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.

Newton's Law of Parental Motion

Sir Isaac Newton essentially created modern day physics back in 1687 when he published his work detailing the three laws of motion and the universal law of gravitation. Thanks to him we all understand what, literally, makes the world go round. We now have a plausible explanation for why the Earth doesn't shoot off into the cosmos like a mishit cue ball, as opposed to the old classics such as the theory of elemental attraction (earth to earth, water to water etc), or because we're at the mercy of God and if you masturbate again young Jim he'll be right displeased and kill us all. This last theory was known to prompt great scepticism in the listeners, along with mumbled apologies, embarrassed exclamations of "Muuuuuum don't talk about that!", and much washing of rather stiff sheets.

However, for years no one has known about Newton's Laws of Parental Motion (Motus Legem Parentis) or indeed any of his Parental Laws (Parentum Iura). This is possibly because it relates only to people with infants. Scientists are known to be rather reclusive and somewhat socially awkward, so procreating can be difficult for them. Physicists have an added reluctance to engage in sex as it falls firmly in the field of biology and that terribly wishy washy field of sociology. Its because there are a lack of scientists with children that we have yet to hear of Newton's Parental Laws. Incidentally its also the reason no teenager wants to be a a scientist, lack of sex being a massive deterrent. So what are Newton's Laws of Parental Motion? I shall explain.

Newton's first Law of Parental Motion states that the mass of an object will increase exponentially when placed in a darkened room containing a sleeping infant, the second law sates that any attempts at silent motion by parents in the room containing the sleeping infant are rendered impossible. His third law states that the amount of noise made by a parent is inversely proportional to how heavily or lightly the infant is sleeping, it is also directly proportional to the new, 'infant influenced' mass of the object making the noise. 

In layman's terms, if you drop a pin while your child is sleeping it will make the same amount of noise as if you had dropped a box full of pins (the box being the same size as a small child), and at the moment of impact the infant will be sleeping very lightly guaranteeing they will wake up. Another example is of parents attempting to walk quietly through the room. During daylight hours this can be achieved with relative ease, even when parents have consumed their recommended daily alcohol allowance before 11am. However when faced with this task at night, and having been forced into sobriety, parents will always step on squeaking floor boards which previously didn't exist; and their footsteps which just hours before would have put a ninja to shame with their swishing silence, now sound remarkably like a herd of wildebeest leaping clumsily through the room wearing combination tap / work boots that are two sizes too big. Given the scale of the noise, we can assume the sleeping infant will be deeply asleep at the time but not so deeply asleep that they don't hear the noise, waking in terror for their lives and screaming to let all persons within a 50 metre radius know this.

A more recent, real world example would be a father who attempted to carry a small glass of water from his bedside out of the room. The parent in question was sober at the time, having only consumed double the legal limit of alcohol to get him through the bedtime routine. When relating the incident later, he said the glass of water was not particularly full, nor did it seem heavy or unstable. However, within walking just 2 metres from his bedside the glass of water became highly unstable, resulting in what seemed like a half an ocean's worth of water but was really only half a glassful being slopped all over the floor, bed sheets and the man's pants. A great deal of cursing ensued before he got a towel and cleaned up the water. Interestingly, the infant didn't wake immediately, instead it remained asleep for a time. This phenomenon is known as the 'Relief Lull', whereby the parents falsely believe they have gotten away with making a noise and not waking the baby. They sigh with relief (some giggle) then continue on with whatever they had planned. The infant, sensing the parents are once again relaxed and unsuspecting waits for anywhere between 2-5 minutes before waking and crying; this is just enough time to allow the parents to get started with their chosen activity and thus cause maximum annoyance. This was certainly the case with the man mentioned above, who had just sat down to watch his favourite geek tv show.

As with Newton's laws,there is a possible link between his Laws of Parental Motion and a newly theorised Universal Law of Infant Gravitation (Lex universa est, infans Gravitas). It has been suggested that infants exert a strong gravitational influence on select members of society such as the elderly, broody women, new mothers, and mothers who judge other mothers. The infants gravitational field pulls these people in to give cuddles, kisses, cheek pinches and otherwise forces these rational people to dance like a marionette for the infant's entertainment. This phenomenon has been seen to occur at great distances, and its been observed that the chubbier the infant the greater it's gravitational pull.

So what conclusions can we draw from all this? First there is an exciting new field of science to be studied! Second, parents drink to excess. Third parents should give up all attempts at moving quietly during the night when their sleeping infant is present. Forth, babies are cunning little bastards who will make you their bitch given the opportunity. And fifth, babies may have super powers of attraction. Damn their cute chubbiness and smiles.

