Baby Blue: Thoughts on fatherhood from a new dad

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

2011-02-23T12:30:00.000Z

OK, I promised a "catch-up" type post, so here we go. There's a lot to get through, so no dawdling!

It's a Jump to the Left...

Walking. It's a big thing. Tricky, too, for us bipeds. It's also one of those "big parental moments" that you always hear about. Any number of adverts, TV shows, movies and novels all hype up the excitement of Baby's First Steps(tm). It's also one of those moments that in real life are surprisingly hard to identify. Babies don't just one day decide to get up and walk (or at least Alex didn't). Instead, it's a gradual thing.

First off is cruising. (For those who don't know, cruising when babies do it is walking around whilst supporting yourself on the furniture. It should not be confused with any other activities of the same name but less innocence.) Cruising is practice walking and involves a great deal of falling over. Thankfully babies seem to bounce remarkably well (I think it's all the padding in their nappies), so the repeated splats are nothing to worries about. Cruising is also the point at which you realise that anything lower than waist height is no longer safe. Books in bookshelves? Whipped off and gummed to death. Cats in baskets? Grabbed. Plates of food on side tables? Smeared into the carpet. The lower shelves of your house quickly become homes for toys and unbreakable things. (Or ornaments you don't like that you have been given by well meaning relatives with sizeable inheritances and limited life expectancies who you do not wish to offend by throwing their gifts out.)

Walking is after cruising, obviously enough, but where in the great wobbly transition between the two are Baby's First Steps(tm)? Is that unsupported lurch from couch to chair a step? How about that stagger then splat he managed whilst going for the cat? In truth, it's probably whatever you, as a parent, choose it to be. For Nic and me, it was Alex stumble-falling between us as we sat on the floor in the hall, five feet apart, arms outstretched to catch him. That'll do for me.

And Then a Step to the Right...

Once walking is achieved, life becomes at once easier and more difficult. Easier because you can just plop your child down and let them walk about themselves. Harder because the little buggers are surprisingly speedy and have absolutely no sense whatsoever. As far as I can tell, Alex's thought processes in those early walking days went like this:

"Oh! What's this? I guess I'll just whoah!" *whamp* "OK, that wasn't what I expected. How about if I do this?" *whump* "Hmmm, interesting...."

Much like cruising, the bumps and bashes from falling over while learning to walk seem to cause more concern for parents than babies. That said, even Alex cried when he did a forward flip off the couch and onto the floor, although that was mostly due to dropping his raisins.

One of the best things about Alex learning to walk is that he's now learnt the concept of holding hands. If he wants to show you something, he'll come over and hold out his hand for you to take before leading you over to it. (It's usually the fridge (milk) or the cupboard (raisins).) That's kind of lovely.

With Your Hands on Your Hips...

Alex's ability to express himself has come on in leaps and bounds as well. Partly it's speech. (Again, Baby's First Words(tm) are impossible to pinpoint timing wise, although we can say with some certainty that Alex's first word was cat, just not when he said it.) Simply being able to form "yes" or "no" responses (by nodding and going "ayh" for the former, shaking one's head and going "nonono" for the latter) to questions is a massive improvement over screaming. It's more relaxing for parents and more useful for Alex, as we're able to understand what he wants much quicker. We're obviously still limited somewhat by vocabulary (yes, no, cat, Dada, Mama, quack quack, milch, more milch, MORE MILCH!, banana, hello, bye-bye, car, shoes, teeth, cheese and book being about the current limit) but it's surprising how much you can understand vague grunts coupled with gestures and practice.

Alex also understands an awful lot more these days. It's kind of surprising, really. You'll be wittering away to him when he will suddenly do what you've asked him, even if it's a complicated task. Taking things out of the washing machine and hanging them on the rack, for example. OK, he doesn't make a great job of it (flat is not a concept he has yet grasped), but that he makes a job of it at all is what's impressive. It's remarkable to watch.

It does also mean we have to watch what we say now too! No more casual mentions of the word "banana". Not unless you want a howling child.

You Bring Your Knees in Tight...

Yeah, I don't have much for this line, other than Alex still having tickly knees. Should have thought this whole timewarp theme through before I started it.

But it's the Pelvic Thrusts That Really Drive You Insa-a-a-aane...

They don't warn you about the pelvic thrusts. They really don't. It's obviously just some "I'm all warm, comfy, safe and happy" response, but dear God, it's weird. It's like being humped by a scotty dog in dungarees! Make it stop! Please!

Let's Do The Time Warp Again!

Housekeeping

2011-02-04T12:22:00.000Z

Ahem... Right... So... Err... Gosh, it's been a while. I'm kind of out of practice at this. Bear with me...

It occurred to me that this blog could really do with some sort of rounding off post(s). Some sort of "in hindsight" kind of thing, addressing some of the issues I talked about back when I actually talked about anything. So that's what this is. A recap and review. A bit of a catch up will follow in a later post.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

Reading back through these posts, the first thing that jumps out at me is, "Gosh, I worried about everything, didn't I?" I suspect that barely constrained terror is the natural state for first time new parents (and maybe second, third, fourth or even more-th new parents), so it's not that I feel silly about it. It's just noticeable how much it influenced my thoughts back then.

I can't really say when the worry faded. I guess it was a gradual thing. Slowly you begin to see that your child is doing well, that you haven't dropped them on their head (or at least not from any significant height - falling off the couch doesn't count) and that they are happy and healthy. (At least, assuming nothing horrible has happened. That it didn't is something I'm eternally grateful for.) You become better at distinguishing between "there's something horribly wrong!" and "I want to touch the cat!" cries. You begin to understand your child's routine and act upon it. (He's getting grumpy + it's 12:30 = nap time.) Play becomes fun for both parties, some of the time. (Other times, man, you just don't want to have to fetch that ball from under the seat once more.)

Obviously there are still worries. Is it safe to let him play with a hoover? (Probably not, but it's much less hassle than not letting him do so!) How do we get him to sleep past 5:30am? (No idea.) Is he big enough to play on the slide? (Yes, sort of.) But somehow, they are lesser worries. The elephant of terror that came and squatted in my guts for the first 9 months of Alex's life has upped and buggered off. Yes, it's stressful. Yes, you worry. But it's less oppressive. Less all encompassing. Thank god.

And Another Thing...

The other thing I notice a lot of in my old posts is sleep, or the lack thereof. That's still an issue. Alex's sleep has been somewhat erratic for quite a while now. Basically he has been tending to wake up between 5am and 5:30am. We've tried a bunch of things (which I'll cover in the catch up post), but nothing has really taken. I guess that a lack of sleep is just a function of parenthood. For anyone expecting, get your shut eye in now! People are not exaggerating when they say you'll be more tired than you've ever been. What are you doing even reading this? Get to bed! Now!

He's Got a Ticket to Ride

2010-05-25T16:43:00.000+01:00

Caution! Baby Blue does not advocate letting your child drive your car! Doing so is dangerous as they can't reach the pedals. Plus, they're well know to be speed freaks. And the insurance premiums are murder.

Alex is rapidly outgrowing his car seat. Technically it is usable until he is 13kg (he's around 9kg at the moment), but he's long for his age, and so his feet stick out from the end rather comedically. Add to this the fact that Alex + car seat = about half a ton, and it was becoming clear that it was time for a new car seat

Joy.

Buying car seats is a tedious, expensive and time consuming activity. They come in roughly one million different flavours and each one has a subtly different set of features. In addition, buy the wrong sort and you're risking firing your child through the front windscreen in the event of an accident, so it's stressful too.

We were in need of a group 1 (9-18kg, or roughly 9 months to 4 years) seat. It also needed to be a seat that fitted into our car (a 207). If it happened to cost less than one major organ, that would be a bonus. Nicola, being far more organised/interested/caring/just-plain-better than me had scoped out our options on-line and found that a Britax Prince Forward Facing Group 1 Car Seat - Alex was likely to be our preferred choice. (Alex is the colour. It's not a personalised seat!) There was one in the local Halfords, at the same price as on-line. Result.

Come Monday (a day off, for reasons of hospital visits) we went round to check it out. It was great. Sort of. The very nice man in Halfords fitted the demo version for us. It didn't quite fit totally. You could use it half reclined (really pretty upright) or totally reclined, but not completely upright. And if you wanted to adjust the recline, you had to loosen then re-tighten the seatbelt each time. (Thus increasing the possibility of getting it wrong at some point or worse, waking up a snoozing Alex whilst doing it!)

"Would you perhaps be interested in the newer version?" the man asked. "It's got added side impact protection..." he tailed off, leaving the clear implication that we were bad parents to skimp on Alex's safety for the sake of £40. (Despite the fact that all car seats have to meet stringent safety regulations.) We looked unconvinced.

"Plus, you can adjust the reclining without undoing the car seat."

Maybe we could just take a look...

So out comes the Britax Eclipse Forward Facing Group 1 Car Seat - Jet.Which fits much better. And is comfier looking. And has "added side impact protection". And you can adjust without faff. And costs almost as much again.

The nice man takes the previous one inside. Nic and I quickly confer. We decide that the ability to adjust the reclining quickly without waking Alex is almost certainly worth £40. (We couldn't give a stuff about the "added side impact protection".) But is it a decent price? A quick check of the internet (what did we do without mobile browsing I wonder) reveals that we could save £5-10 on it, but we'd have to fit it ourselves. And probably collect it from Livingston, knowing our luck with couriers. We decide to go for it. The nice man fits our brand new car seat.

Alex doesn't get to ride home in it though. We're not sure if he's actually big enough! We haven't weighed him in a while, so our estimate of 9kg is just that, an estimate. Nicola is going to take him along to the clinic on Thursday and see if he's big enough to go in his new seat. If so, forward facing adventures here we come!

(Oh, and Nicola pointed out that the sight of two child seats side-by-side was enough to put her off having a second for a while yet!)

* * *

Off topic self-promotion: Check out my article at the Escapist!

Raspberry Ripple

2010-05-19T13:38:00.002+01:00

Alex and his Granny Tatty are communicating.

*Thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp!*

*Bhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp!*

*Thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrthp!*

*Thrrrrrrrrrrrrpah!*

I don't know quite what Alex thinks he's saying, but it apparently the funniest thing in the world.

In case it's not clear, Alex has learnt how to blow a raspberry. He is delighted by the discovery and takes every opportunity to show it off. Fun toy? Raspberry. New person comes into the room? Raspberry. Tasty food? Raspberry. (A particularly messy raspberry this one.) The joy of blowing a raspberry is only topped by the joy of having someone blow one back, hence his farting conversation with Tatty.

Copying has become a new favourite thing for Alex. Well, I suppose I should say having others copy him has become a new favourite thing. He's always been somewhat pleased when you talk back to him, but recently a parroting of his babble gets big smiles. He also enjoys slapping his palm onto the table top/orange juice carton/ surface of the water/cat (pick the nearest, if tied, pick the fluffiest) in a staccato rhythm then having you do the same. For one thing, it's fun. For another, it means the cat savages you and not Alex. The sacrifices we make as parents, eh?

Holidays and a Toothsome Treat

2010-05-14T12:00:00.001+01:00

Ahh, nothing like regular updates, is there? Bit of an epic this one, so let's get started.

"You are now leaving Yorkshire. Are you sure?"

The last week of April Nic, Alex and I were on holiday with Nic's parents, Alan and Hazel, and her brother, Douglas, and his wife, Christina. (Granda and Grannie Sinclair, Unky Doug and Auntie Christina, respectively.) We were staying, as always, in a self-catering cottage just outside the North York Moors. It's peaceful, beautiful and relaxing.

It's also bloody miles from Dalkeith.

Now, I know it's not really that far in the grand scheme of things. It's a good deal further from Aberdeen than Dalkeith, for one thing. But this was the longest journey we had ever undertaken with Alex, so we were somewhat worried about how it would go.

We timed our trip down so that large parts of the drive would be over standard Alex nap times. It turned out that he decided not to nap in the morning, but that was ok, as he spent the first hour chatting to his book. Then it was lunch time (pork terrine for mum, quiche for dad, spinach goo for Alex). Then we were back in the car and off again. Alex fell asleep pretty much instantly. And stayed asleep. The whole way there. Joy!

Once we got to Wrelton, I discovered an ancillary benefit to having a baby. You get the best room in the house. (The other bedrooms were too small to have a cot in them and, strangely, Alan and Hazel didn't feel like sleeping with Alex.)

The other primary benefit is that you have a cast iron excuse for not going on long walks. ("Gosh folks, I'd just love to spend three hours tramping over a moor, but I don't think the buggy will make it. What a shame. Pass the cake, would you?") An option to avoid exercise, other people to entertain Alex, tasty food made by someone other than us, what more could you want?

Well, how about not being woken up at 5 o'clock every monring by a bright eyed and bushy tailed little boy? It was no doubt due to the long car-based nap during the first day, but Alex's sleep was a little out of whack all holiday. (The first day required a few minutes controlled crying to get him off to sleep.) Each morning he'd wake up and demand fed and played with horribly early. Then, just to rub salt in the wound, he'd fall asleep again at around six for an hour or so. It was not an uncommon occurrence to find both Alex and me asleep on the kitchen floor first thing in the morning. (Alex usually got the best spot, rolled up in a blanket.) Ahh well, if I have learnt nothing else from parenthood, I have at least learnt how to sleep anywhere and at any time.

During our holiday we discovered that frozen peas in an empty milk carton make a great toy, that peacocks like organic apple flavoured rice cakes and that Unky Doug and Auntie Christina are so entertaining that merely being in the same room as them causes fits of giggles. (It can be galling as a parent sometimes when you've spent the last hour busting a gut to raise a smile and someone else wanders by causing great amusement by simply existing.) Alex also got to make friends with seven (count 'em, seven) different cats! Much happiness. And I caught a fish. (From a very heavily stocked trout lake.) Alex behaved well on the way back home too. And we cured the five AM thing pretty sharpish once we got home too! (Thank you, controlled crying.)

All I Want for Christmas...

All of Alex's little friends (those from our NCT ante-natal classes, who I now habitually refer to as "our NCT litter" after having seen a litter of kittens on holiday, and those from NCT Bumps and Babies) seem to have at least one tooth. Often they have several. Alex, by contrast doesn't.

Until Tuesday, that is! The discovery was made by Nicola on the bus on the way into town to visit Grandpa JRB. A glint of white, poking through his lower gum. A definite ridge of toothy-ness sticking out of the soft, pink gum. It explained why his eating my nose had hurt more than usual that day!

A tooth! Hooray! We were beginning to get worried. (Or I was a t least. I don't know about Nic.) Now nose eating ("kisses") is off the menu. (It really, really hurts with a tooth!) It may also signal the beginning of the end for breast feeding too, if Alex starts biting down with his new found dentistry. That will be a big step, and not one that anyone is really looking forwards too, I don't think.

Your Nose!

2010-04-16T11:10:00.001+01:00

(A link to the song behind the title. And this is the album and book it's from.)

Alex was splashing around in the bath last night (his new favourite game is to try and burst all the bubbles from his bubble bath), grinning away from himself. Then, just for a moment, he looked up at me. His smile widened, his eyes crinkled and his nose wrinkled up in an expression of shared joy. Then he went back to splashing around. This happens every now and again. Alex is having fun, and he wants to share it with you. It's only for a moment, but that ephemeralness is what makes it such a beautiful moment.

If there is anything better in the world, I have yet to experience it.

In Which the Author Witters at Length on a Variety of Subjects in Such a Fashion That it Cannot be Pithily Summerised in a Pop Culture Reference

2010-04-14T12:45:00.001+01:00

OK, so apart from two silly posts about ducks and slang, it's been quiet around here of late. There's a good reason for that. It's called sleep deprivation. (Having a child makes you understand how keeping someone awake can be a form of torture. Child rearing should be governed by the Geneva Convention!)

You might remember me talking about this before. Around Christmas time Alex's sleep patterns got very disturbed. Nic and I tried a few things, some of which were more successful than others. (Solids helped, the mobile helped, my getting up and trying to get him to sleep didn't help so much.) Each thing that helped bought us a brief respite. We'd go from three wake ups to two (or sometimes even one). But Alex would gradually creep back into the habit of waking and demanding fed more and more often. By two weeks ago he was waking five times a night. (That's as much as when he was first born!)

