Wide Awake On the Edge of the World

A rather harrowing weekend, I think it would be fair to say.

I had to go to a meeting in a small town in Bedfordshire on Saturday. What with it being about 90 miles away, and the meeting itself being a couple of hours, that was most of the day gone.

Whilst I'd been enjoying the thrills of Britain's motorway system, K___ had been picked up by Suzy (I was going to write S___, but since she's forever coming on here and commenting every time we mention her, using a Blogger name that makes it abundantly clear what her real name is, I'm not going to bother) and spent the afternoon with her and her three kids, her husband, our friend M (who again does not require underscores because he really does go under the name 'M') another couple of their friends and the bloke who had turned up to rip out the old and install a new kitchen without any warning that he was going to do so. Plus another couple of kids and a dad. Oh, and the other mum and three kids that arrived as we were leaving. A little bit of a mad house it's not unreasonable to say, though in the nicest possibly way, of course.

K___ had been there for most of the afternoon by the time I arrived and Olivia hadn't spent very much of it asleep, and we know what a baby without much sleep means. Horrible evening. Continuing the sleep theme, my Dad called up to say that my brother was going to be down for the night, and could they please have their pillows back that they'd lent us? Since we had bought replacements and had them on the spare bed for a good while now, it really was a little naughty not to have given them back before now. With all of this in mind, we left Suzy's quite soon afterwards.

With just a quick stop at ours to pick up the pillows, it was round to my folks'. Thereafter followed a misunderstanding about waking Olivia that, a couple of hours later, resulted in K___ and I shouting at each other. I'm not going to go into details, because neither of us come out of it looking terribly great - it was fundamentally rather trivial, and raking it up again for your enjoyment, dear reader, would be a bit tragic. The pertinent facts are that when it came to her last meal of the day, (taken as I sat in the other room stewing over our row), Olivia was extremely sleepy and reluctant to drink. Eventually, K___ had to admit defeat after just two ounces of a usual six.

K___ and I made up after a bit of sitting in different rooms and smarting. We agreed that babies can frazzle you. At about eleven thirty - a little on the late side for us these days - we got up and went to our bedroom, expecting to quietly go to bed, a plan that was slightly scuppered by the sight of a tiny baby with glistening, slimy vomit caked over half her head and face, Grobag and mattress. We hadn't heard a thing. As K___ sorted a new Grobag and sheet for the baby's mattress, I took her into the bathroom and tried to get her cleaned up. The chuck was a mixture of milk and mucus and there was no way this was going to come off with just a sponge. She needed a full hair wash, so I had to wait for K___. Fortunately, Olivia seemed rather unfussed by the whole thing, even quite smiley. She certainly wasn't as fussed as one might imagine she'd be. We got her washed and dried and put into a new Grobag.

We decided that as the baby had only had two ounces anyway, we needed to feed her. It was clear that it had all come up in the incident, and it wasn't really on to expect her to sleep without any food. I made her a new bottle and K___ tried to get her to take it. We thought she'd be ravenous. Nope. After twenty minutes she'd given up and had barely had two ounces again. At least that was back to the starting position. We decided that if she was going to need feeding in the night, we'd just have to put up with it. There are plenty of new parents who have to do it, so it would hardly kill us.

We turned out the light, and started to settle. It was five past midnight when the baby honked all over herself for the second time. Still, we thought as we settled down to sleep at half past twelve, at least Sunday can't be as bad...

You Learned Your Lesson Far Too Late

Went to a Postnatal Group this afternoon at the clinic where I usually get Olivia weighed.. An NHS letter came in the post from the Heath Vistitor inviting us book a place as spaces were limited. This all made it seem like it might actually be worth going to but the first session was a bit disappointing. It ended up just being a discussion thing with a load of mums in a room nattering about babies. No offence to those there, all of whom seemed nice and a few of whom I knew from our antenatal classes, but I have my own friends to sit around and natter with. I thought it would be more along the lines of the antenatal classes where we were actually taught stuff. The Health Visitor did ask us about what we wanted to achieve in the next 3 meetings and people asked for information on establishing sleep routines and weening so maybe the future sessions might be more interesting. Next week, however, there is someone coming along to do a session on baby massage and as I am doing a whole course on that I don't think we will bother. I did have an opportunity to get Olivia weighed though, as we missed clinic yesterday as we were coming back from Lincolnshire. She has had another big gain this week and put on 13oz over the 8 days to get up to 11lbs 5oz. She is still following the 50th centile though so remains terribly average :)

Hot Fuzz

We've spent this last weekend with the in-laws in Grantham. It has been the site of a momentous stage in our post-baby relationship; the first date.

