Category: Parenting

Today was my initiation into the ranks of the (Occasional) Stay At Home Dads.

At 8am, Karen reluctantly left the house to head into her office, and I, faced with a very confused Bernard, was in charge. Armed with all my accumulated expertise, I am proud to say that I didn’t do a bad job at all. I know what he needs, I am reasonably competent at deciphering his signals, my only concern was that the absence of Karen for the first time in his life would leave him unable to keep his head together.

In the event, it didn’t go too badly. There were a couple of occasions when he was clearly trying to communicate *”Oh for goodness’ sake, where’s mummy and her boob?”* but for the most part, he seemed to understand the situation. In fact, the most pleasant surprise of the day was his sudden acceptance of formula milk, which until now he has refused with the utmost of disgust.

After lunch, I took him into town in his pram. We wandered round a few shops, and somewhere around Woolworths he fell asleep. I took the long way home, picking up a bottle of ginger beer on the way. Which I think I shall now open, seeing as Karen has come home early and the three of us have retired to the office ((a vague term, but I hate the term “home office”, I’ve fallen out of love with “studyo” (is it a study? Is it a recording studio? It’s both!) and “Man Cave” is no longer strictly true. What should I call this room instead?)) together. I’m contemplating making a little laptop out of foam for Bernard to gnaw on, so that he doesn’t feel left out.

The prospect of doing this once a week doesn’t seem so bad. I accept the arrangement with relish.

I usually walk through the door at about 6:15pm, and take a tired, miserable, drooling baby out of Karen’s arms. I bounce him for a few minutes, which usually is enough to give everyone in the house a little smile for a while. Then, at 6:30pm, it is time for Bernard’s bath.

I take him upstairs and deposit him in his cot while I start the bath filling. He amuses himself with a ladybird or flower while I do this. Then I return to his room, and transfer him to the changing table to undress him. He’s quite ticklish, so this usually degenerates into giggles.

I want to write about our new rocking chair, and my exciting excursion into North London to collect it, but my sentences are disappointing me. Everything I write seems cumbersome and clumsy, and I can’t tell whether this is due to a temporary inability to write, or a temporary inability to make sense of it when I read it back to myself.

The rocking chair itself is slightly less than awesome – it has a chunky lever to switch between “rock” mode and “rock steady” mode, but the lever has a tendency to crunch back into “rock steady” mode of its own accord. A temporary fix has been implemented using twine. The chair also squeaks a bit when rocking to and fro, but I don’t think twine would be much help for that.

Despite these failings, our new rocking chair provides good support for a nursing mother, which will hopefully banish her steadily-worsening backache back to whence from came it.

Yesterday I found myself casting my mind back to the first nappy change that I performed alone, and I pondered upon how much has changed since then.

In the first few days, I handled Bernard with such a degree of cautiousness that it must have been frustrating for him. That first nappy change was such an exciting experience, requiring focus and concentration. Nowadays, they are over in the blink of an eye. I make sure that all the necessary components are in the right place, and then in a flurry of soiled nappy, wipes, vaseline and fresh nappy (and about the same amount of time as it takes to type those words) it is all over.

We’ve used approximately 200 disposable nappies in these four weeks, and this has (by my estimations) been enough to fill 6 additional black bin bags, most of which are by now in a landfill near you. But the transition to washable nappies has begun, and hopefully we will now be able to return to only producing one black bin bag full of refuse per fortnight.

Prior to this transition, I used to marvel at how soft and fluffy the brand-new washable nappies were. I’d bury my face in them and walk around with them on my head, they were so addictively soft and fluffy. Seriously. But I can’t imagine myself doing that any more. Though they will still be as soft and fluffy when fresh from the washing machine, I know where they have been.

Bernard’s vocabulary has improved, to incorporate gurgles, hums, squeaks and the occasional “ah” noise (which is probably accidental, on his part). This is fantastic. When he screamed, and I screamed back at him, this used to drive Karen up the wall (wonder why). The new system is far more pleasant for all involved.

One of the most significant improvements is that we are learning more about his preferences. He likes certain levels of light, certain levels of noise, certain types of motion, certain temperatures, certain ways of being held. Knowing exactly what values to assign to these parameters makes the world of difference. For example, if we are in the sitting room with the curtains closed and he is whining, I know that there is a 90% chance that if I carry him into the kitchen (where it is brighter) he’ll calm down. If I am sat down with him on my knee and he is whining, I know that if I stand up with him, there is a good chance that this will calm him down (he just seems to like this position more). By knowing what he likes and dislikes, we can get him a little bit more comfortable, even if that involves a completely unnecessary drive up the road and back.

On another note, and I’m not sure whether my bias is overwhelming here, but I feel like this really is an abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous baby.

Incidentally, I did actually write a post a week ago, but never managed to finish it. The bit that I *did* write said this:

> I can’t believe that I’ve been back at work nearly a week and a half already, and the house move is bounding over the horizon towards us like a large, overenthusiastic dog that’s going to cover you in loving but slobbery kisses sometime in a month or so.

> Returning to work feels like the aforementioned dog is actually a wolf, for now, and has just taken a huge bite out of your leg that actually has also encompassed the other leg, one arm, and 80% of your torso. The bit of your body that is left struggles to acclimatise to the new conditions, and generally just flaps around on the ground, oozing blood and gore, spurting bad similes that lead to somewhere undesirable, and thinking to itself “I can’t wait until I get my identity back.”

Nobody told me about the hallucinations.

Well, hallucination is probably a strong word.

As a direct (and indirect) result of being in my first few weeks of fatherhood, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a baby in my arms. Only, it’s not. I’m actually holding a pillow, I just believe that it is a baby.

Never was this highlighted so starkly as a few nights ago. I was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a baby was resting on my forearm. Karen informed me that Bernard was actually in the cot, sleeping. I sleepily argued, no he is definitely here in front of me.

This went back and forth for a few iterations. Realising that we were getting nowhere, I performed further tests on the baby. Upon poking it in the forehead and feeling my finger sink into what felt like a bundle of feathers, I had to concede that the item that I was holding was, in fact, a pillow.

These moments of confusion occur on an almost nightly basis. They’ve even happened to Karen once or twice. But I’m starting to get wise to them now, and I can now catch myself quite quickly. Essentially by poking the baby in the forehead if it is dark.

It’s not a highly technical method, but it serves my purposes well. It is primarily suitable because the probability of the item in question being a baby, and not a pillow, is probably about 0.01. In Karen’s case, the probability of it being a baby is much higher – I believe that she has a much less invasive method of testing. Probably sniffing his arse or somesuch.

**UPDATE:** The following night’s hallucination was also amusing.

*Me:* What would you like me to do with this baby?

*Karen:* The baby is in the cot. Put that pillow down.

*Me:* Okay. What would you like me to do with this grobag?

*Karen:* That’s a pillow. Lie down and go back to sleep.

*Me:* Right you are.