Obviously this was incredibly tiring. It was bad enough for me, (the loss of restfulness from just being awoken is remarkable), but was unbearable for Nic. She was lucky to get six hours sleep in four broken blocks. We were quickly approaching the living dead. (Hell, the living dead were probably a lot more perky than us.) Something had to be done, and it had to work.

The something we went for was controlled crying. For those who don't know, this is leaving your child to cry at night, while checking in on them at regular intervals. You don't pick them up. You don't feed them. You basically don't do anything that can be construed as rewarding crying. You just sit there and listen to them suffer. (I use "suffer" quite intentionally. That's what it feels like you're doing.)

So on the 4th of April we moved Alex's cot out of our room and into the nursery. In and of itself that was a big step. We've always been able to hear him snuffling and huffing as he sleeps before. Now all we would hear would be what the baby monitor transmitted to us. (Any noise above a whisper, it transpires, including, but not limited to: dog's barking outside, Ringo meowing in the hall and whatever upstairs are watching on TV. ("Bring on the wall!")) Still, it was going to be easier this way than trying to listen to him cry in our room.

I took the first shift. We were following the Supernanny approach, which is: visit once when they cry, leave them for a minute. Visit again, leave for two minutes. Visit again, leave for five minutes. Visit again, leave for ten minutes etc, until they stop crying of their own accord. At ten PM Alex woke up. I went and shushed him and then went back to the sitting room. I was playing the Xbox in an effort to distract myself from the crying coming over the monitor. (It worked pretty well. The monitor distorts the sound sufficiently that it doesn't quite sound like Alex, avoiding the emotional gut punch you normally get with your baby crying.) After about 45 minutes of crying, Alex went back to sleep.

The next wake up was at midnight. This time it took him only 20 minutes to get back to sleep. The 1:30AM wake up was only for five minutes. The two Nicola dealt with in the remainder of the night were less than five minutes of crying.

The next night we put Alex down and crossed our fingers. (Or rather Nicola did. I was out at friends.)

He didn't wake up once.

In fact, so soundly asleep was he we had to go and check he wasn't dead! (He wasn't, obviously. But he had managed to turn 90 degrees in the cot and was now sleeping crushed up against the headboard totally uncovered.) The next night, and the night after were the same. Bliss!

We've now got to the stage where we expect a full night's sleep. The last couple of nights he's woken up at 5:15AM or so. This might be due to our timing of bed on Sunday (it was very early). We're trying to break this habit before it gets started. (He doesn't get picked up at 5:15AM, just like he didn't get picked up at 10PM.)

Nic and I are gradually catching up on lost sleep. I wouldn't say we're quite there yet, but we're at least back in the land of the living. Long may it continue!

Ducks in a Row

2010-04-13T12:39:00.000+01:00

Alex has been slowly collecting a veritable flotilla of rubber ducks for bath time fun. They're a varied breed, the rubber duck. So far we have (from big to small):

Big Duck
Mr Duck
O2 Duck
RNLI Duck

Big Duck

Largest of all the ducks, Big Duck was a present from Grannie and Grandad Sinclair. Big Duck is a plain yellow duck, with a tuft of hair and a squeaker. The squeaker is something of a design flaw though, as he inevitably gets squeaked under water, resulting in him filling up with water. As a consequence Big Duck tends to float on his side.

Alex has recently got very into Big Duck, to the extent of ignoring whatever duck is in the bath and staring at Big Duck until he is brought into play.

Mr Duck

Original, and dare I say, best. Mr Duck is the most simplistic of all the ducks, having no tuft of hair or other extraneous features. Mr Duck is the only duck not to be moulded in mid-quack. Perhaps as a result he is the only duck without a squeaker. This means he's also the only duck that doesn't have a hole in him and thus the only duck to float reliably upright. If he has a weakness it is his tendency to grow mould on his arse. (Mr Duck is the duck in the picture.)

O2 Duck

A gift from Grandpa Grant, O2 duck was not technically for sale from the O2 shop. As a result he was not technically bought. Thankfully Alex is below the age of legal responsibility and so is unlikely to be charged with handling stolen goods. O2 duck has a touch of red blush to his colouring, a tuft of hair and a squeaker. He floats on his side too.

RNLI Duck

Another gift from the Sinclairs, RNLI Duck is the smallest duck, but is also the most elaborate. As well as a squeaker, tuft of hair and red blush, RNLI Duck sports a life jacket. (Despite the legendary floatation qualities of rubber ducks.) Ironically, RNLI Duck tends to float face down in the drink.

Om-nom-nomenclature, pt. 2

2010-03-31T12:37:00.000+01:00

Just a daft wee post while I attempt to muddle through a haze of sleep deprivation. A few more parent-speak words and phrases for you.

Terrier-ing: (Verb) Lunging towards something, mouth wide open, shaking your head frantically. Usually towards food, but parents' noses are an acceptable substitute. Think of a small, yappy type dog worrying a bone to understand the allusion.
3 Nappier, A: (Noun) A massive poo of such volume that a mere single nappy is insufficient to contain it.
Dad Monster, The: (Noun) A creature of great menace and threat. Known by its ferocious cry of "num-num-num-num" as it attacks.
Exposed Side: (Noun) What the Dad Monster (qv) cannot resist. Usually exposed by rolling over, stretching and clearly thinking "gosh, I hope no-one tickles me while I'm lying like this..."
Gentle Strokes: (Erm... err... look, grammar isn't my strong point, ok?) Grabbing fistfuls of the Ringo's fluff and wrenching as hard as you can.
Stinking Medicine: (Noun) Movicol Paediatric Plain.
Jacket Time: (Noun) Nerrr-ner-ner-ner, nerr-nerr, can touch this! (Alex gets to play with his plastic bib jacket after meals.)
Rockin' Out: (Verb) Laughing at your parents dancing around to whatever tune is on 6 Music in an effort to get you to eat your dinner. (Guitar tracks particularly appreciated. If nothing good is on, a hummed version of Smoke on the Water will suffice.)

Injury Time

2010-03-15T16:56:00.000Z

OK, so I've been a touch lax in updating the blog recently. It's not that nothing has been happening, just that I've not got around to documenting it. So, with that in mind, here we go with a super-sized post!

Grande nappiccinos

When we last left our hero, he was struggling with some poo issues. After a bout of constipation, Alex had moved (boom-boom) on to producing tiny, high density pellet poos. (HDPPs.) These were very small and had a curious texture, rather like wet peat. They also stank. Really, really badly. They were clearly difficult to pass too, as poor Alex would go bright red and gurn while trying to fire them out. We started feeding him lots (lots!) of fruit, especially prunes, and some laxatives from the GP. Finally, something shifted.

And oh boy did it shift! The first "normal" (non-HDPP) poo was epic. It required not one, not two, but three (count 'em, three) nappies to contain! Gushing would be a good word. To say Alex was relieved is an understatement! His tummy is now noticeably less taut. Poos have returned to more normal volumes and regularity, although they still really pong. I suspect this is a side effect of solids and will not change.

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Alex has also been experimenting with causing bodily harm to his parents of late. (His Dad specifically. I don't know if he likes Mum more, or if Nic's just faster than me.) So far Alex has jabbed me in the eye with sufficient force to make opening said eye difficult for a good five minutes and rammed a finger so far up my nose that he caused it to bleed. (My nose, obviously, not his finger.) He's also cut his own ear with a pointy fingernail. We try and keep his fingernails cut to reduce these incidents, but the only way you notice they've got sharp again is when someone looses an eye.

In charge, but not in control

Last Thursday Nic went in to the office for a couple of meetings while I stayed home with Alex. I've said before that I don't know how Nic manages to cope so well at home most days, and last Thursday has left me no more informed on that score! Alex and I coped, but I'm not sure how well we'd do in the long term. (Apart from anything else, it's a weird mix of terror and boredom. Like the Army, but with less bullets and more Bargain Hunt.)

During the day Alex and I went to both the baby drop-in clinic at the health centre (he now weighs 7.96kg, or 17 & 1/2 lbs) and Rhymetime at the local library. I was the only dad at either one. I guess this isn't surprising given how childcare and parental leave are divided up in the UK, but it's still a bit of a shame. (It's also remarkable to hear some of the nursery rhymes sung at Rhymetime! Talk about old-fashioned stereotypes! The woman running Rhymetime at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed about it, although only when it came to stereotypes about dads. Ones about mums sailed right by without comment.) We also had a nice time in the garden, where Alex attempted to denude the lawn of grass, one handful at a time. (He wasn't interested in eating it though, thankfully. Just pulling it up, looking at it, then discarding it.)

Night fever

The day after I was looking after Alex we had our first real health scare. About lunchtime he went grey, spaced out, head flopping, and then spewed. He was also boiling hot. Nic phoned the health visitor, who said she'd get the emergency doctor to call back, then my dad, who said just to go straight to the GPs, as they'd want to see Alex anyway. Once she was there they diagnosed him as having a viral infection. (GP speak for "you're going to feel like crap for a couple of days, but you're basically fine and there's nothing we can do anyway".) Alex seemed to be ok-ish once I got home, albeit somewhat subdued and clearly running a fever. When we had our regular bath though, he did the grey faced spacing out thing again. We dosed him with calpol and prepared for a disturbed night.

In fact he slept relatively well over night. It was just that when he woke up it was a touch more... interesting than usual. First time, Nic fed him then went to give him some more calpol, at which point he vomited, with extreme prejudice. It went all over him, his sleeping bag and Nicola. Especially over Nicola. Her pyjamas, her hair and even down her pants. I was handed Alex to change while Nic took a shower at 2am. The next feed he managed to only puke on his sleeping bag and a bit of Nic's jumper.

The next morning he seemed a bit better, although still a bit off his food. No more spew at least. By lunch, the fever seemed to have broken. JRB warned us that kids often appeared to get better from viral infections before having another fever (although this doesn't seemed to have happened to Alex), so we didn't count our chickens at that point. By the evening he looked to be in that "I'm not really ill any more, but I'm too knackered to do anything" stage. By Sunday, he was right as rain. If anything, he was in a better mood than he'd been in for days. He stayed bright and breezy all day. He was fine this morning too, so I hope we've survived this bout of illness. Let's hope so, anyway. It was no fun at all.

Welcome to the World, Baby Brown

2010-03-02T10:54:00.002Z

Congratulations to Esther and Al Brown, who had a baby boy, Hugh Alexander, last night. 7lbs 4oz, mother and baby both well. A new friend for Alex!

Le Chat Noir

2010-03-02T10:53:00.000Z

I wrote previously about Alex and Ringo's mutual ignorance pact. Well, the pact has been well and truly broken. Alex is now very, very, VERY interested in Ringo.

This interest seems to have been sparked by a trip to Fife, where he was allowed to stroke my mum's cats. Since then Ringo, and cats in general, have become the greatest things in the known universe. If there's a cat in the room Alex's eyes will be glued to it. If the cat comes near him, oh! The sheer joy!

It can be pretty funny to watch. You can see the interest and excitement in Alex's face. His thought process seems to go something like: Cat! Cat! Cat! Fabric! Cat! Cat! Patterns! Cat! Cat! Dad. Meh. Cat!

About the only thing better than looking at a cat is getting to touch a cat. Ringo is particularly fuzzy, so is particularly interesting to touch. His long, silky fur is also, rather unfortunately, particularly easy to grab in a chubby fist and rip from his body. Unmoderated cat touching can result in a baby with hairy palms and a grumpy looking mog with bald spots. The best solution is to hold Alex's hand whilst stroking the cat, allowing Alex to get a feel of his fur, but preventing him from getting a handful of it. This leads to big grins of pleasure as he strokes the cat.

Ringo is amazingly tolerant of all this. The poor beast has been demoted from his rightful spot as head of cute brigade, generally neglected in favour of a pink, gurgling thing and now he's getting tufts ripped out of his coat! Despite this he's never even threatened to lift a paw to Alex. In fact, he'll sometimes come over and speak to Alex of his own volition. Thank goodness they get on.

Poo Update!

2010-02-25T16:19:00.002Z

He's done one! Woo hoo!

Apparently all he needed was to have his bowel problems discussed on the internet for all to see.

Maybe Tomorrow

2010-02-25T10:58:00.004Z

(Hideously catchy explaination of the title.)

Alex is a little blocked up at the moment. At both ends, unfortunately! He's managed to combine a stinking cold with an epic bout of constipation. How bad you ask? (Well, you probably don't, but tough. I'm going to tell you anyway.)

He's not had a poo for seven days. Seven days! How is there even any space left for food? How come he hasn't exploded? He's eating just as much as ever (although he is throwing more of it back up than usual). Where is it going? More to the point, what on earth is it going to be like once it finally comes out...?

There's a curious dichotomy to your child's poo. On the one hand, a day without poo is something of a blessing. On the other, it does mean that he's saving up a real cracker for tomorrow. After seven poo-free ("Poo free! As free as the wind blows!") days, what's the first bowel movement going to be like? Evil, I'm betting. Something of a relief for Alex too, I should imagine.

Surprisingly, he doesn't seem in the least upset about it. I'm sure that if I'd gone seven days without taking a dump I'd be pretty hacked off with life. Not Alex. He's just as happy as ever to jump about, eat noses and fling soft toys about. (Carrot-Rabbit and Mr Lion (pictured at his interview for the position of soft toy (0-6 months)) are the current top toys.)

We've had a quick look on the internet (mmm, trustworthy) and asked JRB (famously missed the fact that I had measles as a baby) and come up with no really good answers. More fruit seems to help. Sometimes. If you can get them to eat the damn stuff. Alex was due to have mushed pears for breakfast today. Goodness knows if he ate any of it. (He's a real junk food addict. Boxed Heinz baby food or nothing! (That's an exaggeration. He likes his home-made cauliflower and potato mush as well.))

Fingers crossed. Maybe tomorrow he'll want to settle down to a massive dump. Even better, maybe he'll do it when I'm not there!

P.S. Google ad on the dashboard of the blog as soon as I clicked "post"? "Feeling bloated? Try Activia!"

Little Man

2010-02-11T10:52:00.001Z

When I arrived home last night, Nicola and Alex were sitting in the kitchen, watching dinner cook. Alex was in his high chair, Nic was on a dining room chair. When I said hello, Alex turned around, gave me a big smile of greeting and then went back to watching the veggies roast. That little moment was one of the times I've felt most connected to him since he was born.

It can be hard to see babies as people sometimes. Alex is tremendously cute and I love him to bits, but the same can be said of Ringo. For the first few months, babies really are like cats in clothes. They know what they want and they can tell you if they're happy or upset, but beyond that it can be hard to see the person they're going to become. As adults we don't stuff everything we see into our mouths, nor do we take great delight in holding our own feet. Babies do. They're learning about the world, one tiny step at a time. It's obviously necessary, but it makes them seem like a member of a different species sometimes.

Alex's response when I got home was so obviously human, so easily intelligable, that it really brought it home to me that he is a person. A little man with likes and dislikes. Not just a cat in clothes.

P.S. Three updates in a week? What's going on? Could it be that I'm doing literature work at the moment and any excuse to avoid it for five minutes is most welcome? Surely not.

EDITED TO ADD: Hmm, re-reading this it sounds rather like I was suggesting I didn't feel connected to Alex before. That's not what I meant, rather that this was a moment of particularly heightened connection.

Mobile Reception

2010-02-10T11:50:00.000Z

Meet the newest recruit in our war on wakefulness. I give you the Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile (tm)! (No, that isn't Alex in the photo. It's a promotional shot from the Fisher Price homepage. I was way too tired to bother taking a photo of a piece of plastic.)

Basically, it's a fancypants mobile. Strap it to the cot, place baby underneath it and sleeping ensues. At least in theory. To aid sleep, it rotates under its own power (or at least under the power of four 'D' batteries, not included) while (and I quote) "animal friends from around the planet twirl and smile down at baby as music plays and a fascinating light show dances up above".

The "animal friends" are a curious assortment. They are: Yellow Lion, Green Crocodile, White Polar Bear and Cyan Whale. Yep, you read that right. Cyan Whale. I can only assume he's cyan so you don't mistake him for a 190 tonne Blue Whale. They apparently represent different environments on Earth. (Ocean, Savannah, Tropical and Arctic. No love for the temperate regions it seems.) The "fascinating light show" consists of slightly fuzzy pictures of the same four animals, plus a couple of friends. (In wanton disregard to geographical accuracy the polar bear is snuggled up against a penguin. The lion at least gets an appropriate giraffe and hippo combo. (All baby toys must have a giraffe on them. It's the law.))