Yes, at two months and two days old, we left Olivia with her Grandma and Grandpa and headed off into the real world without her. We planned to catch a movie and then have a meal. Perhaps, the wrong way round, but that was how the timings worked out (and we were aware from our blogfriends, The Bradsteins, that first dates do not always go without a hitch). With their experience in mind, we were careful to ensure that we checked the time of the movie carefully! K___'s mum and dad only live three minute's walk from the cinema, we didn't actually leave the house until the programme had got underway. We were able to cope with the idea of not seeing some adverts, for some reason.

Our choice of flick was Hot Fuzz, a peculiarly British take on the US cop buddy movie, replete with hundreds of pastiches of the genre. We certainly enjoyed it, and I'm sure it will be a DVD purchase at some point. Some of the cartoony violence had the entire audience screaming with a mixture of disgust and laughter, and the trans location of US/John Woo-style gun play in a tranquil English village made for some amusing scenes.

Upon leaving we made our way to the Chinese restaurant at the top of K___'s parent's road. Before the cinema, K___ had suggested that we could get a take-out and take it back home, but we agreed to see how we felt at the time. We felt okay. Part of this was undoubtedly the fact that we were a mere couple of minutes from where Olivia was. I think it's fair to say that I was less bothered about being away for a few hours than K___ was, and undoubtedly this is because I'm so used to going to and being at work for eleven hours a day, five days a week. K___ was a bit more apprehensive; the only times she's had away from Olivia have been when I've taken her off to see my parents for a few hours. Whilst neither of us worried that she'd come to any harm in Grandma's capable hands, it's just that thing of neither of us being with her.

Nevertheless, we had an excellent sit-down meal in the restaurant (top tip: five spice tofu - yum!) and enjoyed having some time as a couple rather than as Mummy and Daddy. An hour later, we walked back to K___'s parents. Olivia's nappy needed changing.

We'd been gone a little over three hours. We really must do it again.

A Passion Play

A scene from earlier this evening...

Dramatis Personae:
DAD_TO_BE - A mid thirties father of a six week-old baby.
OLIVIA - a six week-old baby.

INT - LOUNGE - NIGHT

A man, DAD_TO_BE is sitting in a dimmed room cradling his baby daughter, OLIVIA, in his arms. His wife has just left the room. He talks to the apparently-sleeping baby quietly.

DAD_TO_BE
(sotto voce)
We love you, Olivia.

DAD_TO_BE looks at the baby as if to guage her reaction. She remains apparently unmoved and asleep.

DAD_TO_BE (CONT.)
(sotto voce)
Daddy loves Olivia.
Daddy thinks Olivia is
his masterwork, yes he does!
Daddy thinks Olivia is the
best thing he has ever made...

The man stares down at his child, full of emotion as, with perfect comedic timing FX: OLIVIA loudly farts.

The baby opens her eyes and smiles.

Welcome to Your First Party

On Sunday we took Olivia to her first party. Here she is in her finest party dress. Actually, this is a post party pic, hence she looks a bit knackered and blootered...

Admittedly the guests were all the same babies that she sees whenever she goes out with Mummy to meet up with the NCT girls, but nevertheless, this was a full on 'par-tay'. There was booze and nibbles and a buffet and \m/ RAWK \m/ (although it wasn't very loud, so it was more '...rock...').

It also marked the first time the dads had seen each others' kids. There were a few comments about what'd happen if we got a child-parent relationship wrong, followed by nervous laughter, but it was okay. No major faux pas. It was fun to play 'Whose Baby Is It Anyway?' Some of them really do look exactly like Mini-Me versions of one of their parents and it's very easy, but some less so. I expect we all left thinking how nice the other babies were, but 'ours is the cutest'. Only we were right, obviously.

Also present was R___, the tutor from the NCT classes and it was a bit odd. There were two other couples who had attended the classes but didn't want to sign up to the YahooGroup we set up to keep in touch. One couple, we subsequently learned, had several magazine deals sorted out, and emailed us to ask to be removed from the group so we're guessing they were so flush with the wonga from whoring their child out that they didn't want to associate with oiks like us any longer. Oooh - special! As for the other pair, we have no idea. They simply never responded to any emails. Regardless of magazine deals or whatever, everyone was invited to come along to the do but, with the exception of R___, it was those of us who are already meeting up anyway.

