10 observations on being a parent

1)    You will have difficulty emptying your bowels when the toddler wanders into the lavatory uninvited and helpfully points out that you’re “having a poo poo on the big potty”.

2)    You will appreciate the value of You Tube if you are looking after a sick child and the only thing that will keep them entertained is Peppa Pig cartoons (or similar).

3)   When booking doctor’s appointments, you will learn that receptionists are much more helpful when they know you’re making an appointment for a young child.

4)   Following on from the above, you should always be ultra-polite to both the doctor’s receptionist and the doctor themselves. Innoculations and minor childhood ailments mean you’re going to see a lot of these people and probably at short notice.

5)   Travelling abroad? You’re going to need a much bigger suitcase.

6)   Travelling abroad? Make sure you’ve got your European Health Insurance Card and travel insurance. You will appreciate this if your little ones need medical treatment.

7)   In the earliest days you will find that absolutely everyone has an opinion on breastfeeding. The socially inept elements of society will force these opinions on you regardless of your own views and regardless of your family’s own experiences.

8)   You are expected to get on with everyone that has children of a similar age. Goodness knows why, you wouldn't choose to mix with most of them.

9)   You will begin to rate pubs not only on the quality of ale and wine on sale, but also on the quality of the high chairs and whether they sell Robinson’s Fruit Shoots. A bouncy castle in the beer garden gives any pub a stratospherically high “family friendly” rating.

10) Friends that aren’t married / in serious relationships and don’t have children will look at you blankly when you talk about your family and home life. It’s sad, but you will inevitably see less of these friends when you become a parent.

The serenity of chickenpox

The little one fell asleep on me a few minutes ago. It was one of those serene parental moments that I love and I’m sure I’ll never forget.

You see poor little Helen has chickenpox. It’s been going round her nursery for weeks so it was only a matter of time before she got infected herself.

With Anna having left for work, I got Helen up this morning. I’d given her a bath, got her dressed, given her breakfast and so on. Not surprisingly she wasn’t on the best form so there were some tears and demands for cuddles.

After a while I found myself sat on the sofa with the little one on my lap. I wasn’t playing any music and the television was turned off so all I could hear was the sound of Helen breathing. It was deep and quick and her head was against my chest.

 After a few minutes I remembered there was a BBC2 documentary I wanted to watch. If the little one was quiet and happy sitting on my knee, why not watch it?

Something persuaded me not to turn the television on. Life is busy enough, I thought. I’m always rushing round and busy so why not just enjoy the peace, sit with Helen for a little while and do absolutely nothing. That’s exactly what I did.

After a few more minutes I looked down and saw, to my amazement, that she’d actually fallen asleep. This happened all the time when she was a new-born but I honestly can’t remember the last time she fell asleep on my chest. It must have been more than a year ago.

I knew that I’d have to take her upstairs and tuck her in to bed, but for a few minutes I just kept her there and enjoyed the calm, peaceful atmosphere. To Helen it probably doesn’t mean a great deal and has probably been forgotten already. To me it was a beautiful and special moment and I doubt very much that I’ll forget it.

Treasure every moment

I’m slightly melancholy at the moment. Anna and I are preparing to go abroad for a couple of days. Little Helen, meanwhile, will stay at home in the care of her grandmothers (Anna’s mum will have her for a day and my mother will have her for a day also. It’s not ideal but that’s the way it’s worked out).

Why the melancholy? Well, this will be the longest we’ve ever been away from Helen and I know I’m going to miss her massively. I’m also going to worry about her; will the grannies remember to apply Helen’s eczema cream? Will they at least feed her a little fruit? Will they remember to keep the stair gates closed?

Looking at it from another perspective, we’re actually very lucky. Helen’s got to an age where we have gained a little independence and can consider going away for a couple of days. It’s also something that isn’t going to happen often so we should make the most of it.

We actually went away to the same place exactly a year ago and on that occasion took Helen with us. She’s grown up so much in that short space of time.

When I think back a year, Helen could not speak or crawl and had only been eating solids for a couple of months. A year later she has a vocabulary of about 100 words, can run as well as walk, eats like a horse and can partially dress herself without assistance.

