Year One
A Dad’s perspective on the first year of parenthood.
There was an article on the BBC news recently suggesting that in the past 10 years family units have changed in the UK and now children are no longer to be seen and not heard, nor are they to be merely heard, seen and adored. They have been in fact, according to the learned fellows of the BBC, elevated to the position of family rulers, leaders and autocrats turning their parents into slaves in the process. This was punctuated by snippets of harassed parents lovingly and dutifully cooking, cleaning, driving, spending and carrying out all manner of child related duties while trying to hold down full time jobs just to pay for football or riding lessons. The ‘news’ seemed to be that this was not a problem - parents admitted it and loved it; dedication to your children is perhaps the most worthy and rewarding things an person can do.
While I watched this article, I wondered about our house and I don’t believe this has yet happened to us but maybe it’s a little too soon to tell. No doubt my 13 month old son is right now in his Igglepiggle pyjamas, chewing his stacking cups and shouting ‘agooo!’ while applying his fast-developing brain cells to the task of bending his parent’s collective minds to his will. We will be coerced, compelled and cajoled by our children, starved of our own identity merely referred to as ‘so and so’s mum or dad’ as we obligingly work work work to provide the latest toys and gadgets, the best schooling, the exchange trips, ski trips, the best clothes, child trust funds, after school clubs etc etc etc.
For our little family the changes in the past 13 months have been quite dramatic. It’s really hard to remember what we did with all our time. We must have done something, but I sure can’t tell you what it was. Our days now are filled with playing, nappies, bathing, feeding, walking and all the usual joys of early parenthood, oh and cleaning, lots of cleaning. The house has never been so clean as it is now, when our baby developed the ability to move we soon found all the nooks and crannies that were never properly cleaned or tidied. Got any dead woodlice in your house? No? Well we did and our baby did his best to eat them, if only once. The smells are new too. In the early days, it’s lots of milky baby sick and even to my sensitive nose it wasn’t too bad. It gets on your clothes, in your hair, down your back and if you are prone to throwing the baby up over your head, do keep your mouth closed.
That ‘vomit bomb from above’ experience is not one you want, really it isn’t.
Do you know, I was led to believe that parents don’t mind the smell of their own babies nappies, something in nature makes it all ok, don’t worry, it’s easy, no big deal. Poppycock and baloney that is; I will be thrilled when the nappy days are behind us. I’m not wishing the days away, the early years are all too fleeting as everyone knows, but yes, I do wish away the honking stench of the filled nappy. There are warning signs however (straining,wincing, the waft as your baby scuttles past in a high speed crawl) and there are tactics you can employ to ensure that when the time comes it might perhaps not be your turn again to tackle your baby’s latest faecal creation.
The sights of early parenthood are something to be relished, something to be remembered and cherished. Every parent has scores of wonderful fond memories of the first years of a child’s life. Special little things your children do - the cute smile, a lovable noise, that darling way your child lops their head to one side and laughs. These are very precious and quite personal to you. Capture what you can on camera but don’t forget sometimes to just sit and watch and take it in. Don’t rush and wish for the next stage of childhood; watching my son play with his stacking cups, figuring them out, learning what goes where and how to play is fascinating and absorbing.
One day in the far off future that will be too fast to arrive, my son may look at me when he needs money, or has come home drunk or some other far off scary parenting event unfolds and I’ll still have those precious memories of my son chewing his hat and waving his favourite toy with oodles of dribble dripping from his chin. Those cherished early memories will keep me sane during the troubling teenage years.
Fatigue and lethargy exert firm control on early parenthood. Lack of sleep is a famous complaint of the new parent and it soon turns into an early obsession.
‘He really should be sleeping though the night by now’ or ‘how is your baby sleeping’ ‘keeping you up still is he?’.
Common statements and questions from loving experienced family members that have punctuated our first year as parents and honestly it’s not just the look on our tired faces that invite these comments from grandparents, aunts and uncles. Being fatigued seems to be to be the new norm, it’s an entirely new paradigm for life. Yes night feeds are hard, then it’s disrupted sleep and early mornings. If baby decides 6am is morning then it’s morning for everyone, not just him and playing must resume followed by breakfast, getting dressed, more playing, perhaps some eating, more playing, changing nappy etc etc etc..
This new life, this wonderful, exciting and fascinating new existence is VERY VERY tiring, but we love it, we really do and we would never change it. Our son is now 13 months old and he has for a good while, been going to bed most days between 6:30 and 7pm. It’s pretty regular and from the time this little routine really sets in you can begin to claw back some of you pre-fatigue life sanity. It’s a really great feeling and allows you to perhaps watch the TV a little or cook a nice meal. Such luxuries as lighting an evening fire and enjoying a glass or 2 of your favourite tipple may be possible. How about a nice soak in the
bath with a good book or naughty but nice - your favourite Indian take away and a trashy Hollywood DVD?
7pm is when it all begins, that is, just as soon as the dishes,washing, drying and (for the crazy only - ironing), tidying toys, scrubbing the floors (baby fingers go everywhere), holiday planning, writing emails, wrapping gifts, talking on the phone - in fact completing all the things that modern life requires must be done after 7pm. It’s quickly become clear, that our whole adult life must now occur after 7pm. 1900 hours becomes the beginning, but and here’s the kicker - 2200 hours becomes the end. In our house we live our adult life from 7pm to 10pm. I don’t know about yours, I have head that some parents are able to stay awake till 11pm and still function. This could be a dirty rumours spread around to make me feel bad, perhaps I’ll never know. In the past (it’s just ‘the past’ as anything before baby is pretty much blended into one now) I would ask my wife what she wanted for her birthday. She would respond with something like “I don’t know, you decide” or “surprise me” or if I was very lucky “a necklace”. Last birthday she simply asked for “time”. Time is the most precious thing in our house, second to our baby. Time is the one thing that seems to be running out faster than everything else we have and it’s the one thing you can never have enough of.
It’s 9:00pm, it’s the day this article is due and my wife is trying to find something she recorded at Christmas to watch on the TV, today (June 16th) being the first opportunity to do so and we have 60 mins left. Breaching the 10pm watershed is not recommended, that only invites ‘super-fatigue’ and nobody wants to go there. The final task before bed is to plan the meals and movements for the week, our son’s meals that is and our son’s movements, immunizations, swimming lessons, music groups and play groups. He is only 13 months, he has us squeezing our lives into 3 hours a day, planning our week around his requirements and his development and in case we hatch plans to begin to take back control of our house, he keeps us in a permanent state of fatigue. Clever, immensely clever indeed.
Maybe the BBC are right, maybe our son is the autocrat of the house, the despot of his own domain and we are the subjugated plebs, servants of the new master with the cheeky smile and tufty hair and an appetite for ready break and blueberries that has no earthly explanation. We love our new life as young parents and would not have it any other way.
