More than just a noisy bundle of flesh

For four and a half weeks I looked at Henry with unconditional love and a certain amount of curiosity, both based on the same thing.  He didn't actually do anything.
 
Like any new parent my love was unconditional as he didn't need to do anything. I didn't need him to come bounding in to the room and shout "I love you Daddy" for me to love him back. I don't need him to buy me a Christmas present, send me a fathers day card, get my slippers and pipe, run down the shop to get me a paper or become the best midfielder in the history of English football.  I dont need him to do any of that for me to love him (although everything on that list will be greatly appreciated at some point during our lives).  No, little Henry needs to do nothing, my love is totally unconditional, as is his mothers.

My curiosity was based on the question of when he would actually start doing things. Anything at all! I mean anything constructive.  He could of course already garlgle with an uncanny knack of sounding like the Tazmanian Devil, he could stare aimlessly at the wall or ceiling, he could pass huge amounts of wind and not batter an eyelid and of course he could present mummy and daddy with a poonami or two.  But none of that, as touching as it all is, really makes you want to make an announcement via the town crier (although of course I have managed to bore all my friends and family with endless facebook posts - come to think of it, this is probably attached to one).  Henry was, for all intents and purposes, just a noisy bundle of flesh, but we loved him anyway.

Everything changed dramatically when he was four and a half weeks old.  Over the previous week or so Henry had started to make what looked like smiles, but we soon realised that these were only appearing after he had had a particularly satisfactory wee, released some gassy wind or even had a number two.  We tried to claim that they had been made because he had seen us, but the fact that his eyes were usually closed as he lay soaking in the glory of his release was an indication that we in fact had nothing to do with it (although, as I said, wee sometimes had something to do with it).

But anyway, after 4 and half weeks everything changed. Gail was holding Henry on the sofa and as I walked over to greet them he looked up at me, opened his mouth and beamed from cheek to cheek.  Now I know I have a funny face but it had never got this reaction before. 

The important thing here is that Gail and I don't really care if our first born son finds my face particularly funny, its quite cute that he does, what we know now is that he recognises things and there are things going on inside that pretty little head of his.  In an instant he is now so much more than just a noisy bundle of flesh, now he is interacting, now we know he has emotion. FACT! 

The best thing of all is that this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Gail and I both know that his character is going to start snowballing and neither of us can wait.  We both also know that we are still going to have sleepless nights for a while longer yet, but that doesn't matter because that smile at four and a half weeks told us that the fun has just begun.

The day the table turned

Bosom buddies

Henry was three weeks old yesterday.

In that time he has had so many firsts to tick off that his excitement meter must be going off the scale. Nevertheless, despite all the new and wonderful things he is being introduced to, he still has three favourites: Milk, poo and wee.

He loves his milk. It doesn't matter what type, breast or formula, he's not fussy.  He laps it up, stores some of it in his ever-growing body and of course just presents us with a nappy full of his two other favourite things.


Before Henry was born I had offered mummy a payment of £50 each month to do all his nappies.  This however went out of the window when I had to change his first nappy in the hospital whilst mummy was still recovering. I soon discovered that it wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe and from that moment I decided to keep my £50 per month and get my fingers dirty (literally) each and every day. 

A descision that seemed to be the right one as, for a while, all seemed to be going really well. For the first couple of weeks I managed to have relatively hassle-free changes of Henry's nappies.  On the other hand Mummy was getting showered by his litle fountain of fun on every other change. It did make me laugh but mummy was getting soaked so often that she was beginning to think that Henry and Daddy had a secret agreement. 

Today though, Sunday 29th January, the tables turned dramatically, the smile was well and truly wiped from my face.

I set down as normal to change Henry. He was on the mat, the baby wipes were open and ready, there was cotton wool and a bowl of water, there was a small pot of Sudocrem, a new nappy was open and waiting to go and Henry was relaxed and peaceful. 

As I neared completion of the nappy change I received a warning but I stupidly chose to ignore it; the little pump of wind on my finger should have made me realise that things weren't as normal as they seemed, but I chose just to laugh at the little monster and threaten to pump on his finger to exact my revenge.  I wouldn't be laughing for much longer.  Naively I simply carried on virtually unprotected, save for a tissue-thin piece of thin tissue paper resting between his winkie wooh and my face.  With hindsight I now realise that this wasn't enough, but at the time how could I possibly know? 

I was just about to put his new nappy in place when I noticed a little circle of wee on the tissue.  He was dribbling.  As I removed it to mop up the mess and reposition a new piece of tissue, all hell broke loose. 

A little bit of peanut butter started squirting out from his back side.  When I say a "little bit" this is a complete understatement. It was as though Henry was making Mister Whippee ice creams.

'Oh Sh*t!' This was me screaming in distress and also being completely factual for the benefit of my audience of mummy, Grandma and Grandad.

As I panicked to grab more tissue a new fountain of baby wee started arcing towards my knees.

