Reading

I only started reading when I was in my teens. Prior to that I was never really interested in books or comics. The only books I have a clear memory of reading are the Usborne Puzzle Adventure series, these I loved and would read over and over again. Other than that I know I had Famous Five and Secret Seven books but I don't remember reading them. The same with Roald Dahl, I remember we had them but don't remember reading them. I never really enjoyed reading, it was always something they made you do at school and those books were always dull. They were books chosen by adults who thought they'd be fun or interesting for the kids, like The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.

Things started to change when I was 12, almost 13. Jurassic Park was released in cinemas and I watched it with my family. It was one of those movie moments which stick with you your entire life, I remember it vividly and still get goose bumps when I watch it. It was total magic, with the CGI looking incredibly real at the time. After seeing the movie I saw the book in the shops and decided I wanted to read it. It was the first chapter book I remember finishing, the first 'grown up' book. I remember the moment I finished it because for me it was a staggering accomplishment. I was sat in the armchair at home, beside the balcony. I remember finishing it and deciding I absolutely wanted to read other books by Michael Crichton. That was the moment I became a 'reader'. From then on my reading started gathering pace. Over the next few years I read The Andromeda Strain, Congo, The Terminal Man, The Lost World and Timeline all written by Michael Crichton. I also read the entire series of Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler, a series which totally appeals to a teenage boy; loads of action, classic cars, alluring women and plenty of humour. Eventually I discovered Terry Pratchett and the Discworld, I can credit his books with vastly expanding my vocabulary, imagination and sense of humour.

So why all the preachyness about reading? It's something I want to pass on to my kids. It's something which is fundamentally important to me as a parent; never mind that I'm a teacher and it's what we tell other parents, that's not why it's important to me. I believe a love of reading is one of the single most profound and life changing interests we provide our children with, it is something they must have in their lives. Reading offers anyone the opportunity to infinitely expand their horizons; reading can change the way you see the world and offer you an escape for a time. I say this as someone who struggled mightily with reading and writing in school, but went on to study and love English Literature and Theatre. 

I should add that my parents sowed the seeds of my interest in reading when I was a child, they read to me every night until I was quite old. I remember being read The Wind In The Willows, The Hobbit, Where The Wild Things Are, and a whole lot of other books. This is how I'm trying to encourage my kids to read. Every night we read three picture books before bed. There are days when neither Sher nor I can be arsed to do it, it would be much easier to use Cbeebies Bedtime Stories (which are brilliant) but 3 stories only ever takes about 20 minutes and it's time well spent. I'll ask some basic questions as I read and the kids respond really well. The kids love the stories, they join in with silly voices, point out everything in the books, talk about how the characters think and feel, and they are totally enthralled every time. Both kids now 'read' their own books, Benny will sit with his book on his lap and go through it page by page (usually back to front but it's still a basic skill), Carys will read from memory, and sometimes sound out the odd word. I'm monumentally proud of both of them. I can't tell you for certain that it's made huge changes to my kids, but I can say that they are both able to express themselves very clearly, both have large vocabularies for their age, and both are able to pick up on some quite subtle meanings within a story. Reading is also an excuse for me to be extremely silly which is something I don't get to do often enough. So, here are some of our favourite books. Christmas is coming up, maybe your kids will like them too?

    

    

   

       

    

    

    

      

    

              

Sickness

I don’t know about other parents but I’ve never gotten used to my kids being sick. It’s something which always causes fear and tension in me. Lots of people told me many things before I had kids, as I’ve said before, but no one really talked about the sickness. If they did it was usually in a “you don’t know what you’re in for” kind of way. It was always, something along the lines of “hope you’re ready to clean up another person’s barf, har har”. No one really mentioned the arse puckering terror of seeing your child’s temperature rocket to 40 degrees celcius. Incidentally if it stays at that temperature for too long it can cause neurological damage. A fun fact I picked up now I’m a parent with access to the internet. 

Whenever my kids get sick my mind will generally go plunging down the anxiety inducing worst case scenario thought track, like a Mack truck with broken brakes plunging into a ravine, there’s little I can do to stop it. The internet only makes things worse. We’ve all Googled symptoms of an illness we’ve had, and we’ve all been terrified to find we have Cancer, Ebola, sudden terminal onset low libido, menopause or just DEATH; and not excema like we thought it might be. 

