Get out of the way please - I want to hug your mother

As a child I watched my parents do all sorts of exciting things as a married couple. I also watched them continuously attend / deliver all the myriad of activities we excitedly embarked on, from French horn lessons through to breeding Siamese cats.
When you move out of home (much to your parents relief , especially if you are less than 30 years old) you set off to explore the world and find someone to spend the rest of your days with.

If you are lucky enough to find such a some-one, when you first get married it's announcing to the world that not only are you ready and able to look after yourself but that you also believe you have the ability to shoulder the responsibility for another.

When the first child is born suddenly that's all that matters and every thing else is re prioritized. It's like some one hit the Go switch and you're off and running with a vague idea of the route but no map.

You cease to be the couple and immediately become the  parents. You try and try to still be a couple but you get consumed in the hustle and bustle.

Gone are the romantic camping trips .

image courtesy of aber.ac.uk

Gone are sleep ins and slow brunches

Gone are the long dinners and discussions of what the future will look like, because it's here right now - you are in it.

Now that our two are almost teenagers we realised that in the not too distant future we will be retired and will need to spend large volumes of time alone together so we had better get back to basics.
It's so easy to get caught up on the hustle and bustle of being parents that you easily forget about your partner and more often that not yourself. So here is what we are going to do.

Set aside time to be a couple and remind ourselves why we got married and had kids in the first place. (Because lets face it my original idea of raising the kids to be our little slaves has NOT worked out at all.)

We have decided to keep it keep it simple, a little like the army reserve - one night a month and one weekend a quarter.

As a side note date night the first time we tried this our date was over in 30 minutes because we did all the things we would do with the kids :
1) Pick a restaurant that serves entrees, main and desert all at once.
2) Pick a noisy place with service so fast, the food must have been flash fried

So as we walked home we planned the next date a little more carefully.

image courtesy of pureluxury.com

Anyway we figure getting away once a quarter or so should be fine as getting the kids baby sat and planning a night away somewhere can resemble a military campaign.  But I can happily report that after the first effort, I am indeed looking forward to the next one. Even though a) I played Golf and b) It was played in the pouring rain and gale force wind.

So utilising all my knowledge gained from my online amateur psychology degree (that's still in the mail) - I issue the following instructions :

1) Stand up, walk away from the computer.
2) Push any small children / distractions away from your partner (they'll be fine)
3) Give your partner a hug

Repeat as often as required.

Now , I'd better stop messing around here on the Internet and prepare some conversation cards for the next date, I can't afford to run out of stuff to say........

Being a new Dad - the first years

I noticed that all of my posts thus far are about my semi-grown up kids and not so much about what it's like when they are first born / younger, which for a lot of you is probably going to be helpful information ( if you want to avoid the feeling of "what the hell am supposed to be doing" that I felt )

So I thought I'd reflect on some of what I went through ( over a couple of posts) and hope it helps. After all we look at Brittany Spears and marvel that if she can raise a kid whilst being completely nuts there's probably hope for us all.

I'm not going to bother with the birth because it seems everyone has a story to share and really there's not much you can do but be there, hold hands and marvel that later you can tell your wife that you saw the inside of her during the surgery to remove a stuck kid.

Its certainly nothing like the Lion King with everyone showing up to marvel the newborn with music and song. What actually happened was the doctor handed me the kid with his leg bent the other way and his foot facing the inside of his leg.

The doctored chuckled and said "that's how he was in the womb, look... " and proceeded to refold him like an accordian and then unfold him.

The next 20 mins were completely surreal as I was just standing there holding my son with absolutely no idea what to do so I did what  I always do when I'm stuck - I started to just talk to him. It's probably the only time he has ever listened completely.

Anyway eventually they let us take the kid home and I decided to go back to work straight after because there were too many women in the house and I felt so useless. I think it worked well as they eventually left and we could get down to the serious business of parenting.

Because it was winter we assumed that the house had to be warm so we heated it up. Oh boy, did we heat it up. Every heater was turned on.
The first heating bill was more than my salary as we kept the house so hot for the kid to avoid any issues. From then on we used blankets and clothes.

So time began to pass and I must of demonstrated some responsibility because I was told that I would be left on my own to manage the kid whilst a dinner was attended.
As you know she has always been organised so when I was finally left alone with him - there was a list.

All the things I had to do were laid out and the foods to feed him were in individual containers. So it's simple right ?

I put him for the first feed in the high chair and opened the container. Kiwi fruit , too easy.

I get the spoon put some fruit on and hand it to him. I turn around to do something else and then turn back to the kid

The spoon is clean.

Sweet. All good.

So I repeat.

5 minutes later and the bowl is empty. I am on fire here. All I need to do is wipe the excess fruit off his face now.

I felt a drop on my shoulder. I wipe at it and see that it's fruit. I look up.

Who new kiwifruit could get on the roof ? Who knew how hard it is to clean fruit off the roof ?

I'll leave you with one last thought.

Kids will learn routines and you will change.

The eldest was about two and quietly playing on the floor whilst we were heatedly discussing our finances. After a while we both looked around the room and we realized Chris was no longer with us in the room.

We started frantically looking around and found him standing by himself in the dark in his bed room waiting to be put to bed. He knew when to go to bed and we had completely missed it.

Both of us hung our heads in shame and we realized from that point on it was no longer just about us.

It was about our family.

So don't worry and definitely don't panic because after all you're not Brittany Spears-  you're a Dad !