The music comes in three varieties. Classical, as rendered by one man and his electric keyboard. (Assuming said man had lost nine of his fingers in an hideous Casio accident some years back but struggles on gamely with his one remaining finger.) Nature sounds (a wee inducing collection of waves lapping the shore and gulls skwaking) and inter-uterine heartbeat and white noise.

The very best thing about it, though, is the remote control. Clearly designed for parents who have not had much sleep, it has a single, massive button (marked with a red arrow, just in case you missed it) and little else. If all you could manage was to mash the controller with your face you would still be able to operate it reliably. Amusingly it is marketed as letting you "restart the mobile without disturbing baby". Ha. Restart the mobile without getting out of bed more like it. If I need to turn the bloody thing on it's because baby has already disturbed himself!

Enough cynical whinging though, let's get down to the nitty gritty. Does it work?

Yes. Yes! A thousand times yes! God bless Fisher-Price! All hail the mighty powers of Cyan Whale! (All right, I might be over selling it a bit here. It's not a magic bullet, but it really does help. Alex particularly likes the nature sounds. So far we've had two successful getting back to sleeps with the aid of the mobile, and it's very handy for getting him off to sleep in the first place. Nicola's hairdryer may finally go back to only being for drying hair.)

So, fingers crossed, maybe we'll get a chance to catch up on some sleep soon. Then perhaps I'll be able to work out how to operate that damn remote control...

(Photos in this post are from http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=10&e=product&pid=48400 and are used under fair use/fair dealing. Please don't sue me! We got our mobile from Amazon.co.uk and I'd heartily recommend any parent to get one!)

Food, Glorious Food...

2010-02-08T10:49:00.001Z

...Lukewarm milk and baby rice!

Alex is on to solids. Well, I say solids. The weird goop that is Heinz First Foods Baby Rice isn't solid in any recognisable sense of the word. It looks like wallpaper paste. It smells significantly worse. God alone knows what it tastes like!

We've started weaning a touch early (the advice is ideally to wait until 6 months) in a vain effort to get Alex to sleep better. (Still waking up three or four times at the moment. Urgh.) The health visitor suggested it would be worth a shot. If he wasn't ready, he wouldn't eat it. If he was, it might help him settle over night. Well, anything's worth a shot at the moment!

Having got used to breast feeding, solid food is a bit of a palaver. First, boil the kettle half an hour in advance. Mix tepid kettle water with formula powder. (You can use expressed breast milk for this too, but that's even more of a pain.) Create 40mls of foul smelling milk substitute. Mix in somewhere in the region of 2tsps of Baby Rice. (A very curious substance. It's actually rice flour fortified with vitamins, not actual grains of rice. It looks a bit like artificial sweetener to me.) Add more rice if required to create a sludgy, slightly lumpy goo of a viscosity somewhere between natural yoghurt and unset cement.

Next, prepare Alex. Dress child in all over plastic smock (oddly decorated with a picture of a toddler holding a monkey). Add further cloth bib around neck. (The rice would just slide down the plastic smock and end up on his trousers.) Put child in high chair. Stuff cushion down the back of the chair to prop child up. (Alex is really a month to young for the chair.)

Feed child. Because it's just that easy...

Actually, touch wood, so far it is pretty easy to get the food into him. Alex was clearly ready for a bit of solid food and lunges at the spoon with glee. Sadly, he doesn't lunge with a whole host of co-ordination, however, and it often results in the spoon ending up in his cheek/chin/nose rather than his mouth. He's not quite grasped the whole swallowing thing fully either. Specifically, he's a touch confused as to whether or not you can breathe out at the same time as having a mouthful of baby rice. (Answer: yes, technically. It does mean your parents get showered in rice goo though.)

Gods, solids already. Doesn't time fly?

Happy Feet

2010-02-02T14:06:00.000Z

You may have noticed a drop off in the blog rate over the last couple of weeks. It's not that nothing has been happening, it's just that I've been way too tired to write anything. Alex is still waking up over night. A lot. As much as he ever has, including when he was very little. Every three or so hours he'll wake up, snuffle and thrash about, then cry. Sometimes he goes back to sleep just being rocked. Sometimes he doesn't. My routine for getting him back to sleep goes like this:

Wake up to thrashing.
Hope he'll go back to sleep. (He never does.)
Ignore first few nyaps hoping he'll go back to sleep. (He never does here, either.)
Wonder if Nic will get up and deal with him.
Admit that it's probably my turn.
Get up. Freeze.
Shush Alex in his cot, not picking him up so as not to encourage this sort of behaviour.
Pick him up.
Rock back and forth until (if) arms go floppy.
Lower to the inverted prawn position (tummy to tummy, Alex's back arched towards horizonal away from me). Rock until (if) arms go floppy again.
Put sleeping child in cot.
Take wide awake child out of cot again.
Repeat steps 9-11.
Give up and wake Nicola to feed him.

Poor Nic gets awoken by his snuffles and cries even if I do manage to get him back to sleep (which is getting rarer and rarer). If I don't, she's up for an hour or so, once the pre-feed, feed, settling time and getting back to sleep time are factored in. It's not making for the most compos mentis parents at the moment.If anyone has any advice, we're at the stage of trying anything!

* * *

In other news, Alex has found his feet. Strange to think that you have to learn to become aware of your own body. He is very interested in them. Any opportunity he gets he grabs them. (This requires being on his back on a flat surface at the least. Ideally, he likes to be naked, thus allowing full flexibility.) He hasn't quite got them in his mouth yet (perhaps he takes after his paternal grandfather in terms of flexibility), but I suspect it's just a matter of time. Last night they were even more interesting than the duck during bath time, and that's saying something!

Alex's bedtime is also getting earlier. He's now noticeably snoozy and grumpy by 6:30pm. This means bath time has been brought forwards to before Nic's and my dinnertime. On the plus side, it means we get to eat a grown up, adult dinner at the same time as each other. (Something of a novelty.) On the down side, my god am I hungry by 7:30! I've been spoilt by Nic having had my tea on the table when I got home. Still, I'm sure we'll enjoy it, once we're not so tired we fall asleep in our lasagne.

Sleep Talking

2010-01-22T08:19:00.002Z

12:40 AM. Alex snuffles himself awake. As per the system, I drag myself out of bed to try and get him back to sleep. Alex is not for playing ball. Eventually I pick him up to see if that helps. Apparently not. I give in (it's been 15 minutes now) and go to wake Nic so she can feed him.

"Sorry, love, but he's not going back to sleep."

"Okay. I'll just be... Zzzzzzzzzzzzz-snark-zzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Right, guess it's just you and me then, Alex.

P.S. He did actually drop off again pretty soon. He wanted to be rocked side to side with a bit of up and down in the mix. Demanding and specific. Just what you want in the middle of the night!

Sleepyhead

2010-01-20T10:57:00.000Z

One of the side effects of our great Christmas marathon is that Alex's previously brilliant sleep pattern (one awakening per night) has got all shot to hell. First, it was sleeping in funny places. Then it was the cold. Then being back home. Then being away again (Aberdeen, this last weekend). He's now far more disturbed over night than he used to be. It's pretty demoralising.

It's also hard to know how to deal with it. The difference between "I've awoken and am a touch confused and grumpy, but will settle on my own/with a quick shhhh" and "I am hungry and wet" is impossible to spot at 2am.

While Alex was sleeping well, our overnight system was that Nic would feed and change him to let me get a reasonable night's sleep for work the next day. Because we're creatures of habit, and also because I'm a lazy git, we didn't change this routine when Alex started waking more. Suffice to say the toll taken on Nicola was pretty high.

We've not got a new system in place. By default, before 3am if Alex wakes, I go and try to get him back to sleep with the head-pin shush. This is usually, but not always, successful. (The last two nights he's woken at 12am and refused to go back to sleep.) The first awakening after 3am, Nic does the feed and change routine. So far, it's been pretty successful. I'm far better than Nic at getting back to sleep, so it doesn't matter too much if he wakes me up three times in an hour and half. (Like last night.) Plus, we each have a half of the night where we don't need to respond unless called in by the other. (This happens more to Nic than me, it must be admitted.)

Hopefully Alex will, over time, get back to only waking up once, then maybe not at all, during the night. Of course, that might be a while away yet!

Baby Talk

2010-01-17T13:47:00.002Z

Babies have their own language. I'm sure that if you could understand gurgles, it would unlock the secrets of the universe. I can't though. I can translate the language of parents though.

Stinker: (n) A poo. Traditionally "laid", as in "Alex has laid a stinker."
Pung: (v) To pop off the nipple, often with enough force to wake yourself up. Note that pung is past, present and future tense. "If you keep wriggling like that, you'll pung."
Do The Prawn: (phrase) To curve one's body backwards into a ")" shape. The allusion is to a live, swimming prawn, not a dead cooked one.
Shake The Room: (phrase) Being lifted by the armpits and swung about, so that you rotate around a fixed point, roughly where your heart is, legs swinging out to the sides. Usually part of a larger dance routine, such as "Boom, boom, shake, shake the room."
Small Fry, Smallest of Fries, McSmall, Snugget, Chops, Choplet, Honeychops, Pumpkin, Parsleychops, Honeybuns, Smudge, His Smallness, Little Man, Big Heefter, Chumkins, Poplet, Popples, Mankins, Manchops, Mr Man, Mouse, Mr Mouse, Mouseman, Lovelykins, Noshlet, Nosher: (n) Alex.
Bottom Water: (n) The water used to clean off a stinker (q.v.). Bottom water is a much prized delicacy of large black cats, and so must be defended vigorously. "Ringo! Get your face out of the bottom water! Filthy Animal!"
Nyapping: (v) The noise made just before getting fully angry about something. "I think I just heard Alex nyapping."
Get Your Rage On: (phrase) A full blown, red faced, inconsolable howler. The capitals must be pronouced, as in "Oh no, Alex has Got His Rage On."
Little Lip: (n) The stage between nyapping (q.v.) and Getting Your Rage On (q.v.). The little lip is a sure sign of imminent rage.
Sleepy-time: (n) Optimistically, 8pm. Realistically, 9:30pm.
Head Pin Shush: (v) Pressing your head against Alex's head, trapping him in place, whilst shushing. "I've fed him four times already tonight, can you get off your lazy arse and head pin shush him, please?"
Hairdryering: (v) What you resort to after sleepy-time (q.v.) and the head pin shush (q.v.) have failed.
Om-nom-nom: (n) The noise made when eating Alex's hands.
Noshing: (v) Breastfeeding.
Fighting It: (v) Struggling against something you really want. "Alex is fighting the snooze." "If you keep fighting it, you won't get any nosh."
Cheesers, Big Cheeses, Total Cheesers: (n) Grinning like a loon.

Pattern Recognition

2010-01-13T11:22:00.000Z

Mr Toucan (a.k.a. Timmy, a.k.a. Monsieur le Toucan, a.k.a. Signor el Toucan when we want to work on Alex's Spanish) is no doubt the product of thousands of pounds worth of design. He has baby friendly chewable bits. You can grab his tail. He makes an interesting noise.

He is also significantly less interesting than a cushion.

It goes like this:

"A toucan eh? And one that's making an interesting noise? Hmm, better check this out. Wonder what he tastes like? let's just... Whoa! A cushion. Sorry, toucan, but I've got some serious staring to do here! Man, look at that stitching!"

Obviously it's not the stitching that Alex is really interested in. Nor is it the cushion's inherent cushiony-ness. It's the stripes.

Alex is a sucker for contrasting patterns. (All babies are, apparently.) He'll regularly become fascinated with the most random things, just because they've got patterns on them. Nic's shirts are a common source of entertainment. The aforementioned cushion gets a lot of interest as well. His stripy mittens are endlessly amusing, especially as they move around in response to his will.

The baby merchandising world has worked this out as well, and Alex currently has three books consisting of nothing but contrasting patterns. (Stars and Hearts, Spots and Dots and Snowflakes.) They're from the local library, which turns out to have a chewable books section specifically for babies. Alex loves them, although he finds it frustrating that he can't grab hold of the patterns. (He doesn't seem to have grasped the concept of 2D yet.) From a parental perspective though, they're marginally less stimulating than watching paint dry. At least with the paint there's always the chance of a drip.

Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Whine

2010-01-08T16:01:00.000Z

Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year! It's been a long, busy couple of weeks, so it's something of a bumper post today. (And if you're wondering, we shortened the crown with sticky tape.)

Christmas

Do you remember Christmas as a kid? Wild with excitement and happiness, rushing downstairs to marvel at the visitation of Santa? Never quite the same as an adult, is it? I gather that once your own kids are old enough to enjoy it, Christmas becomes magical again. Four months isn't old enough for that though. For Alex, Christmas was just prolonged road trip with more people than normal.

Travelling with a baby is at once both wonderful and highly stressful. It's great getting out and about and seeing friends and relatives. It's also nice having other people cook for you, or be available to take Alex for a few minutes so you can have a cheeky nap. But it's also a touch disturbing. You're living out of suitcases a lot of the time and packing the car requires a degree in non-Euclidean geometry, especially at Christmas when presents are in evidence. Plus Alex ends up pretty much always on show. This isn't really a problem, but it gets tiring. Sometimes you all just need to sit down quietly as a family and do nothing. That's hard to do while visiting relatives. Eventually, someone throws a wobbly.

This time around, it was Alex who Got His Rage On(tm). He saved it until we were up with my Dad at Mar Lodge on the 30th. We left him with his Grandads/Great Uncles/2nd Cousins while we aimed for a nap. Ten minutes later, he was howling, totally inconsolable. When Alex Gets His Rage On(tm), there are a few obvious things to check. Hungry? Wet nappy? Too hot? Too cold? Tired? Bored? This was none of the above. As far as we can tell, he had simply had enough of all these other people. He just wanted a quiet time with his parents. In the end, the only thing that calmed him down was skin to skin contact with Nic. (Strip baby, strip mum, clamp baby to breast, for those yet to experience the joys of the NCT.) We spent a couple of hours quiet time with him after that. Gave him a bath, cuddles etc. Hardly the restful afternoon Nic and I had planned, but at least he calmed down.

My Baby and Other Animals

It's always interesting watching other people with Alex and the large numbers of relatives visited throughout the festive period provided some fascinating opportunities. It's particularly noticeable that some people are just good with babies, plain and simple. For some it's probably experience (my Uncle Tim, father of five). For others, it just seems to come naturally, lucky buggers. (My cousin Matthew, youngest of Tim's five and utterly inexperienced in matters baby, is more confident than some new fathers I've met. He's good with four year olds too.)

I also realised just how much Nic and I have improved in our confidence in dealing with Alex. He's that bit bigger and stronger, which actually makes life easier as he's more able to support his own limbs and head. But we're also much more confident it carting him about, propping him up, chucking him about and so on. Two months ago, I doubt we'd have considered taking him into the bath with us. Now, it's a special treat for everyone. Alex loves splashing about in the grown up bath, and watching him lark about is a joy, pure and simple.

We're also a much better team than we once were. Much of tasks of dealing with Alex don't need to be articulated any more. If we're doing a joint changing session, we know which of us is on what duty. Bath times are a well oiled machine. We can get him fully dressed in seconds flat, without getting in each other's way. You don't realise how competent you've become until you try and do it with someone else as your wingman. Suddenly socks aren't being put on at the right time, or they've not got the nappy ready. It's nice that they help, but you can't avoid thinking that it might have been quicker if they'd just left you alone.

Suck It

One week is a long time in politics. Two weeks is an age in infant development. When we left, Alex was just about showing some interest his toy bar on his bouncy seat. Over the next two weeks, he started sucking his thumb, rolling over (front to back only so far), has worked out how to make his toy bar play tunes and developed an affection for a specific toy (Monsieur Le Toucan, a.k.a. Timmy). It's slightly strange to watch. I kind of feel it should take longer somehow. It was only four months ago that he was just about able to cry, sleep and excrete. How can he have a favourite toy already?

He's also had his first illness. A foul cold, initially contracted by Nic, then me and Alex. (Poor Nic was ill for the last three days of holiday and recovered, sort of, just in time to have to look after me and Alex!) He was pretty good with it, to be honest. (Better than me, anyway.) It's still hard though. There's just a tiny loss of innocence that seems to be associated with it. I swear he would look at me, snuffling, with an expression on his face that said "why aren't you fixing this?" (In reality, I'm sure it was probably "hmm, I might have a poo later", but that doesn't stop me from thinking it.) In the grand scheme of things, however, a cold isn't bad. Heck, he's recovered from it far quicker than me, and is happily gurgling away again.