I TOLD YOU IT WASN'T MAN FLU!!

We all do it, it seems to be a human trait, how many of you watched Still Alice recently then went and told all your friends you for sure had Alzheimer’s? When my daughter recently came down with something it was the weekend, the doctor’s office was closed and we didn’t want to fork out several thousand dollars for an on call doctor. So I consulted The Oracle of all things, Dr. Google. This was, as it always is, a mistake. My daughter had a fever, pink cheeks, a body rash and a cough. Go ahead and Google that. I had a choice of 25 different illnesses to choose from on WebMD, as though it was a sickness combo menu. This was provided I ignored the other results saying it could be 1 of over 100 things, I was after all trying to narrow it down a bit. Of those 25 things the scariest were meningitis, MRSA, and Rotavirus, all of which can be extremely dangerous or potentially fatal. Fortunately I figured it probably wasn’t any of those things, and was more likely Scarlet Fever which was also a choice on the sickness menu. Turns out Scarlet Fever isn’t just something which happened in the 1800s, there’s been a resurgence recently. Another fun fact I recently found out, it’s estimated that about 60% of Staph A strains causing Scarlet Fever here in HK are drug resistant to a particular kind of antibiotic, though fortunately there are alternatives which are effective.

My wife and I recently had a casual discussion about our family’s general health over the past 5 years. We realised that each one of us has been in hospital in that time. Sher wins with the most visits; 3 for babies and 2 for health related surgeries. Carys has 1 surgery to her name, an adenoidectomy which has helped her health somewhat. Benny has been admitted once for a mystery viral illness; he was hooked up to an IV, given fever meds, and antibiotics, after a few days he was released. I’ve been admitted to hospital with a mystery respiratory illness which affected my ability to breathe, caused a constant fever and general lethargicness. I had 3 different types of antibiotics, was hospitalised for a week, and it still didn’t go away. We’re not sure why it did eventually go, but I think it’s because I had osteopathy which helped open up my chest, literally because my lung had partially collapsed with the bacterial infection sitting in the collapsed part. Sher was NOT happy about that one. 

So between the 4 of us, we’ve had 7 hospitalisations over 5 years. This is both a testament to the availability of health care here in HK (THANKS Obama...no wait), and a testament to just how sick we’ve been. We can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve been to the doctor. Carys has quite frequent illnesses, and we think it’s largely due to the pollution here. It’s almost always a respiratory illness. She’s had a postnasal drip since...forever so she’s pretty full of phlegm. From the age of 2 she’s had weekly, if not daily doses of Piriton or Aleve, both medications to stop anti-histamine responses. She seems to be quite sensitive to the air, no joke, she tells us the air is bothering her. When the pollution is high it bothers her nose so much that she’ll be in tears about it. She tells us her nose bugs her and will rub so vigorously at it that she causes a nose bleed. Some mornings we walk into her room and her bed is like the scene of a brutal murder, there’s blood smeared everywhere. Some nights she’ll wake us crying because her nose is so itchy she can’t sleep. That’s with air filters going all the time. We don’t think it’s allergies, it’s year round and when we travel overseas we haven’t had to medicate her. I’m deeply worried about the effects of frequently medicating her will have on her long term health. Similarly, I’m worried Benny will have the same issues. 

A while ago we stopped asking why we were all getting sick. The answers were pretty clear to us; first and foremost for Sher and I it was probably stress about almost everything including but not limited to, money, work, sickness, and money. Next it’s because we live in what one of our doctors called a petri dish. Discovery Bay is a bit of a closed system in some ways. Kids generally don’t leave the island for any reason, all their friends are here, they live here, many go to school here. We can shop here, see the doctor, dentist, go to the gym, swim, eat out, all within a 10-20 minute walk of our homes or a 5 minute bus ride. Once an illness gets into the system it does the rounds, hitting many, many people. It’s difficult to avoid these illnesses because you’re in contact with the same people, the same objects, every single day. This is doubly true for our kids who have a small number of play areas to use here; once one kid smears his boggers over the climbing frame dozens of kids will come into contact with it in a short space of time. Not all parents are vigilant about their child’s health, outsourcing this responsibility to their helper either by choice or necessity (the work culture in HK is insane and toxic in itself, with people expected to stay in their offices until 8pm or usually later, as well as working weekends. It’s just an accepted part of living and working here.). As a result you have kids whose faces are caked in snot running around outside, hacking their wee lungs up, sneezing on every surface including your face and generally spreading whatever nasty bug they have to others.