We’ve also been introducing Helen to the potty. Anna feels a little sad about this. She says nappies are the only remnants of Helen’s days as a baby and she’s sorry those days are all but passed.

The day Helen was born I cracked a very bad joke that she’ll soon be taking her driving test. It was a bad joke, but it was also accurate!

I clearly remember the day my younger (half) brother passed his driving test. He came home and took me and our other brother out for a spin in the Volkswagen Golf that was his first car.

I remember the occasion so vividly because of the look on my stepdad’s face when he saw his eldest son drive off for the first time. It was a very poignant moment; “Where did all those years go?” said his expression.

It’s a cliché, but Helen really is growing up so quickly. Anna and I must treasure every moment.

The world is not against me

When I wrote my first blog entry, I thought the world was going to be against me giving up full time work and becoming a stay at home father. A month down the line I can honestly say my opinion has changed.

It’s been fascinating talking to friends and strangers about my situation and hearing what they think about it. It’s perhaps not surprising that every woman I have spoken to has been very supportive of the decision Anna and I have taken.

What has genuinely surprised me, however, has been the reaction of the men. I’ve not heard a single negative comment or been made the butt of a single joke, quite the reverse in fact. All the men I’ve spoken to have totally understood and some have even expressed an interest in following in my footsteps.

That said, one of the most supportive men I spoke to also admitted he could never become the primary carer for his own children. He agreed the course of action Anna and I are taking makes absolute sense for us, especially economically, but confided that if he became his children’s full-time carer they would drive him to distraction and he would “kill them”! In a bizarre way I actually admire him for his honesty, children are without doubt very hard work.

For the record, he was joking about killing his children. Please don’t call Social Services, it would result in an unnecessary and ugly scene, but back to the matter in hand.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the world is obviously more advanced and liberal than I gave it credit for. There might not be many men in my situation, but we aren’t considered social pariahs at all.

I think the real test, however, will come in a couple of weeks when the transition actually takes place and Helen’s nursery hours are cut (oh yes, it’s all been formally agreed). Will the stay at home mothers accept me? Will I get invited to their coffee mornings and the like? I think their response will be fascinating.

Truth be told, if I get invited to some kind of mothers’ coffee morning I think I’ll run a mile in the opposite direction!  

I've been given power and authority

Ahoy me heartees. How have you all been over the past couple of weeks? I seem to have been very busy but don’t have a great deal to show for it, apart from my significant news.

I eluded to this a couple of entries ago. I can confirm that I have been offered a job in the Greater London area with hours that suit my aspirations to spend more time at home with the little one.

This is superb news for me personally and also for the Daddy Cool family. I should, however, add that this blog is about parenting and my experiences as a stay at home father and so I’m not going to go into detail about my work now or in the future.

I am also counting down the days until I leave my present job (thankfully there are only days to go). There’s no hiding it, I’m getting demob happy.

On the parenting front, I have just been appointed one of the Parent Representatives at Helen’s nursery. It’s a bit like being a School Governor, in that I will get to attend quarterly meetings to discuss how the nursery runs, what I think about the service it provides, express concerns, compliment successes and so on.

I’m very happy about this. While I know I won’t have the influence of a School Governor, I will have a greater say over Helen’s childcare and both Anna (and my mother-in-law) are impressed. The other thing to add is that I couldn’t have considered this if I remained in full time employment because making the commitment to attend the meetings would have been so difficult.

I have also made a bet with myself that I will be the only male representative. I'll be attending my first meeting in a couple of months time so I'll let you know afterwards!

Until the next time. . .

My stair gate hell

My stair gate hell

Even if I do say so myself, I am practically minded and can handle the majority of DIY tasks. With stair gates, however, I met my match. I don’t have a good track record with stair gates at all. In my opinion they are a necessary evil and an absolute pain to install. 

When Helen learnt to crawl, we installed a Mothercare stair gate across the living room door frame. We used to refer to the room as baby jail as it was the one place we could keep Helen confined and safe. It wasn’t long until the handle broke rendering the stair gate useless.

A couple of months later we moved house. By now Helen was walking and fitting stair gates was at the top of my “to do” list. This is when I made an irritating mistake.