Happy 2010.

The Serious Business of Play

2009-12-23T11:31:00.000Z

Two days before Christmas and a blanket of snow sees me grinning like a mentalist, building tiny snowmen in curious places and quick-step-quick-step-sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide-flail-flail-slip-stepping to the office. I'm looking forward to Alex being old enough to enjoy the snow, as it will reduce the number of disparaging tuts I get for playing about in it.

Alex, meanwhile, is settling down to some serious play. When you're teeny-tiny, play is pretty damn important. How else do you learn about the world and how it works? Can you eat your own hand? Only one way to find out! How about standing up? Can that be done with one leg bent? No, but it does result in Daddy pulling a funny face and catching me as I plummet Earthwards. Interesting. Will this duck ever sink? Just what is that thing between my eyes, and why does it go "beep" when it gets poked? Or is that Dad being silly again?

All of this is tremendously amusing for Nic and me, but not quite so funny for Alex. Some things do amuse him; the nose beeping for one. Others require absolute seriousness and concentration. It's strange as an adult to watch someone jumping up and down (with assistance, obviously) with a look of absolute concentration on their face. He's obviously contented (he'd be crying if he wasn't), but he doesn't look happy as such. It's more the face of someone concentrating on a particularly difficult but satisfying structural engineering problem. Enjoyable, but not amusing.

I can't help but wonder how much of these behaviours will evolve into "fun" play, and which will just drop by the wayside as Alex gets the hang of them. Standing up seems to be far more interesting at the moment than sitting down, but will that last? Will the jangling bumble-bee remain his preferred rattle, and will it ever be fun, rather than just totally absorbing. ("Whoa! That bee, man, it's like, totally jangling my mind!") Will he ever get bored of being tickled? (Not if he's like me he won't.) Who knows? It'll be fun to find out though.

Happy Christmas!

Corners Like It's On Rails

2009-12-18T11:32:00.002Z

You may recall my inane ramblings about prams a while back. Over the last few months, our giant poo brown and Seventies orange pram has done sterling service. In the last couple of weeks, though, Alex has been promoted to his shiny new push-chair. Unlike the pram, it's tastefully coloured and brand new. (Thanks Hazel and Alan!) Alex loves it, as it allows him to see the world as it goes past. Nic and I love it because it's about a ton and half lighter than the pram and folds up much, much smaller.

It's not all good though. It doesn't go totally flat, so it's not as good for snoozing in. It's also got much smaller wheels, making it only really good on smooth surfaces. (Pavement, fine. Gravel, not so much.) It has a shopping basket bit, but when you've got a reclining child in the seat you can't actually put anything into it. The handles don't adjust height wise and aren't quite high enough for me.

It's biggest flaw is also its biggest boon though. It corners with barely a thought. That's great for going around corners, but it's also kind of alarming. Imagine having a really twitchy shopping trolley full of the most expensive wine in Tescos. Then take it out into traffic. And make the wine cry. Sometimes, you just want to go in a straight line, and quickly with it. the pushchair, however, sometimes wants to go at right angles. It can be a bit alarming. The old pram was a pain to corner (you had to press down on the handle to lift the front wheel off the ground), but went in a straight line without thought. Swings and roundabouts I guess. Still, for sheer ease of use, the pushchair wins hands down.

Duck you!

2009-12-16T11:05:00.000Z

Alex has discovered the delights of bath toys. Specifically, the rubber duck. Even more specifically, MY rubber duck!

For the last few baths, I've been putting the rubber duck in to float about with Alex. This has really been for my amusement. Alex was more interested in splashing about than playing with the duck. In all honesty, I don't think he even noticed it.

On Sunday, however, he suddenly got the idea. I think the duck bumped up against his knee, alerting him to its presence. Since then, the duck has become a firm bath time favourite. The preferred method of play is to have the duck floating around Alex's legs and for him then to kick the hell out of the duck until it flips over. Sometimes, for added difficulty, he'll pincer the duck between both feet and drag it up the bath. then kick the hell out of it. Either way, the duck comes off worst.

When he first did this, I was alone in the bathroom with him. (Nic was taking the opportunity to do a quick tidy, crazy woman that she is.) This being the most exciting thing since his last poo, I obviously shouted for her to come through. Naturally, Alex stopped playing once Mum was present. In encouraging him to play, I let Nic see the bottom of the duck.

The duck was quickly banned from bath time.

It seems that Mr Duck had not been keeping himself as clean as one might expect from a bath toy. His (normally) yellow bottom was coated with a thick, black mouldy sludge. No matter how exciting Alex playing with the duck was, there was no way he was being allowed back into the bath. Alex and I mourned the passing of Mr Duck. Nicola just gave him a wipe with some disinfectant. The disinfectant was significantly more effective.

Thanks to the power of Tesco's Bathroom Spray, Mr Duck has been allowed to make a triumphant return to the bath. He was back last night, in full glory. Alex celebrated by kicking the hell out of him.

Blue Eyed Boy, Green Eyed Monster

2009-12-14T11:02:00.002Z

I've found that I'm getting jealous of other people spending time with Alex. Not Nicola looking after him during the day (I'm still in awe of the fact that she's not gone stark, staring mental over the last three months), but other folks getting cuddles when they come to visit. It's a strange experience. In some ways, it's a massive relief to have someone else there to entertain him. It gets tiring holding him upright all the time. And no matter how fun it is, thee is a limit to the amount of times you can blow raspberries at him before your tongue goes numb. And yet... And yet...

When other people are holding Alex, I can't help but want to take him back off them screaming, "He's mine, damn you! If you want one so much, get your own damn son!" It doesn't matter how long they've been holding him, ten seconds or two hours, it's all the same.

I suppose it's related to the impulse to protect and care for our offspring. Cuddles are a bonding experience, and I want Alex to bond with me. It makes parties and social gatherings a bit of a pain. Hoarding one's baby is not exactly polite. Plus, I want him to socialise and be used to other people. I just want him to be able to do it from the comfort of my arms.

* * *

On a cuddles note, Alex has just begun to hug back. Pick him up, clamp him tight to your chest and shoulder and his little arms will fling out wide and he'll grip onto your jumper. It's obviously a "I'll cling onto you so you don't drop me" response, not a "I love you" response, but it still brings a smile to my face each time he does it.

P.S. The photo in illustrating this post is of my cousin Christine and Alex. I don't mean to imply that Chris is a baby hog! It's just a nice photo of Alex with someone that isn't me or Nic. Sorry Chris!

Three months old... And it goes a little something like this...

2009-12-06T22:13:00.002Z

(With apologies to ljck @ superhero. from whom I have blatantly stolen the style and idea for this post.)

In the best traditions of You've Been Framed, this montage should have a tune. For the full over-ripe, smuggled in from France, escaping off the side of the plate Camembert cheese factor, I'd suggest Sweestest Thing by everyone's favourite Irish stadium rockers, U2. Just try and not actually listen to the lyrics...

Three Months Old...

Let me count you in Holmes

1...2... 1, 2, 3, 4!

Little Man

Homeward Bound

Trout and About

It's All Relative

Getting Bigger

Making Friends

And Influencing People

And In The End...

(Ah-ahhh-ah, the sweetest thing...)

P.S.

I can haz guest appearance?

Mirror Mirror

2009-12-03T15:42:00.000Z

I sometimes wonder what goes on in Alex's head. The world must seem so baffling for a newborn. After all, he's yet to fully understand what the interesting things at the ends of his arms are. He's giving them a good chewing though, just in case they're edible. Faces he seems to understand, or at least enjoy. What he makes of mirrors is a total mystery.

He does enjoy looking in them. Hold him up to a mirror and he'll stare at himself before breaking into a massive grin. Does he know it's him? I doubt it. Does he recognise something instinctively "babyish" about his reflection? Maybe. Maybe he, in some way, understands that the baby in the mirror is the same as he in, in a way Mummy and Daddy aren't. Or maybe he's just vain.

Curiously, he quite likes looking at me and Nic in the mirror too. Sometimes more than looking at us directly. perhaps it's that bit comfier, or easier to focus on compared to craning his head up to see up. Who the hell knows?

He also very much enjoyed watching a video of himself. Must remember this next time he's having a howl!

Child Protection

2009-12-01T11:37:00.002Z

The urge to protect your child from whatever threatens them is frighteningly strong. Obviously it makes sense to want to defend your offspring. If we didn't, the human race would need to either have a LOT more kids or die out. But we invest heavily in a small number of children, so we care deeply for them. It works well enough, but it does have some difficult (for parents) consequences.

For one thing, Alex is so small, so vulnerable, that at times it seems like it's impossible to protect him from the horrors and dangers of the world. When each breath is so tiny, it's all to easy to imagine some callous chance taking them away for ever. Down this road, madness lies. Down this road lies parents awake at night, wishing their child would be quiet, then wishing they'd make a noise so they can be sure they're breathing. (Not that I've ever done this. Oh no. Not me...)

Then there's the crying. It's so damn non-specific. Something is wrong, but what? Too hot or too cold? Hungry or windy? Bemoaning the state of the Middle East? What? Just tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it! A couple of nights ago, Alex was having trouble getting to sleep. It had been a long day (for all of us), and Alex had had a small snack then gone down at about 9pm. Five minutes later, just as I was aiming towards bed, he woke up. Snuffles then full on crying. The only thing that seemed to help was being held and bounced. He would fall asleep in my arms, then wake up as soon as I laid him down. We carried on like this for about half an hour before I admitted defeat and went to get Nicola. (A quick feed usually calms him down, even if he's not actually hungry.) As soon as she picked him up he let out two massive burps, then proceeded to feed for a solid half hour. He was fine after that. If only there was a way that his crying could have said "I have wind and the munchies" we could have fixed it instantly. As it was we both got stressed out by our failure to communicate.

It is getting easier though. We're both learning Alex's moods. Sometimes he's obviously bored, sometimes he's obviously sleepy. For all that, there are still times when you move heaven and earth to try and make things right, only to discover that all that really needed moving was some fart.

The House at Poo Corner

2009-11-29T09:23:00.000Z

It's 8:40am and both Nicola and Alex are asleep. Alex in his bouncy chair just beside me, Nic in bed. It was a long night for her. Alex woke her up at 5:30 by squawking in his sleep. Once he actually decided to wake up (6:30 or so), he was difficult to feed. Then he threw up. With style. Everywhere. Over Nic, over the couch, over the rug, over the floor and over himself. At this point poor Nic had had enough, so I've been in charge since the spew while she catches up with some sleep. (And changes her clothes!) Now that Alex is snoozing too, I thought I'd write up a quick blog entry about everyone's favorite topic, poo. So brace yourselves. And for God's sake, don't read this over lunch. (The photo is not related, just funny.)

* * *

The standard joke about new parents is that everything their baby does is fascinating, right down to the poo. This is not true. Some baby related things are deeply dull, like late night crying or demanding to be held upright for hours on end. Poo IS fascinating though. Let me take you on a guided tour to prove it...

Firstly, if you're breast feeding your baby, poo is one of the few ways of knowing if your child is getting enough to eat. A dirty nappy means a full baby. (The other way of telling is if they're putting on weight, but that's not a very immediate measure.) For Alex in particular, feeding times often equal poo times. It's not uncommon for him to be happily feeding then go very still and produce a massive FFFFFrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrP! noise. Then another. Then another. (Poos, like bad luck, come in threes.) Sometimes the sheer force of poo is enough to detach him from the nipple and shoot him forwards like a poo-powered rocket.

Oddly, the noise level is totally unrelated to the amount of poo produced. A massive ripper can mean a nappy so full it overflows, nothing at all or anything in-between. The best way of telling for sure is to give his crotch or arse a sniff. (Ahh, the joys of being a dad.) If you're not sure, it was a fart. You KNOW when it's a poo. Dirty nappies are not referred to in our house as stinkers for nothing.

Baby poo does not smell like shit, mind you. It has a scent all of its own. In fact, from conversations with other parents, it has a smell unique to your own baby. Alex has a distinctly noxious sulfurous whiff, with high, rotten meat overtones. A bit like a lingering skunk spray for those in the USA. A bit like a meaty fart for those not acquainted with the odor of the skunk. Other babies smell of cheese I gather. I think I'd prefer that.

Once you've confirmed the stinker, it's time to get changing. A tub of warm water (the bottom water in our house) and some cotton wool are your first priorities. Then the change mat, some kitchen towel and a stinking baby. Strip baby. Assess the situation BEFORE removing the nappy. Namely: has the poo escaped? You'd be amazed at the sheer maneuverability of turds. How you can get a poo out of the nappy and all the way up to your shoulder baffles me. None the less, it is a regular occurrence. A full squirter will require a full change. Do your best not to smear the poo into your child's hair.

Open the nappy.

This is the interesting bit. What sort of poo will it be? Yellow liquid with white seeds? (What the hell THOSE are I don't know. He's not been eating grapes on my watch.) Perhaps just a light green crusty coating? (A sure sign that he actually did this poo an hour or more ago and you didn't notice. Lose 5 dad points and go back to Old Kent Road.) Sludgy yellow? (A big one, then.) Or maybe everyone's favorite, the clumpy burnt umber monstrosity? (You'll need more cotton wool.) Whatever it is, wet the first bit of cotton wool and get to work.

Whether it's that baby poo isn't too bad, or it's just that your own baby's poo isn't too bad, the actual dealing with the poo is the least of your worries. Grossing out or vomiting are far from your mind. More pressing is the need to make sure that one of those flailing feet doesn't end up in the sludgy puddle of poo, water and used cotton wool. Or redirecting the sudden stream of urine away from your face and into the nappy. Either way, you're not going to be worrying about the poo. And it's really not that bad. I've encountered far worse things attached to Ringo's arse than Alex's.

Once your child is clean and happy, slap a new nappy on them and you're done. And as I said above, if you're breastfeeding, you know that they're eating well. And that's what makes it so interesting.

That and the sludge, of course.

Let Me Count The Ways

2009-11-26T16:04:00.001Z

I'm feeling a little melancholic today, so I thought I'd cheer myself up by remembering the good things about being a dad. Plus, this blog has been a touch downbeat at times. It's not all bad you know!

Smiles. Yeah, this is an easy one. To paraphrase Eeyore, it is impossible to be uncheered with a smiling baby. That a simple tickle on the knees is enough to produce paroxysms of delight is an added bonus. Knee tickling can be done in conjunction with other activities vital to life, such as eating.
Outfits with ears, eyes or any other sort of accoutrement designed to make your baby look like an animal. I shouldn't like these. They are, in pretty much every sense, hideous. But yet, they are inexplicably cute and lovable. (I suspect at least part of it is the fact that Alex always looks so disapproving when dressed up in them.)
Cuddles. The only downside is that you can't cuddle him especially hard.
Cake. Nicola is getting fully in touch with her housewifely side, and while the feminist in me isn't convinced, the glutton certainly approves. Slight negative: the weight I lost when Alex was born is coming back.
Alex's eyes. They really are astonishingly clear. Deep blues, perfectly white whites and just a hint of a cheeky sparkle. It's only looking at Alex's eyes that I realise how much of the time as adults we go around with dull, bloodshot eyes.
Tiny fingers holding my hand. I know it's just a reflex, but it's still lovely.
How he smells. Babies smell good. Alex smells good. Except when he's just laid a stinker.
Being greeted with a gurgle and smile when I come home. And Alex is usually pleased to see me too. (*Ba-doom-tchish*)
The "whoa! I've never seen THAT before!" face. Things are still very new to Alex. Sometimes, so new he can't keep the amazement off his face. Often the thing that has prompted this will be totally mundane. Paper bags, fingers and a glass of juice have all prompted the W!INSTB! face.
Yawns. Just plain cute.
Going to sleep listening to Alex snuffle and wuffle in his sleep. It's very soothing being able to hear him so settled and comfy. Thank goodness he's a good sleeper!
Bath time. Fun and useful!

So there you go. A dozen good things. Life isn't so bad after all.

P.S. If anyone's wondering what the worst thing is, it's this: Finding out that a stinker is actually a squirter the hard way. Or should that be the soft way? Yeuuuuuuuuugh...