A final reason we figure we’re all sick frequently, and it’s the one that bothers us the most, is the pollution. It’s been clearly proven that high levels of pollution have been linked with increases in respiratory illness among other illnesses. Here in HK the levels of pollution are high on an almost daily basis, though the government uses standards and benchmarks which are decades out of date which results in their measurements showing pollution levels to be low or moderate. If they used the updated standards we’d see the levels are hundreds of times higher, and thus hundreds of times more toxic. In my lifetime, Hong Kong has gone from a highly desirable location to live and work, to a hardship posting requiring added incentives to get people over here. Despite this the government has no interest in changing things. 

An average to bad day in HK, courtesy of:
http://www.strippedpixel.com/hong-kong-air-pollution/

So, the question for us became how can we stop the sickness. The answer we came up with was simply to leave HK. If it is the pollution, the closed system we live in and the stress linked to living here then it’s time to get the hell out. We can’t in good conscience stay here if it’s costing us our most valuable asset, our health and the health of our kids. Personally, I’m fucking tired of living in fear of my kids coming down with some illness AGAIN, because that means another trip to the doctor, more drugs, possibly another hospital visit. I’m just tired. And I’m angry, I mean thoroughly pissed off like I want to kick the living crap out of someone because the place I live may be causing my family to become ill. I’m angry that the government doesn’t seem to be living up to it’s responsibilities of safe guarding people and tackling the source of so much illness, choosing instead to treat the symptoms. The health care here is great, but I’m tired of having to rely on it on a near monthly basis. I’m also scared that one day the sickness one my family members has will be one of the terrifying Google results. 

At the end of the day, sickness is going to be a part of our lives no matter what. Where you have sick kids, usually you get sick adults too. Kids need to build their immunity so I won’t stop ours from playing in the dirt or socialising with other kids. However, we have the choice to live in a place which supports my family’s overall wellness. It’s a luxury many others don’t have. I reached the point where I couldn’t make up excuses for living here anymore. There are many good reasons to live in Hong Kong, but they aren’t good enough for us anymore. The pros no longer outweigh the cons. We have the luxury of choosing to live somewhere else for the wellbeing of our family and while there are no guarantees being in a new country will be better for us, we’re pretty sure it will do. So we’ve made that choice and are leaving. Sickness can kiss my sweet ass as I walk out the door.

Beautiful Black Holes

This is a black hole, courtesy of Hubble.

Did you see that movie Interstellar? Me neither, but I hear it had some freakin huge black holes in it. Now I'm just a husband, father and space geek so I know next to nothing about black holes, singularities or other spacial phenomena (do, doooo, do, do, do). What I've been told by people massively more intelligent than me, people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, and Brian Cox, is black holes consume everything and anything nearby, then (potentially) spit out matter and energy at tremendous speed. 

This is a representation of a child, who is somewhat like me. Courtesy of Gary Larson.

Now I have kids, I can say quite firmly that they are terrestrial versions of black holes. If you've ever been around a small child at play, meal times, doing nothing at all, you'll understand this. Have you ever seen a young child with a toy? If you don't remember then you haven't, because at some point that toy will have been streaking towards your head at close to the speed of light. If not your head then it will have made a beeline for the nearest most fragile object, or more likely your genitals.

I think parents have a common misconception about children and toys, we all assume kids want the next best toy (at least in the developed world). We fill their rooms with all different kinds of plastic crap which ends up being consumed very briefly by the child, then violently hurled somewhere or at something or someone before being forgotten. Our response is, stupidly, to buy even more crap because it's generally easier than shifting furniture to get at that tiny car your kid threw under it! Thus we feed the little black holes even greater quantities of matter to consume.