This meant R___ was a bit of a spare part. No one was being rude or anything; we all made the effort and took our babies over to be admired and the like but that was the problem. We were 'making an effort'. She didn't fit in. I know it was her suggestion that prompted us to set up the YahooGroup and to keep in touch and we're very ungrateful people, I suppose. It wasn't like any of us had any major questions to ask her though and it just seemed odd. It didn't help that she'd brought her eight-year old(ish) daughter with her and made the poor girl come around with a piece of paper and get us to fill in our baby's name, DOB and birthweight. 'I'll send everyone a copy of this,' she said. But we already knew... Did I mention it was a bit odd?

I'm in danger of making this seem like a much bigger thing than it was. It wasn't bad, just... odd.

It was a splendid do though, even if I think we've all become a bit crap at drinking. We brought a couple of bottles of white wine with us. Drank one between three; hardly dipsomaniacs. There were a few beers doing the rounds, but not many. It was all very sedate really. One of the dads wasn't drinking at all, but this was due to the fact that he was recovering from the previous night, so perhaps we've not all become quite so sensible.

Here's the bairns all lined up. It looks like the starting grid for a baby version of the Wacky Races or something. Olivia is nearest the camera.

I've just notice that she appears to be attempting to perfect a 'brain-claw' or maybe she's manipulating a very small puppet on a string and it's about to go a bit 'Being John Malkovich' on us...

This probably makes her the 'Dick Dastardly' of the gang.

I Can't Take My Eyes Off You

I am still not quite used to writing the word 'daughter' yet.

It has concepts of... I was going to write 'possession', but that's not quite the right word, and no, I didn't mean in the demonic sense (mind you, she had a few moments last night)... perhaps jurisdiction is a better word, and responsibility that are so far above anything that I have ever had to deal with before.

I have a responsibility for things at work that can potentially affect several thousand people directly in the employ of the local authority for which I work. By the nature of my work in information governance, it could be said that people like me have a responsibility for the protection of tens of thousands of people. Indeed, the courts haven't been slow to point the finger at those tasked with the responsible sharing of information when failures have occurred in the past, and rightfully so.

However, this is not like the responsibility I feel for my own child. Not even my obligations and responsibilities towards my wife feel like those I have for my own child. This is not to denigrate my wonderful, amazing wife in any way. To a large degree, it's simply the recognition that K____ doesn't need me. She chooses me because she wants me, because in ways that I cannot necessarily always fathom but am nevertheless unbelievably grateful for, I enhance her quality of life.

My daughter needs us for pretty much everything. She can poke herself in the eye. She can cry by herself. She can do the autonomic stuff - breathing, heart beat, digestion etc., but beyond that, Mummy and Daddy have to do the feeding (sourcing, preparing and presentation for the purposes of eating), burping, nappy changing, ablutions, moving around, clothes washing and drying... Obviously I am aware of the fact that not one person on the planet doesn't understand this, but it doesn't lessen how great a responsibility it is to get used to.

I'm still getting used to having to organise everything around this tiny person in the corner of the room who holds all the power in this relationship. I'm still getting used to the fact that my time may (and probably will) be interrupted by the requirements of this small person (it's somewhat amazing that I've managed to write this entire entry in one go!). I'm still getting used to the fact that I cannot go to sleep unless the little person decrees it is acceptable, and that I must wake up on her demand (and I acknowledge that however much my life is disrupted, it is at least twice that amount for K___, who is constantly brilliant in her new role).

But here's the thing that amazes me about all this new hassle and being at Olivia's beck and call. It amazes me even though people with children told me time and time again that it would happen, because understanding the concept is not even close to being in the reality and that is this; I love it.

I am still not quite used to writing the word 'daughter' yet, but I'm getting there.

News from the Front

It's been a hell of a five days...

Here's a quick re-cap of some vaguely noteworthy moments:

Large swathes of both sides of the family have been to see Olivia now. This weekend, K___'s elder sister and her two kids have been down as have both of my brothers and their other halves.

My dad is coming back on Wednesday. He tells me that although his mother is near-as-damnit demented, she had managed to keep K___'s name in her head and has taken on board that she is a Great Granny.