Free Time

2009-11-24T14:38:00.001Z

It is impossible to relax while in the same room as Alex. He can be as happy as a lamb, fast asleep or being entertained by someone else, it doesn't matter. If he's there, then you're on duty. The sense of responsibility is so strong that even being in the same house as him make it nearly impossible to relax. It's pretty wearing for me. For Nicola, it's a thousand times worse.

I can (with permission, of course) get out of the house. Work is sort of relaxing. (At least it isn't quite so oppressively constant. My PhD doesn't cry if I leave it in a different room for a couple of minutes.) Nicola is tied to Alex all day, every day. She could leave him with me and a bottle of milk, but even then her body will conspire to remind her of her motherly duties. Stopping to express breast milk is not the sort of thing that makes for a great evening in the pub. Not expressing leads to leakage, which is just as bad.

The practical upshot of this is that Nic hasn't had an evening out on her own since Alex was born. She's had the grand total of one evening off duty when I took Alex to Leith. Otherwise, she gets an hour or two free time in the house of an evening while I look after Alex. It's not really enough. It means that by the end of the day she's totally spent. But she can't just have an early night. Oh no. Alex needs his final snack before bed. And if I bottle fed him that, Nic would end up with rocks for tits. Rocks that oozed milk. (I have woken up in a puddle of breast milk recently. It's not pleasant.)

As Alex gets older and goes to sleep earlier, I suppose this will get better. Not quite sure when that will be though. Until then, free time is, for Nic at least, just a distant memory.

EDIT: A comment from Nic.

"It’s not as bad as all that – Alex is such a super cutie and it wasn’t as if I was a wild party kid before getting pregnant anyway!

"Is it particularly mad to admit that I really like the middle of the night feeds – Alex is such a funny snoozy chops when he’s all full of milk! N x"

Social Animal

2009-11-18T14:11:00.000Z

Lindsay was right, it really does all happen at once! Hot on the heals of looking at people and smiling, Alex has started to "talk". Baby talk, obviously. He's not that much of a child prodigy! Still, he has suddenly become a social animal. From having only had one method of communication (the wail), he's now able to express a range of emotions. It's all quite overwhelming.

Perhaps the loveliest, at least from a parents point of view, is that he can now tell us when he's happy. Not just a smile, but a coo-gurgle-mehch (that's the nearest approximation I can manage) and a smile. If he wants more attention, he looks at you and eh-ohs. Often, just looking back at him and repeating "hello" after each "eh-oh" is enough to send him into fits of delight. His eyes twinkle, he grins like a madman and he wriggles about in a coquettish fashion. It's almost as if he's having too much fun, and has to break off eye contact to calm down. Seconds later though you'll hear another "eh-oh" and the whole process starts over again.

* * *

Alex is very definite about when he wants to look at you. If he wants to play, he'll let you know. If he doesn't, nothing will make him make eye contact. Often he'll want to be held up by the armpits and helped to "stand". You can either hold him facing you, or away from you. If he's in a non-communicative mood and you hold him facing you, he'll twist his head through 90 degrees to avoid looking at your face. At times, it gets a little Excorsist-like. We've taken to holding him facing outwards when he's in that sort of mood. It's less fun for us, but looks a lot less sore for him.

It's curious how expressive a baby can be, given the limited range that gurgle/flail/scream has. The difference between a happy flail and a bored flail is as clear as night and day, yet there's nothing specific I could point to that distinguishes the two. Similarly, the "I'm having a great time" squeak and the "I'm about to turn bright red and puncture your eardrums" squeak sound utterly similar but are totally different. It must be a mixture of body language and familiarity, but it seems like magic right now.

* * *

One thing that has surprised me is just how uninterested in toys Alex has been so far. If he's in the right mood, at the right time and there's nothing more interesting around (like an adult that will fawn over his every wish) then he might deign to stare at a plastic monkey for a couple of minutes. That's about it though. Rattles aren't as fun as raspberries. Bouncy chairs aren't as good as bouncy knees. A stuffed cat isn't as much fun as a live one. (Although it's pretty close. Alex couldn't really care less about either one.) Maybe it's because he's more focused on interaction rather than solitary play. Maybe we've just not shoved sufficient toys in front of him yet. Whichever it is, I'm sure it's just a matter of time until he's refusing to be parted from Mr Elephant.

Splish Splash I Was Having a Bath

2009-11-16T14:45:00.000Z

Bath time is fun time.

No, seriously. I love bath time. Bath time is a wonderful combination of things. Firstly, Alex loves it. Ever since he had his first bath at the hospital, Alex has been a water baby. Initially this just meant that he would be quiet and calm when bathing. In the last few weeks it's developed into a joyful splashing about. He'll often look up and grin while doing it.

Secondly, bathing is an equal opportunity activity. Baths are a pleasant bit of baby care that both dad and mum can do. As such, for the first few weeks in particular they were my job. Partly because I have big hands and so was more able to grip Alex securely, but mostly so that I spent time with Alex.

It's not all fun and games though. The first few baths were pretty scary for me, if not for Alex. Even in a baby bath, a newborn baby looks pretty damn small. Plus, you're very aware that the only thing that stands between your child and drowning is your tenuous grip. It makes it kind of hard to wash them when you're holding onto them for dear life.

Alex doesn't like coming out of baths either. On a good day, he'll be relatively quiet while you towel him off and get him dressed again. On a bad day, he'll scream his head off then wee on your lap. Towelling off a writhing baby is somewhat tricky. There seem to be more arms and legs involved than can possibly be natural. Alex also has a remarkable tendency to try and fire himself off your lap and onto the floor. This would not be the relaxing end to the bathing ritual.

Lastly, no matter how hard you try, you will end up soaking. You might as well accept it and go with the flow. You won't be any drier at the end of it, but at least you won't be wondering how you managed to get water behind the backs of your knees.

Getting Back on the Horse

2009-11-10T12:03:00.000Z

So after my day of terror on Sunday, I arrived back at home on Monday rather nervous and scared. How would I cope? How would Alex be? Would we have a repeat of Sunday?

Fine, great and no, in that order. We played a bit. Alex got some tickles and produced some cracking smiles. About 8:30pm Alex decided he was hungry. Now. He was somewhat huffy until he was out of his nappy (incredibly wet) and onto the breast. He then proceeded to eat a vast amount then fall asleep.

Phew. Back to normal.

The Smell of Fear

2009-11-09T15:57:00.000Z

We had out first real terrifying panic yesterday.

It had not been a relaxing Sunday to begin with. We were woken by the sound of the toilet backing up, so I'd already spent a lovely morning literally up to my elbow in raw sewage. That and a trip to Tesco had consumed the whole morning. Still, Alex was in his bouncy chair, listening to the dehumidifier and Nicola and I were getting ready to bake a tasty cake.

Then Alex screamed.

This wasn't just a normal scream. This was every negative emotion - fear, loss, loneliness, pain, sadness and horror - bundled up into a single, primal, soul-piercing howl. It was utterly, utterly horrible. I could no more ignore it than I could ignore someone driving spikes into my heart. It was a good thing neither Nicola nor I were holding anything fragile at the time, given how fast we dropped everything and ran to Alex.

The screams continued and continued. Nothing seemed to help. Stripping off clothes made no difference. Hugs and kisses just brought his mouth closer to our ears. Tickles and changes of position might as well have not happened for all the difference they made. We lasted maybe a minute before phoning my dad.

"OK, obvious things first," he said, dropping instantly into medic mode. "Are any of his fingers, toes or penis caught in anything?"

"No."

"Is he hot to the touch or blotchy?"

"No."

"Check his backside. Is there anything abnormal?"

"I don't know, he's clenching it too tight for me to see."

"That's fine, that rules out what could be wrong there. Any other lumps, bumps or hot bits?"

"No."

"In that case, he's probably fine." (Phew!) "When babies suddenly scream like that, if they're not hot to the touch, it's almost always anger and never illness. Try some sort of diversion."

"OK, thanks."

We diverted Alex by feeding him. (Hey, he is a Bell after all.) He calmed down almost instantly. Nicola and I calmed down much less quickly. After his feed, I took him out for a walk in the pram, in an effort to get him to drop off to sleep. After a minute or two's squalling, he dropped off. I walked and walked, afraid to stop in case he woke up and began that terrible screaming again. After an hour or so, I returned home. Alex was still asleep in the pram, but that horrible worry was still with me. Mindless TV, a bubble bath with a book, nothing helped. I couldn't get that scream out of my head.

I can't really describe how I felt. The best I can manage was that it was like returning to the state I was in just after he came home. A cold, terrible responsibility settled upon me. I couldn't take any joy in his smiles, as each one seemed to just prolong the inevitable moment when he would cry again, reducing me to an impotent bystander. Only it was worse, as I was aware of what I'd lost. Gone was the easy confidence. Gone was the delight in holding him, or tickling his hands. I looked at him and I saw the most important thing in the world, and also a thing that I couldn't comfort. A thing I was not worthy of being in charge of. I felt like an imposter. In the end, I broke down into tears in the kitchen with Nicola and Alex doing their best to calm me down.

Nicola took charge and told me to do whatever would help. All I could think of was being away from the terrifying bundle of love that was Alex. I felt like I was abandoning Nicola, and abandoning Alex too. It didn't stop me from going to bed with a book though. After a few minutes, I fell asleep and slept through until morning.

* * *

Although I'm feeling a lot better today, I fear that it will take a while for me to really get my confidence back. It really shocked me how badly I took Alex's crying fit. Faced with a child in (apparent) torment, and no way to deal with it, it's amazing just how awful you feel. I think I'll be walking on eggshells with Alex for the next few days.

Express Yourself

2009-11-06T13:00:00.004Z

Alex and I had our first evening away from mum on Tuesday. We went to visit friends in Leith armed with a frozen bottle of breast milk. (I should point out that the Laws were not expecting me to bring Alex, but were very accommodating none the less!) I was not entirely sure it was going to work.

For the previous few days, Nic had been working on expressing milk. This is perhaps not the most dignified procedure. For one thing, the pump looks like My First Air-Horn. For another, it's not as efficient as you might like. (A lot of milk escapes due to dubious design.) Plus, when you spend half your waking life feeding, the last thing you want to do in your free time is simulate feeding.

Still, we now had a tub of breast milk which may, or may not, be enough for one feed. Breast may be best, but it's also impossible to tell how much Alex eats in a standard feed. Nic found a website with a "simple" formula to work out how much your baby needed. (I think it was something like: Weight in kg * 2 / Number of feeds in a day + phases of the moon ^ days in the months without an "r" in their name.) The end result was 4.5 fluid ounces. Great. Now is that US or UK fluid Ounces...?

"Who the hell cares?" was our conclusion. So I was dispatched with a bottle of milk (of maybe the correct amount) and instructions to bring Alex back if anything went wrong.

In the end, it was pretty smooth going. Next time I might defrost the milk a bit in advance of Alex getting hungry. (He's used to having food on demand, as Nicola does not usually need to be placed in a tub of hot water for five minutes before use.) I may also choose not to pick up the tub of boiling water by the boiling hot bit. Interestingly Alex was a bit confused by the bottle teat and different feeding position. He got the idea soon enough though, and was quickly nomming down the milk. (We had just the right amount in the end, thank goodness.)

Overall, the trip was a definite success. Alex had a good feed, I got to spend lots of time with him and have the joy of feeding him and, perhaps most importantly, Nicola got a whole evening off to herself. She spent it tidying the house. Typical!

P.S. Oh, and no, the photo has nothing to do with this entry. I just like it.

He's a Dedicated Follower of Fashion

2009-11-04T13:00:00.003Z

Whoever invented poppers is a god amongst men.

Dressing a baby is something of an acquired skill. It is also terrifying, awkward, mentally challenging and boring, all at the same time. Much like the rest of parenthood then, I suppose.

For those who've never had to dress a baby, let me try and describe it for you. First, catch your child. At Alex's stage, this isn't a problem, thankfully. He's almost always where you left him.

Next, remove any soiled clothing from your child. This is where it starts to get tricky. When you're dealing with a squirter that has managed to get all over the baby-grow, or vomit that has somehow seeped in between vest and jumper it can be a challenge working out how to get the damn thing off with smearing faeces over your child's face. (Social services generally take a dim view of coating your son in cack.) If in doubt, scissors are your friends. (Although Social Services also take a dim view of at home amputation, so be careful what you cut!) Despite this, getting kids undressed is relatively easy.

At this stage, you might as well change your hypothetical child's hypothetical nappy. Make sure to keep the clean clothes well away at this point. You'll be surprised at the range, volume and directionality achievable by a stream of urine, and you don't want to have to change your child's clothes twice. In dire circumstances remember, it is easier to strip yourself than your child and easier still to wash your skin than your clothes. Hands in particular make excellent impromptu flood barriers.

Now it's time to get the clean clothes on your child. By this point crying is inevitable. If you're lucky it will just be a pathetic mewling which tugs at the heart strings. If you're unlucky it will be a full blown, red faced howl which grinds the soul to pulp and shatters any nearby crystal. Try to ignore it. You'll fail, but at least you'll be thinking about ignoring it, rather than the scream itself.

Firstly, take the vest in one hand. Bunch it up so you can slip it over the child's head with your other hand. With your third hand, raise the child's head off the mat, while using your fourth and fifth hands to guide the arms into the sleeves... OK, let's try that again. With one hand, bunch up the vest. With your other hand grip your child's head, shoulders and lower back (one finger each) and use the remaining two fingers to guide the vest over the head. Get the vest stuck at about eye level. Drop child. (This is why a squishy changing mat is a good investment.) Wrestle vest down over head. Insert arms into holes.

I said, insert arms into holes.

Insert arms into... JUST BEND YOUR ARMS, DAMN YOU!

Breathe deeply. Count to ten.

Insert arms into holes. Pull vest down over body. Fasten poppers. Most vests seem to have three poppers in a row at the bottom. You will still only succeed in getting these fastened properly 50% of the time. Worse still, 25% of the time you will be too tired to care or notice your mistake and your child will end up looking like they dressed themselves.

Baby-grows are somewhat easier as they usually don't have to be pulled over the head. They do have significantly more poppers though, leading to a commensurately higher chance of popper related screw ups. If you're lucky, no-one will notice. If you're unlucky your child will look like the bastard offspring of Long-John Silver and Heather Mills.

Jumpers are like vests, only now you have to worry about the baby-grow's sleeves disappearing up the arm of the jumper. Jumpers are also more likely to come with buttons. Buttons should only be attempted by parents who took the Advanced Dressing Course with their local NCT group. Mere mortals fiddle with them once, then pretend that the jumper looks cooler undone. Besides, it's a surprisingly balmy -4C outside. And hypothermia is character building, right?

Throughout all of this, you will be struggling against a tiny person who DOES NOT want to get dressed. Babies are surprisingly strong when they want to be. Despite this, you'll not be willing to use any amount of force for fear of hurting them. If you do even the slightest amount of damage, (I broke one of Alex's fingernails), you will never forgive yourself.

Once your child is fully dressed, it's time to show your partner your handiwork. It is at this point at which your child will be sick. Go to step one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hand Gestures

2009-11-02T13:00:00.001Z

"Bored."

"I'm bored."

"I'm booooooooooooooooooooored!"

I'm translating from the original baby here, but I think it's pretty accurate. I thought we had a good twelve years before this!

In case it's not obvious, Alex has started needing entertaining. It's quite a change in a remarkably short space of time. Just a couple of weeks ago I was complaining about a lack of interactivity. If he wasn't asleep, he was eating. If he wasn't eating, he was staring at a wall. If he wasn't staring at a wall, he was asleep. Crying indicated a desire to swap from one of these activities to another.

Not so now. Something in Alex's little head has switched over and he's suddenly decided that interaction is great. It's wonderful, but it's also surprisingly tiring.

Pick Me Up!

Alex has an "I love Hugs" baby-grow and, lo and behold, it turns out to be true. He really does love hugs. And he let's you know when he wants them, too. It's a subtle variation on the "oh gods I'm falling" hand flail. You've all seen it. That "pick me up now" arm gesture. He's only seven and a half weeks old though. Is he really asking to be picked up? Beats me, to be honest. Probably not, but he does tend to cry if he's left lying down after doing the "pick me up" wave.

Tickle!