As a parent we can sometimes worry in a "we need to talk about Kevin" kind of way because we find dismembered toy parts all over your house. Kids are creative so a Barbie head in the bed, Godfather style, while your child stares and giggles at you from the doorway is actually a likely occurrence. My own daughter has taken to drawing pictures of people on fire, and playing games where her toys are burning. I know why she's doing it, there was a fire in the building which terrified her, but it still unsettles me each time she does it.

Don't forget the cannolis....

Other times we end up cursing the toys or the kids who left the toys lying about because inevitably we've stepped on the pointiest part of them which is of course lying in a prime position to impale your foot. We live in a small flat so at least there are no stairs to tumble down, adding to the agony of our now throbbing foot. The toys we step on will usually break so that's more food for the little singularities. Unless it's Lego which as we all know is nearly indestructible, and can practically lop your foot off if stepped on at just the right angle leaving you to spend the next few minutes cleaning up blood from your fresh wound.

If we're honest with ourselves, we generally hate a lot of the toys our kids have. We worry they don't set a good example for our kids, like Barbie, Monster High Dolls, or the Walter White Breaking Bad doll found next to the kids section of Toys'R'Us. We worry they're made too cheaply to last more than a few moments in the clutches of the intense vortex that is our child. Then there's the aggravation they'll cause us. When I was a kid electronics were small, but not tiny like they are now. My Lego fire truck had two little flashing LED's but it didn't whoop or blare at me, I had to make the noise and I did, very enthusiastically. Toys with electronics were generally pretty clunky things, not to mention expensive. Now though, EVERYTHING has something that beeps, bloops, honks, blares shitty music, or damn near blinds you with flashing lights. Rape whistle make less noise than some of the toys my kids have. They love them, but I want to sacrifice them to ancient Gods in an elaborate pagan ritual involving volcanoes, a scantily clad maiden (played by my wife), the feasting on the flesh of my enemies (very Paleo) and lots and lots of heavy implements for bashing the crap out of the toys. Before I can do any of that though, the batteries in the damn things die because it's been used for all of 10 minutes, and my children wail at me to "fix it Daddy, make it go" and I have to find that one TINY screwdriver that'll open the toy's battery compartment, wherein I find the dessicated remains of an ancient generic brand battery which is covered in more dust than an Egyptian Mummy and turns out to be twice as deadly as one of their curses. Mild chemical burns treated, I can attempt to replace the batteries only to discover the cheap ones that have just taken minutes off my life after I inhaled whatever that powdery crap is on them, have corroded the connections past the point of use. The toy is dead. My children are in pieces, clutching at my legs "why won't it go?! You said you'd fix it!! Ai no Senor!!". And another of the few hairs left clutching tenaciously to the top of my head, like a drunk holding onto his brown bag liquor, turns grey. But the inner pagan ritual guy is dancing a jig, probably naked if I'm honest.

Despite all this, we or in my case my wife, still buy our kids toys. My wife only buys toys secondhand so they're much cheaper but still in pretty good nick. I don't like the clutter we have in our house because of the toys. I don't like that the kids hardly use any of them (I do like that instead they choose to play games together or just sit and draw. I'm quite proud of that actually). I do like that they have the choice of using them, to feed their imaginations, to build stories around or just while away an hour or two in mindless fun. My kids need that, they deserve it and I'm grateful they have it. Play is a fundamental part of childhood, essential to children's development. Toys help. So I'm happy to keep feeding my wee black holes, because the results can be beautiful, even when I'm lying on the ground groaning after some cheap plastic geegaw has violently impacted my Johnson.

True Cliches

In the deep mists of time, long before I had kids of my own, I remember people telling me about what it was like to be a parent. Usually these people were my own parents, maliciously wishing my own crappy behaviour onto my kids so I might experience just how much of a shit I was. Well their wishes haven't come true...yet. As for the other people, they usually had kids and would say the usual things about sleep or sex, you get none of either after kids. I never really liked hearing this because I knew my kids would be different. Sleepless nights? Not my child, they'll sleep through till morning. Sexless marriage? Please, we'll be at it like rabbits (very quiet, safe rabbits avoiding making more bunnies or waking the ones we already have). Fussy eaters? They'll be mini gourmands, lapping up whatever delicious treat they're given; "Daddy I'm loving this pork terrine with the red wine reduction, thank goodness you didn't get me that boil in a bag pasta with oven ready chips!"