Breaking Point

Breaking Point

Everybody has a breaking point, it just takes the right set of circumstances to push a person to theirs. For some people reaching breaking point means getting laid off, bad days at work, or someone nagging endlessly at you. There are different degrees of reaction to all that. For some it means getting loaded on cheap wine, for others it's anger and resentment leading to news headlines. I reached my breaking point yesterday, when Benny was totally inconsolable, screaming and crying on me. I told Sher I couldn't have a screaming baby on me anymore, I needed a break. For me that's a big deal. I define myself as a Dad who is always ready and willing to help with the kids. To say I didn't want to be with or console my son was terrible and felt a little sickening. 

You might well think that since he's a baby, crying and screaming are nothing unusual, and you'd be right. The trouble is he's been crying and screaming on me day and night for what seems like weeks now. When I get home from work it's late in the afternoon and he's tired, about two hours away from bed. I can get a bit of cuddle time in when he's a wonderful, chubby bundle of joy, but then it's bathtime, followed by the nightly round of I'm-NOT-going-to-sleep-and-you-won't-fucking-make-me bedtime battle, where Benny screams, cries and flails about like an enraged seal until he eventually slumps into and exhausted slumber. Now I don't have to do the bath and bedtime routine every night, sometimes I do it just once or twice a week. It's what follows that has just worn me down.

Benny will wake up after an hour, crying again, then again about half an hour later, then again, and again, and again. This will continue with different intervals of time through the entire night. Consequently neither Sher nor I get a decent nights sleep. I can't speak for Sher, but I'm rarely getting into deep sleep because I'm being woken every 2 hours or so. Sometimes he'll go back to sleep quickly with a few pats on his back, other times, like on Saturday night, he'll be up for 2 hours or more. It may be teething or gas that's keeping him awake, we've medicated him recently and that's helped, but he's also a cuddle monster and hates being in his spaciously appointed cot. We have a very cuddly family, a wonderful thing, but we've also created a wee monster who doesn't like being put down. 

It's not the cuddles that have pushed me to my breaking point, it's the nights. I don't remember it being this hard with Carys, and she was a terrible sleeper for a while. Maybe it's the combination of two kids that's making it so damn tiring, they both wake at some point in the night. I don't think I'm more tired than Sher who is working her ass off in the day and still being woken at night. The thing is, saying that I needed a break from my son felt like I was saying I didn't want to be around him, which also made me feel like a shit. I love him desperately, but I can't stand the screaming, crying and flailing anymore. I can't fight him to sleep anymore. I can't go to bed gritting my teeth in the certain knowledge that I'll be woken again in a few hours by a smack from a grunting, crying baby.

Parenting isn't easy. When we first had Carys people would joke about the lack of sleep we would experience. They did it again before Benny was born. It's never really bothered me that my kids wake up at night and need me. It's my responsibility to help them because they can't help themselves. But I've hit some kind of wall and need a break. It feels selfish, like I'm somehow a failure as a parent or a bad person. I feel terribly guilty, as though I'm letting my family down and burdening my wife with extra care of our kids. But here's what no one ever said when they were laughing at how little sleep I would get: sometimes you need to be selfish as a parent just so you can preserve your sanity and maintain a healthy relationship with your family. Being SuperMum or Dad is all well and good right up to the point it starts destroying the other relationships in your life, or the relationship with the child you're working so hard to raise and love. 

So last night I slept on the couch, and I may well be there again tonight because it was quiet bliss. It will make the difference between going to bed tense, gritting my teeth and anticipating a hellish night, and going to be ready and willing to help my wee man feel better. If being selfish for a night or two is what it takes to be a better Dad and husband then that's what I'll do. 

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.

Night Watchman

So it's been a few months since my last post. Bubs is sleeping through most of the night but there's an interesting byproduct to all the sleep shinanigans that went on.

I'm a light sleeper. I wake up if a pin is dropped (albeit a really BIG pin dropped right near my head...onto something hollow). It turns out my daughter has inherited this from me which is not neccesarily a good thing. Within 10 minutes of both my wife and I going to bed, my daughter will be awake. More than that she'll call for me. She's able to say Mama, Dada or Daddy, and YaYa (what we call our helper). As I'm a light sleeper I was usually the one to respond to her crying in the night. My wife can usually sleep through it for a few minutes, whereas I'm up like a shot in the dark. So now my daughter associates night time with Daddy time! She's also figured out that if she cries I'll go to her. The moment I get to her she's all smiles, giggles and playful slapping of my face (another thing from her Mother....). The process of getting her back to sleep can take an hour, sometimes more. She'll go down, pretend she's sleeping then pop back up just as I get in to bed. All this may sound terribly cute - awwwwww, she's playing a game with you, she just wants more Daddy time! - but when it's 11pm on a school night I defy anyone to be overly chipper.

