Now, I’m not daft, I knew that there would be what you might call “sleep issues” with a new baby, I was expecting that. I thought it was something I could cope with, and in general I am, but for some reason I was expecting a fair degree of stability.
I thought well he’ll wake this number of times at night, and then he’ll go to sleep easy when he is tired during the day.
Not much fun the other day when we took the baby to the doctors for his second set of injections. The first time we hit upon the fact that straight after the injections we stick a bottle in his gob and he calms down quite quickly.
So we were all ready again this time. He reacted with much louder crying as the needles went into one thigh and then the other. As the plasters went on the bottle went in. He gobbled at it hungrily and that really did help him calm down.
Unfortunately while I was holding and feeding him one of his thighs was against me – the one that decided that a little bit more blood than normal was coming out. So there I was a father with his child’s blood on his jumper. We got him cleaned up and covered up again, but this is a first – he’s deposited a number of bodily fluids on me, but this was a first time for blood!
So we did go to the Baby Show in the end, though it was a bit touch and go for a while as I didn’t receive money until the Thursday morning. So onto the website I jumped and I plumped for the all-inclusive ticket package which gave us two tickets, parking, a Tommee Tippee Bottle Warmer and lunch. I felt that it was a good deal and I was much happier about the idea of getting there and back in the car rather than risk the tube or trains.
Overview
As we had only purchased tickets at the last minute we would have to collect them at the front office. Unfortunately this wasn’t apparently something that the staff guiding the cars in were aware of as even though we explained we needed to pick-up tickets we were told to go straight to the car-park. Don’t! The parking tickets are with the rest of the tickets which you need to get from the main box office in the entrance hall.
The Baby Show was very well attended both with exhibitors and visitors but only rarely got too crowded to move with a buggy in places which was good. The dedicated changing area was good and well-stocked, and there is a feeding area though we didn’t use that as the other half fed him while wandering around instead. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a new thing for me, a new thing for both of us and I’ve realised that I’ve been messing things up.
Trying to work from home is proving difficult enough as it is, what with those tiny little demands or desires to help out with the baby, or around the house. They are so many little cuts to the work of the self-employed man.
And I get frustrated. I need sustained time to get things done, to focus on the more complex, otherwise all that gets done are the small tasks, the easiest, least complicated. So my work suffers.
And the frustration seeps into the rest of life – so many times I get to the end of the day and feel I have done so very little. And I ponder staying up all night to do things, but know that if I do then the important family life will suffer as they get a tired, grumpy, anxious daddy.
And so when there are chances for us all to go out as a family to do things, meet friends, etc. I see only the opportunity to stay at home and do the things that I have not been able to do at other times.
Then a fortnight ago I realised what I was missing. This time when we are all at home is going to go by so fast, and is so precious, that it’s criminal for me to just chuck it all away.
So for the last two weeks we have chosen a day each week to get out and go places, just the three of us. We’ve managed to choose lovely sunny days, probably the last before Autumn properly sets in, and been out to parks and National Trust houses.
They’ve been beautiful, fun, precious times – I kick myself for not realising earlier that my focus was off – and we’ll continue to do them for as long as we can. Rain or shine.
So we did go to the Baby Show in the end, though it was a bit touch and go for a while as I didn’t receive money until the Thursday morning. So onto the website I jumped and I plumped for the all-inclusive ticket package which gave us two tickets, parking, a Tommee Tippee Bottle Warmer and lunch. I felt that it was a good deal and I was much happier about the idea of getting there and back in the car rather than risk the tube or trains.