I was in Ikea buying some furniture when I saw they produced their own range of stair gates. They were a colour that matched our banisters and were cheap. “Brilliant,” I thought, “no need to waste time going to Mothercare.”

I bought two sets, took them home and busily started constructing one of them. I began to get very nervous when I realised that, in true Ikea-style, I had to build the entire gate, including the hinges. The components looked very fiddly and might as well have come from the inside of a Kinder Egg.

I eventually got one of the gates fixed to the wall. The hinges, however, kept falling apart making the gates utterly useless. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get this stair gate to open and close properly and after about two hours I had a major sense of humour failure.

At this point in time we had a builder’s skip in the driveway outside our house. Unable to take any more, I pulled the stair gate off the wall, marched out the house and hurled the gate straight into the skip. The second gate, which was still in its wrapper, was returned and exchanged for a refund.

I’ll sum the experience up in three words; cheap Ikea crap.

Having given up on Ikea, I returned to Mothercare. This time I spent considerably more money on the assumption that cheap stair gates are a false economy.

This time I bought two sets of stair gates and fitted them both – one at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. It took a while and was a pain, but I got them in place. Unfortunately the fixings proving insubstantial and both sets of gates fell out the wall after just a few weeks.

I gave up and admitted defeat. In a humiliating and emasculating move I got Roger, our builder, to install the gates.

Having sought professional help you might imagine this story has a happy ending. Unfortunately it’s not to be. You see there’s a small gap underneath the stair gate at the top of the stairs (not Roger’s fault, there’s an obstruction he had to work around). It had crossed my mind that Helen might, at some point in the future, attempt to squeeze through it, something that, by rights, shouldn’t be easy for her to achieve at all.  

The very next morning after Roger had fitted the gates, Anna was getting Helen ready for nursery. They were both on the landing and the stair gate was firmly closed. Anna turned her back for a couple of seconds to grab some clothes. When she turned back again, Helen was stood on the opposite side of the stair gate at the very top of the stairs, a big smile on her face celebrating the fact she’d managed to slip underneath!

The stair gate had barely been in place for 12 hours and she’d already beaten it. Needless to say, I shall now have to spend some time modifying the thing so that she can’t get underneath it.

In the meantime, I have a simple message for manufactures of stair gates everywhere; make your products easy to install.

It's tense, and C3PO stole the baby monitor

There’s a certain tension in the air at home at the moment and there are a few different reasons for this. Firstly, we’ve removed the bars from the side of Helen’s cot so she’s now sleeping in her own bed.

Whereas Helen’s been very excited about getting a grown-up bed, Anna’s been in a state of high alert over the past few evenings in case Helen rolls out and on to the floor. I’m more relaxed about the situation. I think the bed is so low to the ground that Helen would have to do something spectacular to injure herself.

That said, the inevitable actually happened this morning and I had to scoop Helen up off the floor. There were a few tears but the most serious injury was to Helen’s pride and a quick cuddle seemed to put that right.

It is perhaps just as well that we’ve got both a bed guard and baby monitor on order from Mothercare. While I question whether it will do much for Helen, Anna and I will have peace of mind knowing that:

1)      It’ll be difficult for her to tumble out the bed and

2)      We’ll hear it if she does.

You might think it odd that we don’t already have a baby monitor. Well, we did have one but we lost the receiver end some time ago. It suspiciously went missing at our wedding reception shortly after my brother, who’d had a little bit to drink, was seen using it to do impressions of the Star Wars character C3PO.

Oh, yes, that was quite a night.

Another reason for the tension is that Helen had the MMR jab nine days ago. We’re on tenterhooks because we’ve been led to believe that many kids fall ill and get a temperature at day 10. Helen’s been clingy over the past few days so I’ve been wondering if something is brewing.

There are a couple of other reasons for the tense atmosphere at home but I’m not going to say anything just yet. All I’ll say is they’re positive reasons and I hope to be in a position to reveal something shortly.

Oh, just one further point. More conservative readers may have picked up on the fact that our baby monitor was in use at our wedding reception. In an act of full disclosure I confess that little Helen was born before we got married. Nobody’s perfect…

Until next time…