I'm now developing the talent of falling asleep at her crib, body slumped over, head hanging over the side, baby playing with my hair. I love my daughter to the moon, but it'd be nice if Dad could go to bed and stay there till morning. Having said that.... I do love to have secret quiet time with her, and it makes me laugh that she can now reach my feet or sometimes even my leg at the end of the bed then pinch it.

I am the Night Watchman. I don't care that I'm tired, I just care that my daughter is happy - always. Alright, bed time for me, or not, depends on her.

Sleep Training - My Arse!

Just a little follow-on from my last post, and taking the lead from my lovely wife and her blog (a link to which can be found on the left of this page), I'd like to declare myself firmly against sleep training. Sleep training can kiss my finely toned arse.

Allowing your baby to sit alone in their cot for any length of time while they scream at the top of their lungs because they think they're alone and because they really are almost completely helpless is heartless and cruel. I know parents will do it with the best of intentions and will feel terrible while doing it, but it's still cruel. It was cruel when my wife and I tried it one night. All I wanted to do was comfort my baby. I knew that if I went in there and comforted her she would be asleep within five to ten minutes. As it was, it took forty five minutes of constant screaming before she fell asleep. Neither my wife nor I felt accomplished or in any way validated. I felt like a shit. I felt like I'd failed as a father.

Given the choice between a slightly easier life, where I don't have to hold my little one until she falls asleep after a week or more where she has 'learned' she can fall asleep by herself, and a life where I may get less sleep or be on my feet for longer, I'll take the less sleep option please. My daughter is my priority, that means unless I'm about to fall unconcious from lack of sleep or back pain, unless my tiredness places her at risk, I'm comforting her and making sure she grows up knowing she is loved by her Mum and Dad, and that she is never, EVER alone.

Thank you. I shall put my pedestal away with my high horse now.

Baby Sleeps

I never thought I'd be one of those people that bitch and moan about how tired the are, and so far I'm still not! But only because I'm too bloody exhausted to do it. It's the one thing everyone tells you about before you have a baby, and it's one of the (many) things you hear people say that makes you want to shout obscenties in return (well I did - perhaps I was just overly tired at the time). Our baby is due soon you'd say, cue smug and all knowing smile:

"Enjoy sleeping while you can!", "Oh, you're in for some rough nights", "You know you'll never sleep through the night again".

Until recently I've been fortunate, Carys has slept very nicely only waking every couple of hours for a feed, and only once a night for any extended period of time. I say until recently because she seems to have unilaterally decided that she quite likes the night time and would very much like to be awake, thank you very much. I had baby sleeps all through the night on Monday. Baby sleeps, much like baby steps are small interims of sleep between bed time and morning. I was awake at 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 2am, 3am and finally 4:30am at which point I went and slept on the sofa because I needed more than an hour of sleep before I had to get up and work, at 6am. (I didn't abandon the baby by the way, my wife stayed with Carys and told me to go sleep on the sofa, which is the same as me deciding to do it). This has continued to happen the past few nights, only she wakes for HOURS not moments now. Which leads me to one important questions that all those people didn't answer while telling me how to enjoy my lack of sleep. What the fuck happened?! The answer is of course, there is no answer, it just happens and you have to roll with it. Tired or not.

Incidentally I was tired before this. What no one really mentioned (to me at least) was that even if you have an angelic baby who sleeps for hours at a time during the night and has random bouts of narcolepsy during the day, you'll still feel tired. It's not so much the missed sleep that makes you tired, it's the all work we do during the day that does it. That's what's really tiring, whether you're in an office or are a full time Mum, you'll have so many other things on the go you just feel exhausted. At the end of the day having a baby is tiring, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually and any other way you can think of. You have to pour your life into theirs because they need you more than you need rest, food, sleep, relaxation, sex, friends, work, you name it. So I'm going to enjoy the baby sleeps while I can, I'll catch up on any missed sleep when Carys is a surly teenager and is embarassed by my slowly decaying existance, not to mention my naff jokes.