Well turns out that certain clichés exist because they're actually true. We have two kids now and i think its safe to say that i haven't slept through the night in nearly 4 years. Exhaustion has become a state of being rather than a feeling at the end of a jolly busy day. The bags under my eyes have bags of their own. If, by some miracle, both kids sleep through the night I know i would wake up thinking something was wrong and do that creepy parent thing where you stare at your child to make sure they're still breathing. Or I shove my finger under their nose to feel for breath. I can guarantee you that doing either will wake your child, sometimes causing mild terror / psychological trauma. 

You know he's going to need a diaper change.

The sexless marriage part is also true, but, mainly because of the not sleeping. Ever. My baby wakes me at 5:30am every morning. We have our morning routine, then i go to work for 8 or so hours. I come home and maybe have half an hour to myself before I pick up my daughter. Literally. She gets off her school bus and I carry her home. Then she wants to be thrown around, or to fly, or for the Tickle Monster (me) to run around after her till she pees on me from laughing too much. That last part happens most days, but its girl pee which is harmless or gives me super powers, plus I shower everyday so I don't smell of hobo. My daughter weighs about 40-50 pounds, my son maybe 20. When was the last time you threw a giggling, flayling, potentially peeing 50 pound weight over your head? I'm developing killer biceps and deltoids but my back is buggered and I generally need a lie down afterwards. Once playtime is done it's dinner, bath, clean teeth, stories and bed time. All that takes an hour or more and isn't finished until 8pm at the earliest. That's assuming there haven't been massive tantrums from one or both kids. After all that, the carrying, the throwing, the tantrums, arguments, thrown food and ritual soaking of the bathroom, the last thing I want is rampant sexual antics. My wife and I collapse on the couch and stare at the TV or just go to bed. The odd occasions when we do have the energy or inclination to have a go, it usually starts with one of us saying "let's do this!" or "we can do this" like we're going to climb bloody Everest. Sometimes I'll put on my Borat accent and tell Sher "it's sexy time" which really helps set the mood, and is way better than "brace yourself love!".

Thankfully food isn't really an issue for our kids. They eat well and aren't too fussy, but meal times are becoming a pain in the ass. Our daughter is refusing to eat, not listening when asked to eat or just plays withher food. This usually ends with her going to bed and sobbing for a few minutes. Its heart breaking on the one hand because she hates being alone, not because she's scared but because she feels lonely. On the other hand, just eat the fucking food! My son can be a fusspot at meal times, mainly because he wants to feed himself now. He's not quite one and a half so he usually ends up wearing more food than he eats. Tonight he tipped his bowl of pasta over his head, wore the bowl as a hat and laughed happily. It was really funny, so it's not all bad and at least our kids have a sense of humour.

I feel so haggard, thank goodness for my heinz baby moisturiser.

At the end of the day my wife and I find ourselves laughing more than anything else. What other choice do we have? I can't fathom being a miserable sod, it takes too much energy and I need all the energy I have to be a good Dad and husband, and occasionally for sexy times.

Reasons My Son Cries

I've been meaning to post this for a while. My wee man Benny is a sensitive little soul and cries for pretty much any reason. So I've decided to list some of those reasons here, it's by no means a complete list and isn't in any particular order. I hope to update it from time to time. Let us begin:

• The lions are coming!
• I'm awake!
• I'm still fucking awake!
• Why am I awake?!
• Why haven't you put me to sleep yet?!
• You're trying to get me to sleep!
• I fell asleep for a moment!
• You don't have boobs!
• Where are the boobs?
• You're not my Mum!
• I'm hungry!
• I'm tired!
• I'm covered in shit!
• I'm covered in barf!
• You're squeezing me too tight!
• You aren't squeezing me tight enough!
• Something loud happened!
• I gotta burp/fart/crap/barf!
• No really, the lions are coming!!
• I'm not screwing around, I really heard the lions this time!
• Stranger!
• Why is this strange person pinching me!
• Elderly person!
• You picked my boogers!
• My teeth hurt!
• You gave me medication for my teeth!
• No one has cuddled me for more than 2 minutes?! I need attention.
• Why aren't you looking at me?!
• Just fucking with ya, I'm not really upset.