This one is karma coming back to bite me. As a kid I would deposit myself on my parents and monosyllabically demand "tickle!" Then I would lie there for as long as anyone could be persuaded to tickle me. Alex seems destined to go the same way. Bored baby? Give him a tickle. Arms, legs, tummy, back, knees (a particular favourite), head or anywhere really. Just don't stop. Ever. Tickling at least has the bonus of producing smiles from Alex. That makes up for a lot.

Hold My Hand!

This is a new one. Last night Alex seemed to decide he wanted his hand held. (Or rather that he wanted to hold my finger.) He did the most adult take my hand gesture and, when he'd got a finger, wouldn't let go. Indeed, he did a big grin once he'd landed his prey. We sat there for a while, me moving his hand about and pretending we were playing "copy the movement". Then he did copy the movement. I'd just waved his hand from side to side. After I stopped, Alex thought for a moment, then waved his hand (and mine) side to side.

"Co-incidence," the rational part of my brain said. So I waved his hand up and down. And then he waved it up and down.

"Still co-incidence," said my rational brain.

"Stuff you," replied the dad part of my brain, and promptly commanded me to burst into tears.

In conclusion then, Alex is much more work now he can be bored, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sibling Rivalry

2009-10-29T13:00:00.001Z

If people ask me one question these days, it's "How's Alex?" If they ask two, it's "How's Alex? And how's Ringo taking it?" The answer to the second question is fine, as far as we can tell.

For those who don't know, Ringo is our cat. He's not the brightest of felines - he once got stuck halfway in and halfway out of his cat flap - but he is very cute. And until recently, he was the cutest thing in the house. With the arrival of Alex this is no longer the case.

I have to admit, we were a touch worried about what Ringo would think of Alex. He became very protective of Nicola while she was pregnant. In the last few weeks before Alex was born Ringo would follow Nic about the house, always keeping one beady eye on her. If she sat down for more than a minute, he would be on her lap. Or attempt to be on her lap, anyway. Pregnant tummy + large cat > total surface area of lap, so there were a couple of awkward moments. But guarding a pregnant owner is one thing, dealing with the inevitable result is the other. How would he take to Alex?

The answer was (unsurprisingly to many cat owners I'm sure) that he would just pretend Alex didn't exist. When Alex first arrived back, Ringo gave him a cursory sniff, then wondered off to eat some food. That's pretty much been it in terms of cat/baby interaction since then. Ringo will every now and then look at Alex, then go back to pretending he doesn't exist. Alex, for his part, will watch the cat if Ringo walks past while Alex is on his mat getting a nappy changed.

The only behaviour we've had to discourage was Ringo's unfortunate tendency to go to sleep in the pram. Not the comfy, baby containing bit, you understand, but the shopping bit underneath. You may recall that it's just big enough for 19 toilet rolls. It transpires that it's also an ideal size for a large, black cat (who is almost invisible when in there). It's remarkably hard to get a cat out of a shopping basket, I discovered. At least, it's hard if you want to remain in possession of all your remaining limbs. Tipping the pram on its side and shaking it turns out to be the best approach.

So other than trying to stowaway on the pram, Ringo has taken Alex's arrival remarkably well. He hasn't left home. He hasn't weed on Alex's sheets. He hasn't decided to sleep on Alex's face. Phew. I can tell you, though, that it's impossible to see a cat that's about to twine itself around your feet when you're singing to a baby in your arms. I've come pretty close to death a few times thanks to that. So maybe Ringo hasn't taken it so well after all...

Separation Anxiety

2009-10-27T12:23:00.000Z

29th September and 22nd - 25th October 2009

This post is somewhat out of synch with the rest, both in terms of day published and dates it covers. The topic is just very fresh in my mind at the moment. And besides, what's the point in having something so monumentally self-indulgent as a blog if you don't self-indulge every now and again?

* * *

It's Monday, a little over two weeks since Alex was born and it's time to go back to work. I am, to put it mildly, dreading it. It feels like a combination of going back to school, dereliction of duty and selfishness all rolled into one.

Going back to school is an obvious parallel. For all the last two weeks have been tiring and stressful, they've also been two weeks without work. At this point in the PhD if I never saw it again it would be too soon, so I've enjoyed not having to deal with it for a fortnight. Dragging myself up at 6:45 and trekking into the office is the last thing I fancy right now. Still, it has to be done, so I'm doing it.

With that comes a sense of desertion, though. Nic's mum is staying with us, but it still feels like I'm abandoning Nic. Up to now we've been a team. We've shared changing, bathing and entertaining duties. Now I'm leaving Nic to cope on her own and I feel bad about it.

But...

But there's also a horrible, selfish part of me that thinks "wow, nine whole hours without being on duty". Even when Alex is asleep, there's an added level of stress that being a parent brings. At the office, that stress is gone. He is, and this is a horrible thing to say, someone else's problem. What sort of warped soul do I have that I'm glad to be leaving my son for a day?

In the end, it is both easier and harder than I expected. Easier in that the routine of work comes back instantly and it seems normal to be there. Harder in that I spent every other minute wondering how he's doing. It turns out that I'm NOT glad to be leaving him for a day! It will be a couple of weeks before I'm really used to going away for more than a few hours.

* * *

Flash forwards to last Thursday. A long time ago, while Nic was only just in the "pregnant but not telling anyone" stage, I booked tickets to go and see the NFL in London. We hadn't even made it to twelve weeks at that point, and I didn't want to tempt fate. Not booking tickets would have been tantamount to standing under a ladder, smashing a mirror off my head while kicking a black cat and shouting, "hey, Fate, bet you can't harm my baby in the womb!" Now Alex is six weeks old and I'm off to London. He's going up to Aberdeen with Nicola. It will be the first night we spend apart. Once I head off to work at midday, I won't see them again until Monday evening.

Again, I'm rather torn. I know I'm going to miss them, but I'm also rather looking forwards to a whole night of uninterrupted sleep. Then I'll get to go to London, catch up with friends and see the NFL. Sounds like fun, right? And it was, sort of.

It really started to hurt on Thursday evening when I found Alex's hat lying around the kitchen. Oh dear, he's been gone for about six hours and I'm getting emotional over headgear. Nicola suggests that every time I feel miserable, I go to sleep, thus enjoying the peace and quiet. I spend a lot of time in bed.

The next evening, I meet up with friends, get drunk and play cards. Very drunk in fact. Two months of no alcohol have left me with no tolerance and the drink makes the pain go away. The next morning I regret it rather severely. Still, at least the hangover gives me something to think about other than how much I miss Alex and Nicola.

To be honest, I don't know how good company I was in London. For all that I loved seeing Doug and Mairi again, I was only half there. The other half of me was up in Aberdeen. Kew gardens, the NFL and the hustle and bustle of the big city all pass me by in a blur.

On the train home and for the few hours I'm back in Dalkeith before Nicola and Alex arrive I'm like a teenager waiting for exam results they know they've failed. Churning gut, misery and restlessness. Every time a car passes the house I perk up like a spaniel after a bag of weed. I bought Nic a bunch of flowers as a welcome home present. I worry that they're drying out as I wait.

Finally they arrive home. It turns out that Nic has got me a welcome home present too. Alex has learned a new trick. When I take him out of his car seat and hold him close he breaks into a broad, beaming smile.

I am whole again.

I See You Baby

2009-10-23T13:30:00.000+01:00

3rd October 2009

Alex has started looking at me! (And other people too.) And by looking at me, I mean actually looking at me, rather than just happening to look in my direction. It's funny how much of an impact this has on me. Eye contact is such a basic fact of daily life for most of us we don't realise how important it is until it's gone.

Alex is still learning about looking at things. At almost a month old, he can manage some limited focussing and is able to recognise a face. (Note that he can't recognise faces in the sense of "oh no, not you again". He just sees two eyes, a nose and a mouth and goes "ooh, a face".) He's also starting to associate sounds (voices in particular) with something interesting that's worth looking at. As such, he'll follow a person around with his eyes as well as he can. (Not very well, at the moment. He's got about a 45 degree tracking zone. Beyond that, you might as well not exist.)

I wrote before about the difficulties of interacting with a newborn. Looking at you, even if it is for the briefest of moments, is such a huge deal because it begins to break down that barrier of incomprehension between parent and child. Playing with Alex now seems like a possibility, rather than just tending to him as we do at the moment. It makes him seem more human, less alien.

There's also a sense in which it feels like he's getting to know us now, rather than just us knowing him. He might not recognise faces yet, but he's learning. He'll see me and Nicola and, over time, hopefully he'll come to know us as Mum and Dad. The bond placed on you by a child's birth is pretty compelling, but it's a negative compulsion. You care for them because the alternative is too horrible. When he looks at me, I feel a more positive bond forming. I want to make him happy, not because otherwise he'll scream, but just because I want him to be happy.

Once he learns to smile we'll be totally under his thumb.

And They Call It PUPPy Love

2009-10-21T13:33:00.003+01:00

1st September - 20th October 2009

So far in these blogs I've skirted round an issue that's been an overwhelming presence in the run up to and first few weeks of parenthood. It's kept us awake at nights. It's caused more fights and arguments than anything else. It's been a source of worry. It was even the reason that Nicola was induced (relatively) early. (Two days past due, rather than two weeks.)

Nicola has had PUPPs.

No, this isn't a reference to the Shappi Khorsandi joke. ("We're having a surprise." "No, you're having a boy or a girl. It would only be a surprise if you had a puppy.") PUPPs (variously PUPs, PUPPPs or PEPs) is an extremely unpleasant itchy rash. For the medical acronym fans amongst you, it stands for Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy, or Polymorphic Eruption of Pregnancy (hence the many names).

It started innocently enough. Towards the end of August and the start of September, Nic got a few berry bug bites. Or what we thought were berry bug bites at the time, anyway. (Berry bugs are microscopic parasites that thrive in berry fields at around harvest time. They're annoyingly common in central Scotland. Aren't you learning a lot today?) In top annoying fashion they had decided to bite Nic on the stretch marks. It was itchy, but not absurdly annoying. Just one of those things. Ringo was blamed for bringing them in (unfairly it would later turn out) and lost his lap privileges.

The bites didn't go away though. They got worse. And worse. And worse. The bites spread up and down the stretch marks, turning them into rivers of raw, itchy skin. Then bumps started coming up on Nic's hands and thighs. Then those bumps started to spread up her arms and down her legs. And all the time the itching got worse and worse.

At this point, maybe two weeks before Alex was due to be born, it was pretty clear it wasn't just berry bugs. A quick check on that source of all truth and knowledge, the internet, brought up PUPPs. Itchy rash? Check. Starts on stretch marks? Check. Third trimester? Check. First pregnancy? Check. Not itchy on palms of hands or soles of feet? Check. (Itchy palms and soles of feet is a sign of something more life threatening to do with liver function.) Photo of PUPPs that looks exactly like Nic's tummy? Check. We have a winner.

What a pity the GP didn't agree.

Now GPs have a hard time of it. They need to know a little about a lot of things, and PUPPs is relatively rare. And I imagine people coming in clutching print-outs of diseases from the internet must make their hearts sink. Still, I don't think Nic appreciated being laughed out of the surgery, along with instructions to put some camomile lotion on. (And unspoken ones to not waste the GP's time again.) The camomile lotion did not help.

By now, Nic is unbearably itchy. Any pressure on her skin, such as from a close fitting top, causes her to itch more. Any amount of heat sets her off too. She has taken to sleeping under just a single sheet, while I'm tucked under our heavy duvet. (Nicola is usually the one who feels the cold.) Any time she isn't scratching, she's submerging her hands, feet or whole body in icy cold water until she goes blue. She doesn't like being cold, it's just better than being itchy. After a couple of days she learns to combine scratching and freezing into one simple, time saving act of misery. I come through to the bathroom to find her standing in a tub of cold water, scratching madly, bleeding slowly from broken scabs and weeping. Something needs to be done.

We call up the maternity ward at Borders General. They agree to see Nic and we drive down there. The ward is incredibly hot. Obviously this aggravates Nic's itch. We spend an hour or so waiting for SHOs, registrars and consultants to see us. (They genuinely have more important things to be doing.) Everyone is very polite, but not a great deal of help. Nic is eventually given a prescription for a topical steroid cream. We have to wait another two hours for the damn cream to turn up. By the time it does, Nic is ready to kill me. (I am doing my best not to retaliate, but it's hard.) We head home, glad to be out of the furnace that is Borders General.

The steroid cream doesn't really help much either. Nor does the topical anti-histamine. Nor the oral anti-histamines. A cold bath infused with oats is perhaps more a distraction than a cure, but it does provide brief respite. Standing in the cold until the shivers start is marginally effective, but comes with obvious negatives. All the PUPPs information we can find basically suggests that nothing will help except giving birth, at which point the rash will clear up in 1 to 2 weeks. Great. Now all we need to do is persuade Alex to come out.

Alex doesn't show any signs of wanting to come on his own. By his due date Nicola is exhausted, angry and miserable. She can't sleep because she's either itchy or freezing. The levels of sympathy from me have tailed off the more she's been angry. It's hard to be helpful or sympathetic when it feels like any suggestion, sympathy or aid is met with venom. When the doctor suggests an early induction we leap at the offer like an MP at an expense account.

I'm not going to go over the induction again, except to add that throughout it Nicola was draped in wet paper towels in an effort to keep her cool. But we could get through that, because giving birth was the magic bullet. Everything was going to be better afterwards, right? Right?

I think you can guess the answer to that question without any help from me.

Imagine breastfeeding whilst being intolerably itchy. Imagine not being able to wear anything other than your pyjamas for the first two weeks because otherwise you flare up into a red wealed mess. Imagine only being able to sleep for one and a half hour chunks because of your newborn son, but then not being able to sleep for even that long because you're freezing cold. Imagine not being able to cuddle your child because his body heat is unbearable against your rash. That was Nicola's life for the first two weeks after Alex was born.

I can't say I had a whole lot of fun with it either. It's hard to see the one you love miserable. It's harder still when you try and comfort them, only to be slapped away because your hands are too hot. What do you do when your wife is crying because she's so hot and itchy, but can't face going outside again to cool off? As time goes on, Nicola gets more and more tired and unhappy. As she gets more tired, her temper gets shorter and shorter. She rages at anything and anyone. Not because she means ill, but just because she hasn't slept well for months. Bloody PUPPs.

After two weeks we go back to Borders and suffer the furnace for another couple of hours. We leave with a short course of oral steroids for Nic. For a glorious couple of days they seem to work. Nicola is less itchy. She can bear to be at a normal temperature again. She even sleeps under the duvet for a night. But then they stop working as well, then run out. The itch returns. The heat returns. The whole, foul, misery inducing package returns. Another trip to the Borders, another short course, this time with a referral to a dermatologist at RIE.

Still no joy. The second course doesn't even have the decency to give us a couple of days respite. We're due to go up to Aberdeen to see Nicola's folks. Just before we leave, Alex pees all over Nicola. Unknown to me, he's weed on her only loose fitting but smart outfit. So I just find it funny. (Hey, people that aren't me getting urinated on IS funny!) Nicola doesn't find it funny. Nicola doesn't find it funny in a quite spectacular fashion. She savages me with a venom I've never seen before. Only the fact that I'm holding Alex and don't want to argue in front of him stops me from retaliating and raising it to a relationship destroying argument. We make a guarded peace in the car. Neither of us are really to blame, but it's hard to forgive when you both feel so hurt.

Another day, another hellish hot hospital. This time we're going to see the dermatologist in Edinburgh. We arrive early and, miracle of miracles, are called to our appointment early too! The dermatologist also seems to know what he's talking about, which is a bonus. (So far, only 50% of the paediatric medical professionals we've spoken to have actually heard of PUPPs. Non-maternity medical staff have a 0% awareness level.) He asks a lot of questions, most of which make sense. At this point, we're well out with the normal post-natal range for PUPPs. It's normally 1 to 2 weeks. Nic has had it for five. The dermatologist is pretty sure it is PUPPs and not anything else, but he orders blood tests and a biopsy, just to rule out some more serious conditions. He also asks about Nic's steroids.

"I'm on two tablets a day."

"Two?"

"Yes... Is that bad...?"

"That's practically a homoeopathic dose! Let's move you up to, erm, six for now. That should sort it."