'Aargh! No!' This was me again. In the back ground I could hear the sounds of mummy, grandma and grandad tittering.

'Help me, I need more tissue,' I begged.

Between titters mummy grabbed the requested supply of extra mopping-up material. 

As I cleaned up and reapplied some sudocrem to the little man's skin, a brand new squirt of peanut butter started to appear from the crime scene.

'Henry! No!

Then more wee started to arc as well.

'Gail help!'

Mummy, Grandma and Grandad were now laughing loudly.

But again just as I got to clearing up the mess there were more poo and wee eruptions. What was going on. It was as if Henry has become some sort of Playdough activity centre with things shooting out from all over the place aimed at daddy.  By now, mummy, Grandma and Grandad were rolling around on the floor with tears of laughter filling their eyes.  Yes, ha bleeding ha! The sight of me trying to hold Henry's legs out of the toxic watse, whilst also trying to mop it up and keep his clothes from being sucked towards the goo must have looked blinking hilarious through their teary eyes.  It just seemed that whatever I cleaned up was instantly replaced by a new supply and Henry's clothes seemed somehow magnetically drawn towards the quagmire. How did his little body hold so much smelly bad stuff?

Eventually, Henry ran out of poo and wee. Even if he had wanted to to carry on squirting me, his reserves had run dry, so he couldn't.  This of course then meant that he instantly began screaming for more food to top up his gunge tanks. 

A whitefaced, sweating daddy was left holding him and sitting amongst a mountain of scrumpled and stained paper towels trying to figure out what had just happened.

The tables had indeed completely turned and if any agreement was now in place it was firmly between mummy and Henry, poor daddy was now the butt of their toilet gags.

So in the wake of this horrific pooey happening am I reconsidering the offer to mummy of £50 per month to change all the nappies? No, absolutely not.  As much as I didn't ever want to be in the firing line of a babies pooey bottom, now that I am I wouldn't change it for the world. I have learned over the last three weeks that you have to take the rough with the smooth (that's not another reference to peanut butter) but one thing is for sure, none of the bad stuff is really that bad and this whole fatherhood thing is the best thing in the world.

So, with a protective apron and safety goggles in place, I am now ready for anything Henry can throw at me - actually, I really hope he doesn't start doing that!

Fallen in love again

I have barely any words. My usual verbal diarrhoea has completely been replaced by verbal constipation. Why? - Because the most AMAZING thing has happened to me.

Let me try to find some words to explain.

Last weekend I sat at the hospital window watching the day turn to night and wondered what the next few hours had in store for Gail and I.  Considering that she was halfway through her labour we were actually both very relaxed. So relaxed that she was able to get a couple of hours sleep during her contractions and I manged to find a chair in the corner of the room and quietly tune-in to radio 5-live commentary of the Liverpool v Oldham FA cup game.  This whole labour lark was seemingly a piece of cake, in fact it was quite nice to be doing something different at the weekend.

The minutes and hours passed-by and things continued to go smoothly - too smoothly.  However, it all changed very quickly and by the time midnight took us into the next day things had turned particularly bumpy for Gail and her tummy bump.  To cut to the chase all I can say is that the next few hours became particularly traumatic for everyone involved.

From my own point of view, once I had donned my surgeon's uniform and paper hat and joined the crew and cast in the theatre, I was subjected to mental torture, moments of curiosity, total bewilderment and absolute fear.  In the end though, all those feelings were surpassed.

"It's a boy," they told us.

The moment I saw him and they confirmed that he was all right I cant say that I felt elated, just sheer quivering relief.

"Do you want to hold him?" I was asked.
"No," I replied, "I'll drop him."  I was so scared of ruining everything after all the hard work everyone else had put in.

It's now a few days later and we are all back at home and my family has started to regain their fitness.  And now I realise that I am lucky enough to have experienced something that all new dads must feel once the penny starts to drop.  I can't quite believe it but I...am...a...FATHER.  What the hell is that all about?  I am so extremely proud of Gail for everything she has been through without any fuss whatsoever.  But more than anything when I look down at the little bundle of burping, pumping, rosy-cheeked joy in my lap I can truthfully say that I have fallen in love all over again.  That is what has happened to me and for me, this is my little moment of heaven.

The stabalisers are off

I was five years old and we had been to see my Grandparents.  For some reason that I cant quite remember (36 years have clouded that part) when we got home late in the afternoon I decided that today was to be the day that I rode for the first time without my stabalisers. "Take them off,' I demanded with all the authority of some one of at least 6 years of age. I stepped forward...

So over the next three decades quite a lot happened in my life until I reached now. And now, and the few months up until now, there has been a huge shift in the axis of normality in my life. Pregnancy.