Super Sleep Fighter

My wife and I have been living in a miasma of smug for the past 5 months. When people asked us if we were getting enough sleep, if Benny was waking us often, we would smile a little smug smile and tell them that actually he sleeps through the night. He's a great sleeper and only really rolls over to pop a boob in his mouth. It's fantastic and we're both sleeping relatively well, in fact Sher sleeps far more than me because Carys calls  for me once a night just for a chat.

However the smug has begun to lift just recently; when bedtime rolls around now our sweet wee chublet, Benny is temporarily displaced possibly hurled into a parallel universe and replaced by an alternate version of himself - The Banshee Baby. Banshee Baby screams and cries like he's being flayed alive by the Inquisition, then brutally murdered by Jack The Ripper. Banshee Baby wiggles and squirms like a dying centipede. Banshee Baby flails his arms and kicks his legs with such vigour he could take flight if we let him go. Bashee Baby is a world class planker, able to go from soft and squishy yumminess to Oak rigidness in the blink of an eye. Banshee baby is a chameleon with a colour spectrum disorder, going from cute baby pinkness to angry beet red in just one held breath. Banshee Baby is a Super Sleep Fighter.

It turns bedtime into hell. When 7pm rolls it all starts and will go on and on and on for a minimum of 45 minutes. We use all the tricks, he's too old for swaddling, but we still put him on his side, shush, swing, and let him suck on a boob or bottle. None of it works anymore. He just cycles through the various Banshee Baby tricks. It's tiresome, grating, irritating and totally deflating. Every night I put the Banshee to bed instead of my wee Benny I come out feeling like a failure as a parent. It's not unusual for both Benny and I to be dripping in sweat by the time he goes to sleep. When he's being a Banshee all I want to do squeeze him till his wee head pops off, and I don't mean I'm violent with him but the urge to do something - ANYTHING - to stop him crying is absolutely primal and comes deep down from my exhausted, irritable Caveman self. So I'm not just fighting Benny I'm also fighting myself, conciously stopping myself from holding him too tight or making sudden movements that will likely scare the crap out of Benny and make things worse. I never, ever want to hurt my kids, I don't believe in hitting your kids as punishment and I sure as hell don't believe they should be frightened of you or by you at anytime, let alone at bedtime when they often feel most vulnerable. So when Benny does get scared by something I do, I stop everything I'm doing and start all over again feeling like a total, utter wastrel of a person, undeserving of such a wonderful little boy as I have. When Benny does the long silent cry, tears rolling down his face, I just want a do over to take back everything I've done to upset him. But I can't. Instead I accept that I've probably screwed up and start over, calm and controlled.

I've had to relearn how to put my baby to sleep; I'm much better at it now than I was. I'm calm, relaxed and gentle and unsurprisingly Benny goes to sleep much faster. He's still a Banshee Baby, but the Banshee is cast out far more quickly now. As stressful and trying as bedtime can be, I still wouldn't trade it for anything. For all the stress, anxiety and feelings of failure I may experience as a parent; they are totally and blindingly eclipsed by the unreserved love I have for and receive from my kids. They make everything feel better, they are the ultimate cure all; if I could bottle just how good they make me feel I could sell it and pay off the U.S. debt. There is no emotion stronger than the feeling of love and pride for your child, and it really isn't something you can understand until you're a parent. So I may put a banshee to bed most nights, I may feel awful as a parent, but that's completely erased in the morning when Benny presses the reset button by giving me the hugest smile and giggles the moment he sees my face. In those moments, everything is worthwhile, everything is forgiven and I know I'll do it as many times as needed because I love him with every part of my being and so much more. He's my wee man and I'm still a smug parent, just for different reasons now.