And thank the gods, it seems to be working! Nic has been far less itchy for the last five days. She's slept under the duvet three nights running. I can't express how much it means to be able to cuddle my wife again. Such a simple thing to be able to do, but it makes such a difference. We've even had the heating on! Will wonders never cease? I just hope it keeps on working.

* * *

No photos for this entry. Trust me, you don't want them while eating lunch! So here's a picture of Alex doing his Buzz Lightyear impression, just for laughs. To Infinity, And Beyond!

Tired and Emotional

2009-10-19T11:10:00.001+01:00

16th - 30th September 2009

Being a parent sneaks up on you. Obviously not the physical aspect of it. You'd be hard pressed to miss your wife waddling around the house looking like she's got a beach ball shoved up her jumper. Rather the emotional side of it creeps up you. At some point you suddenly realise that you are, in fact, a parent. It's kind of disconcerting.

In the very first post of this blog I wrote about how I was terrified about Alex's health while he was being born. While this was undoubtedly true, I was worried more for what it would do to Nicola if he was stillborn. It would have been awful, no question. But in a curious way, it would have been awful because of its impact on other people I loved. Nic had carried him for nine months, felt him move, watched what she ate and what she did while he was growing inside her. I had yet to meet Alex, or get to know him. Mums get a head start on loving their children, I think.

Today, I would be devastated if anything happened to him because I want to keep him safe. Because I love him, not because other people I love love him. When did that change occur? I don't know. But I can tell you exactly when I realised that it had happened.

Cut to: Alex and me in the dining room. Nicola is grabbing some well earned rest after feeding. Alex was, until a few moments ago, napping in his bouncy chair. I was taking the chance to send a couple of emails. Then Alex woke himself up. He's always particularly grumpy when he manages this trick and set to wailing with a vengeance. Clearly the bouncy chair wasn't going to cut it, so I resorted to my patented soothing tactic: Flower of Scotland as performed by the Shush-land national orchestra. (Get face right beside Alex's ear (risking permanent hearing loss from screaming) then start shushing. "Shh-Shhhhhh-Sh-Shhhhhhh-Shushhhhh. Sh-Sh-Sh-Shhhh, Sh-Shhh-Sh-SHHHHHHH." Feel free to use it on your baby. Votes of thanks should be make in hard currency.)

So there I am, holding Alex to my face, subjecting him to a curious rendition of his national anthem, rocking him back and forth. (He'll be very patriotic when he grows up. Either that or the start of rugby matches will put him to sleep.) Then the most bizarre thought strikes me. "You know," I think. "This reminds me of a dreadfully overacted scene of a parent hugging their child's corpse in Casualty, while shusshing them and explaining that this always put them to sleep." Of course, once this thought was in my head, I was doomed. My mind, prone to running off on depressing tangents when tired anyway, set off to explore all the horrible things that could happen to Alex.

I was stuck there for a good ten minutes, weeping and attempting to shush Flower of Scotland, all over what it would be like if anything happened to Alex. Alex, for his part, didn't notice at all. If anything, the snivels added an interesting counter-harmony to the tune as far as he was concerned. Eventually I pulled myself back together.

That's when I realised I was a parent. Now, and for the rest of my life.

Walkies!

2009-10-16T13:30:00.001+01:00

15th-30th September 2009

If I had one bit of advice to give new parents, it would be this: never underestimate the power of the pram. The pram is an item of limitless magical powers. You insert an angry, crying baby and poof! It becomes a quiet, happy baby that can be shown off to neighbours in moments.

I'm not sure what it is about the pram that is so soothing. Ours, as you can see, is a bright, seventies orange inside and poo brown outside. Alex seems to find the orange particularly appealing and will often spend entire walks staring at the sides of the pram. Bumps on curbs, which one might expect to be startling, are actually very good at preventing crying. It's all remarkably counter-intuitive.

Not everything about the pram is good though. Being a parent increases your tolerance for unpleasant tasks, but nothing helps with having to clean dog crap out of the treads of the wheels. We now have a dedicated poo-stick carefully hidden beside the front door to help with this task.

Prams are also ridiculously, absurdly expensive. A middle of the range frame will set you back £300. If you want any fancy extras like, you know, a seat, you're looking at an extra £75-£150 per item. (And who isn't going to buy a seat?! "Oh no, don't worry dear, we'll just gaffer-tape him to the frame.") A mid-range pram with travel system and carry cot will cost around £500. And that's far from the most expensive. What on earth does it do that warrants charging £500? For that sort of money I'd expect it to walk itself.

It's not even that prams are a low volume specialist item. Got a baby? You, sir, need a pram! And it's not that they really do all that much. Fold up, fold out. Clip thing on, clip thing off. Place drink in cup holder, remove drink from cup holder.

Yes, you read that right. Cup holder. There's a pram you can buy that has a cup holder. It has a warning on it that says "Do not place drinks in the cup holder when your child is in the pram". Excuse the hyperbole, but has the world gone mad? What in the name of all that is holy is the point of that? When am I going to use it then? Am I just going to take the pram out to carry my drink? Putting a cup holder on it does not make it car. It does not make it worth £500!

We were lucky on the pram front. We got ours from friends of friends for free, for which we are eternally grateful. It has a carry cot, converts into a push chair and has enough space underneath it for 18 rolls of toilet roll (with a little encouragement). It folds up enough to go in the boot of the car. And it makes Alex shut up.

It has nowhere to put my vente latte though.

Secret Smile

2009-10-14T12:41:00.000+01:00

15th-30th September 2009

Alex is practising smiling in his sleep. As he's drifting off, his face will twitch then crease into a brief smile. It's wonderful to watch. As the days go by, he is able to hold the smile for longer and more broadly. It makes him look more like a person and less like a baby. He has yet to smile in response to anything Nicola or I have done, but that will come. (I hope!)

One of the unexpected difficulties of having a newborn baby is how un-interactive they are. Except when he's sleeping, Alex has only three facial expressions. They are (in rough order of use): the Duns Stare, howling in anger and yawning.

The Duns Stare

Alex was born in the Borders and it seems to have rubbed off on him. The Duns Stare, named in honour of Jim Aiton's birthplace, is a glaikit gaze into the middle distance. In its true form, the Duns Stare should ideally be directed at someone you don't know. At no point should you actually be looking AT that person, merely happen to have your eyes pointing in their direction while thinking about something (or nothing) else entirely.

Alex is very, very good at the Duns Stare. He can stare at people, sofas, bits of his pram, open space or packets of nappies, all with apparently little or no actual interest in the item in question. Hands waved in his line of sight do not disturb him. He blinks, conservatively, once every five minutes. At one point I had to blow on his face just to make sure he actually could blink, which of course lead to:

Howling with anger

Everyone knows this one. It starts with the bottom lip trembling. Then the eyebrows draw down and the hands start flailing. Lastly, an arresting red colour suffuses the face before an almighty "BGWaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" is unleashed. This is continued ad nauseum until which ever need is met. Alex has a tendency to also go rigid with anger, which at least provides us with some amusement as you can prop him up and pretend he's standing. This is not always appreciated by Alex.

Yawning

Often thrown into howling with anger just to keep you on your toes. Alex is able to do some mighty big yawns given how small he is. I love it when he yawns, as he looks like a little person doing it.

* * *

And that's pretty much it, expression wise. He's either angry, tired or staring into space. It's remarkably unrewarding as a parent. Nicola in particular feels bad about it. We're conditioned to dash about at his beck and call, but all we can get for our troubles is some quiet. Don't get me wrong, quiet is good, but we're both looking forwards to the day when he smiles at us, not just near us.

Hey Mr Sandman

2009-10-12T12:28:00.000+01:00

12th-15th September, 2009

One of the great clichés of being a new parent is that you don't get much sleep and are really tired all the time. Neither part of this is wholly true. You can get lots of sleep, just in one and half hour chunks and you'll be really, extraordinarily, mind-manglingly tired all the time.

The sleep pattern thing is odd. During the first couple of days Nic and I manage to grab about as much sleep as we would usually. The reason we're tired is that it's not good sleep. As well as the general worry of looking after Alex, newborns are supposed to feed every three hours or less. (And that's three hours from the start of the last feed, not the end.) At best, we manage to get maybe 1.5-2 hours sleep in one go. In the worst case, Alex will feed for an hour and a half, then take half an hour to settle. That means he gets an hour's sleep before being woken to feed. Nic and I are lucky to get 45 minutes. Overall it might add up to eight to ten hours a day, but it's far from restful.

It's hard to describe just how tiring being constantly on-call like this actually is. You pass through tiredness, into that magical second wind period, out the other side of that into dead tired and then go beyond dead tired into some previously unexplored nadir of sleep deprivation. You become a shambling undead monstrosity, capable only of nappy changing and shoogling motions paired with shushing noises. All hours of the day and night are equal to you. You know you're a new parent when 3am seems like a good time for a chat with the in-laws, but curse their eternal souls for calling at the utterly unreasonable hour of 2pm. I take advantage of the newly discovered hours in the day to put the bin out in the dead of night.

Even the times when Alex is asleep aren't really relaxing. We suddenly have far more to do and far less time to do it in. At one point I optimistically prepare dinner for an hour's time, at which point Alex should be asleep. Three hours later we manage to shift-eat the cremated remains of a steak pie and baked potato. I manage about five mouthfuls before giving up.

* * *

The upside of all this stress and sleeplessness is that I'm losing weight! The Bell side of my family loses their appetites when overly tired. The Caldwell side loses theirs when stressed. I am currently both and cannot manage more than a slice of toast in six hours. I thought it was Nic who was meant to lose weight after the birth, not me. Still, can't really complain. Maybe we have a family breast size total that can't be exceeded? As Nic's have got bigger, mine are getting smaller. That's a win-win situation!

Breast is Best

2009-10-09T13:30:00.004+01:00

13th-15th of September, 2009.

Given how important it is to the whole survival of the human race thing, you'd think breast feeding would be easier. I really don't understand how something that has been this critical to our species for so long can possibly be so stupidly difficult.

Like a lot of men (and I suspect women), my pre-baby understanding of bosoms and their uses could best be described as cosmetic. I was aware that they were used for feeding infants, but only in the same way in which I am aware Mars is a planet or that Antarctica is cold. (The media assure me it's true, but I have yet to see any physical proof for myself.) But I had never considered the actual, practical implications of this. I mean, baby + breast = nosh. How hard could it be?

Yeah, well, ok. Pretty damn hard, it turned out. The problems are essentially three fold. Firstly, there's Alex. Basically he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Babies are born with a "rooting" (casting their head around for food) instinct and a basic "sucking" instinct. Only the sucking one sucks. They're just not very good at it. Alex persistently gets his tongue in the wrong place during his first few days. Rather than placing it under the nipple and sucking, he gets it on top of the nipple and chews. It is unpleasant and frustrating for both Nic and Alex. Nic because it hurts, Alex because it means he doesn't get enough milk.

Then there's Nic's body. At the start of motherhood you produce colostrum (a sort of thick milk) for a few days, then main milk thereafter. But Nic's not producing huge amounts of colostrum because Alex is not suckling well. Supply follows demand in breastfeeding, so if Alex doesn't suck and so gets less food, then Nic doesn't produce as much milk, which means Alex gets less food, which means he doesn't have the energy to suck well which means and so on. It's a vicious circle.

Lastly, there's positioning. Nic and I are struggling just to work out how to hold this 7lb 5.5oz bundle of squirming, screaming humanity, never mind how to hold him in such a way that he can clamp on to Nic's nipples. Think about it for a second. Alex can't even support his own head, never mind sit or stand on his own. He has no real volitional control over his limbs and even if he did, he couldn't understand what we want him to do anyway. And he's surprisingly heavy if you hold him for any length of time. Now imagine trying to get this thing attached halfway up your chest.

The upshot of this is that Alex is hungry a lot of the time and takes (literally) hours on one feed. At some point in the first night we crack and I get a bottle of formula that the hospital gave us and stuff him so full of milk that he can't move. (He can't move anyway of course, but at least he stops screaming and goes to sleep.) It feels like a failure.

The next day the community midwife weighs him. He's dropped in weight from 3.335kg (and yes, I know we all think about babies in pounds and ounces, but trust me, this bit is MUCH easier in metric) down to 3kg exactly. The midwife looks a touch concerned.

"That's more of a drop than we like to see. He's just over the 10% of birth weight ," she tells us. (See, told you it was easier in metric. Could you do 10% of 7lbs 5.5oz in your head?) "It's not really worrying, but..." she trails off. Nic's main milk still hasn't come in and Alex is still struggling with feeding. She says to see how it goes for the rest of the day and we'll re-assess the next day.

Suffice to say, it goes badly. Alex feeds for hours but still seems unsatisfied. We call the midwife up.

"OK. Come over to the health centre and I'll give you a couple of syringes. Use them to top him up with formula after a feed until Nicola's milk comes in."

So for the next two days Alex is fed by a combination of breasts and the magic finger. The magic finger is my pinky, which is stuffed into his mouth. Once he starts sucking it we have to squeeze milk into his mouth using the syringe. It sounds deeply tedious, but I really enjoy it. Feeding is the only thing newborns really seem to enjoy and, until now, it has been Nic's preserve. Here, I get to hold my son and provide him with sustenance. I get to feel his mouth and tongue slurping away at my finger. He is surprisingly strong. After a while my pinky really hurts, but it's worth it for the bonding alone.

What it does to Nicola is another matter. Even if you're not a breastfeeding mum, it's impossible to avoid the omnipresent "Breast is Best" message. Harder still if you're an educated, middle-class new mum keen to provide the best for your child. Every top up feed is a damning indictment on Nic's motherhood (or at least that's how she feels). She needed all the pain relief the hospital could provide and now she is failing in her only role as a new mum. I know she feels like this. I sympathise, but, in my heart of hearts, I am still glad for the time with Alex. Had I any spare mental capacity this would undoubtedly make me feel guilty and conflicted. Thankfully it's all taken up with worrying about stuff, so I'm spared that at least.

On the 15th, Nic's milk comes in. Her breasts suddenly leap up three cups sizes overnight. Alex gets the hang of suckling and goes at it with a vengeance. We step down then stop the top up feeds. It's a good day. Still, I find myself missing that link I got from feeding him. I guess I'll just have to wait until Nic starts expressing breast milk, at which point I can take over on few feeds. I am looking forwards to it immensely.

Home, James! Err, Alex!

2009-10-07T11:37:00.001+01:00

12th September, 2009.

Something tells me Nicola has not been enjoying her stay on the labour ward.

"Please text back to say you got this. Please bring 4 more vests, baby grow and car seat. Am hating hospital! Love Nic. xxx"

Not sure what it is, just a feeling.

* * *

My mum picks me up first thing and drives me down to the hospital. Borders General is not what you would call convenient for Dalkeith. In fact it's about 10 times further away than Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, one of the biggest maternity units in Scotland. But ERI is also one of the busiest, and the chances of being bumped to a different unit at the last minute, or of getting a less personal level of service are quite high. So we went with the Borders. I don't regret it, but it does make getting there at 8am when your car is still sitting in the hospital car park somewhat tricky. Thus Granny Tatty is on dad taxi-ing duty. The drive down seems longer than I remember, but maybe that's just the anticipation.

Eventually we arrive. Technically, only I should be let onto the ward. (Dads get open visiting between 8am and 10:30pm, other people only get 2-4 and 6:30-8.) We prevail upon the red-headed orderly who lets me in though, and Tatty is allowed to say a (very) brief hello to Alex. Unlike all the other grandparents, she doesn't break down into tears. I suspect she's probably already done that at home.

Once she's gone, Nic catches me up on the night's news. It turns out that the good people of the Scottish Borders are unusually fertile at the moment. (Or perhaps more accurately, were unusually fertile/frisky/drunk and careless around Christmas and New Year.) As a result it's been really busy in the maternity ward. At one point, it took over an hour for Nic to get a slice of toast, which she promptly threw up. Also, she's been worried about Alex crying and disturbing other people.

Let's just take a moment to think about that, shall we? She's worried about Alex, a less than one day old baby, crying and disturbing the peace in a maternity ward filled with crying babies. I can't even begin to understand this. Then I remember that Nic has had almost no sleep in three days, is on an interesting cocktail of drugs, has just forced a seven and half pound baby out through a hole that would comfortably take only a half pound baby and has stitches in places I didn't even know she had. I decide to let this particular issue slide. How gracious of me.