It's quite modern to call it "our" pregnancy, but in reality,  when push comes to shove (quite literally) the pregnancy is the woman's domain and I will dishonour my other half if I try to steal any credit.  She has been doing all the carrying, suffering and the incubating and she has done the most fantastic job in the world and I am in awe of her and incredibly proud.

What we have shared together though are the doctor and hospital visits and the amazing help offered by the NHS.  I have always thought that the NHS did a really good job without ever actually being dazzled by it. However, as soon as the baby was due and we notified our doctor we were both suddenly whisked on to the conveyer belt of a very well oiled machine.

I cant tell you enough just how good the Nat Health Service has been for us since we found out we were expecting.  Neither of us knew what would happen when we were expecting, as don't most first time parents, indeed one of the first things you ask yourself is What happens next?  But these thoughts soon disappeared from the moment we first visited our midwife.  She told us all the info we needed to know, she mapped out the pregnancy and she booked us in for all the crucial stages.

Everyone gets the same service.  First comes the twelve week scan, then the twenty week scan, then you get the thrill of hearing the baby's heart beat. Back and forth you go; your other half being constantly pushed, pressed and measured.  Blood pressure and urine are checked to make sure that all is well and your worries are addressed on each new visit, the midwife becomes someone you can trust.

Then all of a sudden a Social Services representative turns up. Where did she come from? How did she know about us?  It's all very strange, but it's all part of the fantastic NHS Service.

Then after what seems like an age, all being well, you have reached the stage when you start your antenatal classes. Again, this was all set up by our midwife and all we had to do was turn up.  I may be an ignorant fool of a dad-to-be but I learnt so much from these lessons. From the fact that its pretty much just you, your partner and the midwife in the labour ward (where are all the doctors you see on TV) to how a baby turns in the uterus, what a Ventouse delivery is and that there is sooooo much to breast feeding - enough for us to discuss for 2 and half hours, apparently, as the midwife running the class said, its not just a case of putting the baby onto the nipple.

So having had all this wonderful service from the NHS we now find ourselves at home alone, the baby is due in a week and a few days ago we had our last antenatal lesson. As we left the class it suddenly hit me that we were not scheduled to get any more help from the NHS until my other half goes into labour, all of a sudden we were on our own.  All at once I had one of those moments in my mind that you get in the horror movies when the corridor the camera is going along just gets longer and longer.  I suddenly felt very alone.  The support we had had all along was now no longer there. 

So here we are, here I am.  With trembling legs I walk forward and grip the handlebars; my nerves are jangling as I wriggle uncomfortably on the saddle to get positioned.  I take a deep breath then tentatively push down on the pedal with one foot whilst lifting the other from the floor.  I'm moving, its wobbly but I must do this. I must prove it to myself more than anyone.  It's scary but I know I can do it, I've done it before.  It's 36 years later, the situation is slightly different, but here we are again, the stabalisers are off and ahead of me is a new and very different world...

A real life Nativity?

"Christmas comes but once a year", but wait!  Could we be about to witness the second coming?

The evidence:
1) There was a couple expecting their first child.
2) All around them there was a furore of goings-on.
3) There is a chance that they will be homeless.
4) If the little blighter comes a week early it could be born on December 25th.


Now listen, I'm not saying that ours was an immaculate conception but sometimes, when I look at the due date, I do ask myself  "How did this all happen?" (Just joking before anyone starts cracking any funnies!)

Now all we need is a donkey, three wise men and a stable in which to lay our homeless heads come the eve of December 24th and who knows; we may be looking at the arrival of the next Messiah.

Yee Gads! Could it all just be coincidence?  Well of course it is, ha! but let me have my moment of fun before all hell breaks lose.  Like all new parents I am obviously thinking that my child is bound to be some sort of gift from the Gods, but that is also twinned with the hopes and fears that is okay and doesn't grow up to be the next Hitler.  I mean even old Adolf was once a bonnie baby bouncing upon his parents' knees.

Of course there are many things that may prevent all this from happening:

a) It might be a girl (and the name Jesus just wouldn't work if that's the case)
b) It might be born on any of the other 22 days between now and the due date of Jan 1st rather than Dec 25th.
c) I don't think we have had many dealings with God so the chances of us having His kid are more than just a tadge slim.

In reality, our baby it's more likely to be a wee baby Eve, Noel, Christopher, Robin or Holly than a Jesus (without being blasphemous, I simply wouldn't be that cruel).

So having said all that one thing is certainly true. All of our Christmases will have come at once if Lumpy (its pre-birth name) decides it wants to break free and star in its very first Nativity play in a fortnight's time.

So don't get out there to buy us some Frankincense or Mir just yet, although we will be happy to take any gifts of gold that you may want to bestow unto us.

We will leave Christmas to the original son of God and we will be over the moon with our little wonder kid whatever day of this festive time of year it arrives on.

So for now I shall just wait with Great Dadspectations knowing that the night before Christmas will soon be upon us.

What's that I see out of the window? A star? (play Twighlight Zone music to fade).