t pleasant to clean up, I can tell you. Unfortunately we’re having to use disposables at the moment: although we’d bought reusable nappies before the birth, we’ve experienced more leaks using them than we were prepared to put up with, so we’re environmentally unfriendly on the poo front I’m afraid.

One word you need to get used to hearing from people when you have a new baby is ‘colic’. Baby crying a lot? Colic. Generally irritable? Colic. Arms and legs flailing wildly? Colic. Projectile vomiting? Colic. Baby’s head rotating 360°? Er, probably colic as well. Talk about a catch-all diagnosis. Just remember that the magic potion Infacol is your trusty weapon against the evil colic spirit possessing your child. It also smells pleasantly of oranges.

So, nearly three months in and it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride, but neither myself nor Paula would change Evie for the world. She can cry her eyes out and drive you up the wall, but one smile and a babble or two is enough to forgive everything and bring tears to your eyes (and if saying that makes me a sad git then so be it).

Becoming a father is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

 * of course, it isn’t always brown…

It’s a girl!

Our daughter Evie was finally born at the end of May, a week later than expected. Paula had quite a difficult labour, the details of which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say, an emergency Caesarean was required, together with a short stay in hospital to recover. However I’m happy to report that Paula is now back to her old self (minus a few pounds!) and that we are the proud parents of a beautiful almost-three-month-old girl.

Oh yeah, the blog…

I knew I forgot something.

So yeah, I’m back. Just when you thought it was safe, etc, etc. A lot’s happened since my last post in — when was it? (shuffles papers) — October. Boy have I been slacking. Anyway, here’s the juice:

Home. We did manage to move back in just before Christmas — three days before, to be precise. It was a huge effort from all involved to get enough of the kitchen and bathroom ready in time, but we made it. The place was a bit of a mess for a few weeks afterwards, but things are coming together nicely now. The kitchen and new staircase, in particular, have turned out really well. It’s finally starting to feel like a real home.

Work. Is okay. In turns engaging and frustrating. I’ve not worked for a company with this many employees since I was at Cheshire County Council back in the early ’90s, and the bureaucracy is somewhat annoying after having become used to more direct code ownership.

Expecting. The really big news: Paula is pregnant, and we’re expecting our first child in May! We’ve been trying since we got married, so although it was not entirely unexpected it’s still took a bit of getting used to. There are big changes ahead, and a few uncomfortable decisions that will need to be made, but I’m really looking forward to becoming a dad :O)

Well, consider yourselves updated. Sorry for the long delay between posts, normal service should hopefully be resumed from this point onwards.

October status report

I’ve been a bit lax on the blogging front lately*, so an update is long overdue. Things have been so hectic, I hardly know where to start.

The pit. Funny how progress on the house seems to ebb and flow: seemingly little progress for weeks on end, then suddenly a few jobs start to come together and it almost seems worthwhile. Then one of your water joints fails, floods your cloakroom and writes-off several hundred quids worth of furniture. Stuff like that. Anyway, the new target date for moving back in is Christmas (that’s Christmas this year, you comedians). Most of the plumbing and drainage is in now; the bathroom and en-suite just need tiling really. Our new staircase will hopefully arrive by the end of this week. Then the final major outlay will be the new kitchen. We’ve ordered the appliances (online, to save some money), but not the units as yet.

Time off. My employer was gracious enough to allow me to take a few days unpaid leave. Coupled with my remaining holiday for this year, that meant a two-week break to allow me to work on the house, place orders, accept deliveries, etc. This is the start of my second week. It’s been very useful: there’s certainly no way I’d have accomplished as much during lunch breaks and at the weekends. I could have done with an even longer break (say a month or so), but two weeks is better than nothing.

Other stuff. I’ve been concentrating so much on the house recently that there’s been little time for anything else. Managed to squeeze in a visit to see the One Man Star Wars Trilogy (most excellent!), but other than that, nothing. I haven’t spoken to some of my friends for months, which is really bad. I’m hoping that things will calm down a lot after Christmas, and my life will get back to something approaching normality.

* Like I’m so prolific usually, ha!

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy

Myself, Paula, Chris and Mum went to see the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy at the Chester Gateway Theatre on Friday night. Canadian actor Charles Ross basically condenses the original trilogy (New Hope, Empire, Jedi) into one hour, playing all of the characters (Jabba the Hutt and Admiral Ackbar were my favourites!), humming the music, making the sound effects, throwing himself around on stage like a lunatic doing the spacecraft… you get the idea. No props, no sets, just this one guy.

It was bloody fantastic!

Really funny, probably moreso for the big Star Wars geeks, but I think that most people know the general story beats anyway so it would go down well with any audience. The capacity crowd (350 people?) at the Gateway certainly appreciated it!

The other cool thing was that as this was his last performance on the UK tour they had some people there from one of the costuming fan groups, dressed as stormtroopers, biker scouts, Jedi Knights… even Vader and the Emperor. The costumes were really impressive. Oh, and they had a remote control Artoo there as well! How cool is that?!