So we settle down to our first day of trying to look after Alex. About the first thing that happens is that we need to change his nappy. He rewards us with a remarkably accurate impression of the Manneken Pis. Neither of us cops a faceful, thankfully, but the bed gets soaked. (A good learning experience. This is why you DON'T change your child on the bed!) We press the call button and let the red-headed orderly from earlier know. She goes to get new linen, but doesn't return for quite a while.

This going to do something but not coming back turns out to have been the bane of Nic's night. It was responsible for the hour long toasting incident and numerous other issues. Most upsetting for Nic was when she was told that she would be woken at five to breastfeed Alex, only to be woken at six thirty, scolded for neglecting her baby and then told that there wasn't time to breastfeed him and to give him this bottle of formula. She is close to tears telling me this. In contrast, I am close to homicide. We both hold back with admirable self-control.

Maybe I'm pushier than Nic, or maybe I'm just less tired and so better able to articulate our needs, but over the next few hours we manage to get more help. In particular, an Australian midwife (I thought all our nurses were going over there, not theirs over here) is able to spend fifteen minutes helping Nic with breastfeeding technique.

Visitors come and go. It's all a bit hard to take in. Shining through it all though is the fact that I'm enjoying my son for the first time. I'm less stressed and (a little) less worried, so I can take pleasure in him. We play "spot the inheritance". The consensus is that Alex doesn't really look much like anyone. He's got a bit of Nicola's dad in there, but it's not startling. About the only obvious genetic hand-me-down is that he has my feet. This strikes me as kind of weird. I was expecting to be able to say "oh, that's my [eyes/nose/etc]", not "he's got my feet"! I didn't even think of feet as being something you could identify, but it turns out you can. Bad luck Alex, giant hobbit feet it is.

At five o'clock Nicola is discharged. We're free to go. We pack up our stuff (although not before I send Nic's only bra home with her parents, oops!) and carefully clip Alex into his car seat. Then we're allowed to take him home.

Hang on, shouldn't there be a test? Or some sort of home visit? It was harder adopting our cat for goodness sake! (£49 and a reference, if you're wondering.) Just because we're fertile doesn't mean we're safe to be parents. Why doesn't someone do something about this? How can we be suddenly in charge of a tiny, fragile little life? Eek!

We drive home, very, very carefully. Ever two minutes or so I ask Nic how Alex is doing. The answer, pretty much each time, is that he's asleep. He is the only one who is unfazed. On getting home we introduce him to the cat. Ringo gives Alex a brief sniff, then demands food. We assemble some sort of half-hearted dinner, all the time keeping an eye on Alex, as if he will despawn if we don't keep him in sight at all times. We eat something. I presume. I can't remember doing so, but we must have. Alex grumps and struggles to feed.

The Woolly Mammoth of Responsibility settles down in the back of my skull. Oh gods, we're a family. Life is never going to be the same.

P.S. I should explain that Alex was going to be called James until about 3 days before his birth, hence the title.

Family Ties

2009-10-05T13:30:00.003+01:00

11th of September, 2009: 18:00

We spent a couple of quiet hours in the labour suite (where you do the whole "push push" bit) after Alex was born. Just sitting, holding him, talking quietly. Of course, because this is the 21st century we were also fielding texts and Facebook messages of congratulations. But it was a quiet time regardless. Certainly compared to the previous 24 hours. I'd had a good worry about everything, Nicola had been put back together by the medical staff and Alex had had a sleep. Just as we were about to be moved to the maternity ward (where you stay after the "push push" bit), Nicola's parents arrived. (Visiting hours were just starting, by an odd co-incidence.) The staff let them in to say hello and accompany us to the ward. Nicola and her parents hugged and cried. I got a manly handshake from Alan and a kiss from Hazel.

(Utterly off topic, it's been interesting to chart Alan's greetings to me over the years. When I was just his daughter's boyfriend, I got a cheery "Hello". When we got engaged, I was promoted to a handshake. Since Alex has been born, it's gone up to a manly handshake, complete with left hand on elbow action. I dread to think what it would have become if we'd had twins!)

We got Nicola transferred to a wheely bed, Alex to a wheely cot and I put my T-shirt back on, so as not to scare the general public. Then, in a bizarre cavalcade, we left the labour suite.

I expected to cry when Alex was born and I became a dad (which I did, but not for the reasons I was anticipating). I wasn't expecting to cry when I saw my own father afterwards. Yet when I saw him there, standing outside the labour suite, waiting for us to be wheeled through to the ward, I broke down and wept uncontrollably. Every ounce of fear, stress and fatigue I had accumulated over the last two days suddenly bubbled up. I could stop being strong. Stop being reassuring. Stop being upbeat. My dad was here. I was safe.

My unexpected reaction to seeing my dad pretty much sums up what I'm aiming for with being Alex's dad. No matter what else happens, if in thirty years time he can see me standing there and know, deep down, that he's safe, I'll count my life as a success.

* * *

I can't remember a lot about those first visiting hours. It seems my body had finally given up. Nicola had a sea of hormones to tide her through. I had the stale taste of fear in my mouth and limbs as heavy as lead. The grandparents coo-ed over Alex, who was obligingly cute if somewhat sleepy. I think I may have managed a couple of sentences, but I doubt they were more than five words long, if that. John and Grant took pity on me and whisked me off home. (New dads are not allowed to stay overnight in the hospital.) On the way home the sky was ablaze over Sutra Hill. Fabulous reds, oranges and pastel golds framed the massive wind turbines as the sun set over Edinburgh. A more spectacular sunset I haven't seen in a long, long time. I cursed my lack of a camera to myself as we drove.

I got home to a dark house and a very friendly cat at around 9pm, over 36 hours after Nic and I left for the hospital. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to sleep for replaying those horrible moments after Alex's birth.

I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

* * *

And so ended probably the longest day of my life. Although Alex is shaping up to be the best thing in the world, I can't honestly say that the day he was born was the best day of my life. Hand on heart, it was far from it. It was a day of terror and stress, pain and blood. Enjoyment would have to wait until tomorrow.

Cry Baby, Cry: Update

2009-10-04T10:52:00.000+01:00

I'm writing these posts about 2-3 weeks after the fact. It's partly because I had better things to do in the first couple of weeks of Alex's life. It's partly that it gives me time to think about and understand things, an emotional safety barrier if you will. And it's partly that it stops me from writing something stupid, like a joke about a nappy rash that turns out to be measles. A not looking like a prat barrier, perhaps.

I might need to work on the not looking like a prat barrier size...

Everything I wrote in Cry Baby, Cry was absolutely true for the first two and half weeks. It was true when I wrote it. It was true all the way until I got home that night.

Let's just say I'm over the "he doesn't cry enough" thing now.

Cry Baby, Cry

2009-10-02T13:30:00.009+01:00

11th of September, 2009. 16:00.

Alex has been in the world for a little under half an hour and the elephant of worry, which had previously made a brief appearance in my stomach during his birth, has returned. Only this time, he's brought his friends. I've been a dad for maybe twenty-five minutes and it feels like I've spent most of that time fretting. I have, in no particular order worried about:

His funny shaped head. (Pretty much all newborns have funny shaped heads, so this one didn't overly trouble me.)
The fact that he was born with forceps. What if they've mashed his little brain?
That he was born blue. What if his little brain has been starved of oxygen?
The fact that he's dribbling out of one side of his mouth. What if he's been paralysed down one side?
I can't seem to feel anything but worry. Is this it? Isn't love involved somewhere?
He's not crying enough. (I know, I know.) What if this means he's autistic?
A whole bunch of other stuff that I have since forgotten.

The dribble turned out to be, well, dribble. He was dribbling out of one side of his mouth because that was the side that was lowest down. Having since been kicked in the face by both legs, grabbed by both hands and peed on with surprising, nay, malicious accuracy I can attest that he is in no way paralysed. And love is much easier to feel when you're not on the edge of hallucinations caused by fatigue and stale adrenaline. The one worry that's really stuck with me is one I suspect will mean other parents hate me.

I still worry he doesn't cry enough.

I give you a second to stop muttering dark imprecations about my parentage... Got that out of your system? Good. Let's carry on.

Alex is a good baby. Obviously I'm biased, but he really is very peaceful. He rarely seems to get into a massive strop. He goes to sleep and stays that way (usually). He doesn't much like getting his nappy changed, but who would? He just doesn't cry very much. And it freaks me out. Really, really badly.

I'm well aware there's little logic to this. I've been on the verge of tears the few times he's been unsettled and cried for any prolonged period of time. I can't stand to hear him cry. The noise of him being upset seems to shred my soul into little bits, good only for making soul coleslaw. (Soulslaw, in fact.) But he's just so damn quiet the rest of the time. I thought babies were meant to howl and scream. To kick up a right royal fuss whenever anything was wrong. But Alex doesn't. Much. On a good day.

The logical, rational part of my mind knows that babies vary. The logical, rational part of my mind knows damn well that Alex can cry bloody murder when he wants to. The problem is the logical, rational part of my mind can take a flying leap when it comes to my son. He was quiet when he was born. I was terrified for him when he was born. Thus, I am worried when he doesn't cry.

Parenthood changes us all, I guess. I just never expected it to change me into a worrier.

A Shot in the Arm

2009-09-30T13:30:00.000+01:00

"I was expecting labour to be traumatic for Miriam. I wasn't expecting it to be so traumatic for me!"

-Gregory Gifford

Allow me the use of a hackneyed literary device and, now that we've started with an action scene, let us go back to the beginning. Or a beginning at least...

It's 10:30am on Thursday the 10th of September and Nicola's TENS machine has just adhered to the park bench we're sitting on. A TENS machine, for those not intimately acquainted with medical terminology, is a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation device. Basically, it's a machine that sends small electric shocks through your skin, causing your body to generate pain killing chemicals. They're popular during labour as a non-invasive pain relief method. You strap them to your lower back and, in theory at least, they help with contraction pain. The problem is Nicola's TENS unit has been gently stimulating a grubby bench for the last five minutes, not her.

We attempt to remove the electrodes from the bench, but discover that they've adhered remarkably well. Far better in fact than they will ever adhere to Nicola. A certain amount of force is required to detach them. Quite a bit of greenish-grey moss comes with them. We wet the pads to return some stickiness to them. They are now greenish-grey and wet. We attach them to Nicola anyway. It is one of the more minor indignities she will have to suffer before Alex is born the next day.

* * *

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"I was just thanking someone for helping me across the other side of Glasgow Uni's Zoology department."

It's 11pm on the same day. Nicola is still in labour (about 4cm dilated, out of 10cm required). She's been electrocuting herself for hours, as well as huffing the gas and air (a modern day laughing gas) but the pain has become too much. So about twenty minutes ago she accepted a shot of diamorphine. It seems to have done the trick, as she is falling asleep between contractions and having some truly weird dreams as she does so. A few minutes later she will wake up and ask the midwife if she should stand up now. She is firmly told "no!" I'm not convinced she could even have managed to sit up, let alone stand.

An hour or so later, while the midwife is out of the room, Nic's teeth start chattering. It goes from an occasional chit-chat to a staccato chat-chat-chat-chat-chat with alarming speed. Coupled with her delirium, I have no idea what's going on. Worried, I stick my head out of the door.

"Yes?" Testy and interrupted from her chat, our midwife looks up at me.

"Nic's teeth are chattering really badly."

"She's just cold," the midwife replies. The "you moron" afterwards is added by my own mind, but I don't doubt it was there in hers too. "Turn the fan off and put a blanket on her." ("Now sod off and let me drink my coffee and find out what Gillian in ward seven has been up to with Dr McGuffin.")

OK, maybe it was a slightly daft question, but I've only had four hours sleep in the last 48, my wife has been in horrible pain for a good proportion of the day and I have no idea what a normal reaction to diamorphine is. Cut me a break, I think.

I turn off the fan and cover Nic up. Her teeth stop chattering. The incident colours my interactions with our midwife until she goes off shift at 8am. Funny how the little things make a difference.

* * *

3am. The darkest hour is before the dawn. The diamorphine has worn off. The contraction pains are back and Nic is only 5cm dilated. (We would have hoped to have progressed 1cm an hour, so from 4cm at 11, we should have been at 8cm by now.) Slow progress means that Nic's labour is very likely to take longer than the next (and final) shot of diamorphine would last. So we've opted for the epidural.

Again, for those who don't know, an epidural is a type of anaesthesia administered directly to the spinal column. Well sited, it will totally block the pain. Getting it sited though is a traumatic procedure, as it involves remaining totally still. Not easy when your body is clenching in pain every two minutes. As an idea of how bad it is, when Greg, who's quoted above, and Miriam were having their baby, Gregory was sent out of the room while the epidural was administered. I have no such luck.

Nicola has been hunched over for half an hour now, trying not to move. Her back seems unusually difficult to get the epidural needle into. Suddenly she screams with pain and (partially) suppresses a spasm.

"What was it?" the anaesthetist asks.

"Stabbing pains down my leg."

"Still happening?"

"Gone now. But I didn't move. I didn't move. I didn't move," Nicola weeps. The fear and pain are all too evident in her voice. I want to hug her, protect her, tell her it'll be alright, but I can't. I can't even look her in the eyes, as her head is bowed to encourage her back to bend. She keeps whispering "I didn't move" to herself. It's like a mantra that, if repeated enough, will take back the pain she felt and repair any damage it may have caused.

"OK, I'm going to give you a test dose. Tell me what you feel."

"Cold. Cold running down my back." A pause. "And now my bottom's really hot."

The anaesthetist smiles a small, satisfied smile.

* * *

20 minutes later.

"How was that contraction?"

"What contraction?"

The worst of the pain is over. Outside, I can hear birds starting to sing to the dawn.

Baby Blue

2009-09-28T16:10:00.001+01:00

Nothing could have prepared me for the terror of seeing my child for the first time. I felt no fear of responsibility. No loss of freedom. No unconditional love. Nothing but abject, total, guts-to-ice-water terror.

Alex was born at 15:35, on the 11^th of September 2009. He was delivered by forceps after a long and painful labour. Seeing Nicola in unbearable pain was bad enough, but it was just a taste of what was to come.

“The head’s out, keep pushing!”

“He’s got his cord tangled.”

“Baby’s coming up!”

And then they plunked my boy onto my wife’s lap. His cord was around his neck. He was silent. He was limp. He was blue. Not “it’s a bit chilly” blue, but the deep, unhealthy, recently-reanimated-dead blue of the worst zombie nightmares. More pairs of hands than I could count flashed in and out. The cord was untangled, clamped and cut in the blink of an eye. I swear, the only thought that went through my head was “oh, we wanted to delay cord clamping”. Then he disappeared, taken off to the resuss table, still silent. Still blue. Still still.

“Is he going to be alright?” Nicola asked the room. I glanced across at the midwives, awaiting the inevitable “of course he is dear”.

Their silence spoke ominous volumes to me.

* * *

An eternity passed.

* * *

Then, from the resuss table, a tiny “waa”. Then another one, a bit more confident, a bit more strident, “waa!”

Nicola and I burst into tears. The elephant that had settled into my gut got up and wandered off. He was crying. He was alive.

* * *

In fact, being born blue is not as uncommon as you might expect. Some blueness, especially around the extremities (hands and feet) is almost de-rigueur. JRB (my dad and retired GP and paediatrician) remarked that only diabetic babies score 10 on their APGAR, with everyone else dropping a point for colour (blue at the edges). Alex’s scores of 8 at one minute and 9 at five minutes were totally fine. He didn’t need any serious resuss in the end, only a little extra facial oxygen. And he’s totally ok now. Smashing, in fact.

We’re conditioned by TV and film to expect perfectly plump, clean, 3-month olds to pop out of their mummies and into our arms with barely enough time to rush to the hospital. I wasn’t naive enough to expect that. But I didn’t expect Alex to be blue. I didn’t expect him to threaten to break my heart in two the moment he was born.

Looking back on his birth, I am amazed at the sheer skill and professionalism of the staff looking after us at Borders General Hospital. From the moment they saw the cord around his neck, no-one needed instructions. No hands got in each other’s way. When he was ready to go to the terrifyingly tiny resuss table, that table was folded down and prepped before he got there. (It’s kept folded away most of the time, so as not to panic prospective parents.) There was no fuss, just the smooth, competent professionalism of a team that knows and trusts each other. I don’t believe in a god to thank, but I do believe in humanity, and I am incredibly thankful that people like them exist and were there for Alex, Nic and me.