I've been changing nappies like a demon and I've actually become pretty efficient at doing it too. I spoke to my friend B____ and I commented that the smell was not too bad at the moment and barely worthy of mention. She tells me I should wait until weaning and reconsider at that point. I expect she's right, but at least I should hopefully be a master of dealing with nappies by that point.

This makes it all the more unfortunate that when my brother and his girlfriend arrived, I was changing Olivia. I got distracted in talking to them and after cleaning her up, I then proceeded to put the baby into a new vest and all-in-one at which point my brother's girlfriend said, 'er... Shouldn't you put a nappy on her?'. Yeah, made me look really clever, that did. Gallingly, it's the first time it's happened, honest!

I did cause another unwitting comedy moment when the doctor came over for the world's most pointless house-visit. He came over to say congratulations and to give us a packet of papers about post-natal care, including a hearing test for six weeks after the birth. Why not send them in the post instead of sending a doctor to carry out errands, taking him away from the surgery? Still, I was possibly just having negative thoughts because I found it hard to believe this young chap could possibly be an actual doctor. He looked about twelve! This notion rather disturbed me so I wasn't paying proper attention when he asked, 'And how are the discharges down below?'
'Not bad,' I answered, 'They've gone green!' The doctor looked rather appalled for some reason.
'Darling,' said my wife gently, 'He means me...'

I have also discovered that Zygote Daddy was lying when he claimed the baby smell was vomit and stale milk, since Olivia has the most gorgeous smell you could possibly imagine and had it before she'd had either milk (colostrum only by that point) or vomitted.

Olivia's umbilical cord came off today during a bit of skin-on-skin lovin' (very important for babies to bond by getting used to the smell of their parents!) and she now has a clean looking 'stump' that will gradually turn into a normal belly-button. Well, we hope so!

---

The Blog

I'd like to make a few points about the blog, if I may.

I've re-written the description at the top, as having a thing banging on about 'My wife has just missed her first period (etc)' is rather redundant now Olivia is here.

We're going to stop numbering the days too. I hope we'll continue to post on here often and have every intention of doing so, but at the same time as we're finding plenty that is noteworthy about this parenting lark, we've got very much less time than we ever used to have to write about it and putting ourselves under the obligation to do so every day is a pressure too much.

We'd also like to thank everyone who has read the blog over the past 9 months and kept us company on this amazing journey and particularly those whose own blogs have provided inspiration, laughs and companionship along the way (and let's raise a pint to whoever thought up the wonderful labour-saving notion of RSS feeds too!).

It's a weird old thing this blogging lark. In many respects it's hideously egotistical to put your thoughts down in a public place and dare to imagine that what you have to say could possibly be of interest to anyone else. But we've come across people that we would never have met otherwise and I hope that we've managed to be informative too. However, as I did once write somewhere before, the reason I wanted to start the blog in the first place was so that one day, I could give it to my baby. Now, of course, that baby has a name and a sex and a personality, and I want her to be able to read about this stuff more than ever.

I've Got a Photograph, I've Got a Picture of You

(Olivia asked if I would let her write this miscellaneous gallery entry herself, so I'm going to correct her spelling but otherwise hand over to her for a bit.)

"This is me doing a yawn while being held by my Daddy. His job is to change my nappy and I did a very brilliant joke on him where I did a poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo but I only did it three times because more than three violates the cardinal rules of comedy. It was very brilliant.

"I like him.

"This is me about to have my first bath and you can see my cord is shrivelling and black and Debra who is the lady that caught me when I came out says it will fall off soon and this is very brilliant.

"This is me having my first bath and I used to like Debra but now I am not sure and I know I don't like baths - they are not very brilliant at all.

"Debra is checking my heart and my lungs and she says they are very brilliant so now I like her again and she also checked my reflexes and did this thing on my legs where she checked me for clicky hips and my Mummy and my Daddy both went a bit green when she did it but it was okay really.

"This is me and my Great Nana who I am named after and she was very happy to see me and she liked me a very lot indeed and she wasn't even rude about me like she was about my Daddy when he was a baby and this is because I am too cute for words and even people who aren't related to me say that this is the truth so it must be.

"I like her.

"I am sitting with my Mummy, my Nana and my Great Nana and this makes four lots of ladies in a row and my Grandma is taking my photograph and it is very brilliant indeed.

"I am very tiredly now and I think I am going to ask my Mummy to make me some foods and then I am going to have some sleeps in my brain. That would be very brilliant."