Apparently he (Charles Ross, not Artoo, duh) is due to appear in London sometime later this year. If you get the chance to go and see his show, then do: I guarantee you’ll enjoy it 

Portmeirion

Last Monday (31st July) was our first wedding anniversary, and as a surprise I whisked Paula away for a couple of days to Portmeirion in Wales. I’d rented a car for the trip (a Ford Focus, with CD player and air-con), and we left on the Sunday afternoon. We hit a snag almost immediately when we discovered that the CD player wouldn’t play our copied CDs (I don’t like taking the originals in case they get nicked). Fortunately, inserting a brand-new original CD (hastily purchased at Tesco in Mold) seemed to fix the problem, and we didn’t have any trouble after that.

After a pleasant 2½-hour drive through the rolling Welsh hills (we only got lost the once!), we arrived at Portmeirion, and our home for the next two days: Castell Deudraeth. Our room was on the second floor, and looked out onto the hills in the distance. A great view, and a fantastic room: reasonably spacious, with comfortable and contemporary furnishings.

We’d arrived mid-afternoon, so after unpacking we went for a brief walk around the village. The weather — which for the previous two weeks had been nothing but glorious sunshine — was starting to turn: it was still sunny, but the wind had picked-up and the clouds were gathering. I’d been to Portmeirion once before when I was a kid, so everything seemed vaguely familiar. It’s a very pretty place, and I wish we’d had more time to explore, but we had to get back for dinner. We decided to have a proper look around the following day.

Unfortunately, the weather on the Monday was awful: cold, cloudy and windy, with occasional rain. We’d only packed “sunny-weather” clothes (shorts and T-shirts), and there was no way we were going exploring in those. So instead we went for a brief trip to Pwllheli in the car, where the weather was a little better. On the way back we stopped in Criccieth (gotta love these place names!), but it was blowing a gale so we didn’t stop long. Hopefully, our last day would bring sunny skies and we’d finally be able to wander around Portmeirion.

Waking on Tuesday our hopes were soon dashed. No change in the weather, and as we had to check-out by 11am there was no point in sticking around. So although we’d had a great time at the hotel, we were never really able to make the most of the village just down the road. Still, it was nice to get away for a few days, away from work and the house and everything, just the two of us. Hopefully we’ll be able to go back one day when the weather’s a bit better!

Musical fireworks

We (that is, myself, Paula, mum, dad and Chris) are off to a concert this Saturday evening: a “fireworks concert spectacular” at Cholmondeley Castle near Malpas. Nick was invited but politely declined on the grounds of musical taste (or lack thereof).

I mainly wanted to go because much of the music this year will be from Tchaikovsky’s ballets The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, which are both favourites of mine. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about ballet (“strewth, mate, there’s a bloke down there with no strides on!”), but I love the music!

It’s one of those “take a picnic” affairs, which is a bit of a shame as many people seem more interested in eating and talking as opposed to listening to the orchestra (if you’re gonna do that, stay at home and have a barbeque, for crying out loud). Maybe if we sit close enough to the stage it’ll drown-out the noise of the riff-raff!

Saving the planet with minimal effort

I’m not exactly a poster-child for saving the planet: I use a car instead of public transport; waste far too much electricity running various gadgets; occasionally put washing in the tumble dryer even on clear days… you get the idea. However, despite this I’m still the most energy-conscious person I know, which is kind of worrying (or maybe an indication that I don’t know that many people).

I recently read an interesting article on the BBC News web site, Lighting the key to energy saving. Apparently, a study from the International Energy Agency has concluded that “a global switch to efficient lighting systems would trim the world’s electricity bill by nearly one-tenth.” A linked article – Light bulbs: Not such a bright idea – basically proposes that governments should ban the traditional incandescent light bulb in favour of using compact fluorescents. This is such an obvious no-brainer that it almost certainly won’t happen, which is a real shame, but then again we shouldn’t be relying solely on our governments to legislate in order to solve the world’s energy problems: we should be doing more ourselves.

For example, don’t leave the TV chattering away to itself when you’re going to be out of the room for a while. Stop the automatic hand-dryer yourself when your hands are dry, instead of waiting for the timer to switch it off. No need to turn-on the lights when it’s a bright sunny day outside. All small things to be sure, but if everyone did them…

See? You too can save the planet with minimal effort!

The graduate

Our Chris has been taking an Open University degree in Computing for the past few years, and last Friday was his graduation ceremony. Neither myself or my other brother Nick even went to university, let alone graduated, so this was a reasonably big deal for our family. Hence we all got dolled-up and made the trek to Bridgewater Hall in Manchester (home of the Hallé Orchestra, apparently) on a baking-hot June day.

Needless to say, the hall wasn’t air conditioned, so it was kind of uncomfortable. It was also quite a long and boring ceremony (imagine clapping complete strangers for an hour-and-a-half). However, I was very proud to see my bro get up to collect his… well, he wasn’t actually given anything, he just received a handshake from the VIP on the stage. I was a bit surprised he wasn’t handed a scroll or something, but then maybe I’ve been misled by TV and the movies!

(from right to left)
Me, Paula, Dad, Chris, Mum, Nick, Sarah-Jane (Nick’s girlfriend)