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The sixth sense

This morning Zac, sweet angel that he isn't, woke up at 4.15.

The reason? His cot toy batteries had run out. This is the machine which plays lullabies and projects soothing images onto his ceiling whenever he cries or presses a button. The same device which he has been actively telling me to leave switched off for the past month, but which Heather put on last night. The same infernal contraption that requires me – bleary-eyed and three-quarters asleep – to unclip it from his bed rails, unscrew the battery compartment cover with my thumbnail, go downstairs to find four replacement batteries, and then reassemble and reattach the whole thing while, in the meantime, my two-year old boy watches on, repeating "Daddy. Toy not working. Fix it, please" ad infinitum.

Yes, that toy.

Of course, by the time I finish the job, the damage is done and Zac is wide awake. Worse still, he won’t let me leave without crying. Not wanting to wake either Heather or Toby up, I stay. At such times, I can normally fob him off with my iPhone and leave him to watch music videos or Angelina Ballerina quietly while I sleep on his floor. But not today. Oh no. Today he wants to play. Thanks for that, kiddo. It’s not like I have an early morning meeting with our MD that I quite fancied being awake for, is it?

How do they know these things? Is it some kind of sixth sense? After all, it’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened. You can pretty much guarantee that on the day you are running 20 minutes late for an appointment he will turn round to you with a furrowed brow and say, “Isaac’s done a poo.” Or that he will unerringly do the one thing you absolutely do not want him to do at the precise moment you are distracted by something else.

I am deeply suspicious, and deeply disappointed that he hasn’t turned this talent into something more productive, like picking lottery numbers.

Okay. Rant over.

The forgotten son

It really hit me while we were on holiday last week just how unequal life is when you're the younger of two children, especially when you're an immobile three month old and your brother is a hyperactive, attention-seeking, clingy two year old. (Okay, just 'toddler' would have covered that last bit sufficiently, wouldn't it?)

Sadly, that's Toby's lot in life right now. While Zac is haring about all over the place, filling his days with swimming and slides and (I kid you not) Angelina Ballerina stage shows, having the entire day's schedule planned around his activities and middle-of-the-day sleep, Toby has to be content with being wheeled around from pillar to post, a barely remembered afterthought in the midst of a toddler tornado.

He will never know what it is like to be the sole focus of his parents' attention. (True, Zac is too young to remember what that's like as well, but he will still have had it.) And while we will coo in enthusiasm and support as he progresses through his young life's little milestones, it will never be quite the same as experiencing your first-born's first roll, first crawl, first step or first word.

From my perspective, our holiday couldn't have come at a better time in terms of building my relationship with Toby. He stopped breast-feeding in the week before we went, meaning that Heather now doesn't always have to be around to feed him. Before then, when we needed to divide resources she had to have Toby out of necessity while I got Zac (which in itself was great as it has transformed my relationship with the former mummy's boy).

Last week, though, the shoe was on the other foot, which was fantastic for me. Liberated from his human milk supply, it meant Toby and I could spend long periods alone together while Heather took Zac swimming, say. (Conversely, it had been three months since she had had some proper one-to-one time with Zac, so it was good for her too.) Before, Daddy/Toby time had been extremely limited; I had always had Heather nearby, or had him on my own for, at most, half an hour at a time. But to be able to spend extended periods playing, feeding and talking, just getting to understand his reactions and his personality a whole lot better, was hugely rewarding.

So now I have a much better idea of his likes and dislikes, and in what ways he is similar to and different from Zac. More importantly, I have a much greater degree of confidence in my ability to look after him. And for Heather the end of breast-feeding, while saddening in many ways, has been like watching the shackles melt away. A social life is now once again a possibility for her. I can see many boys' days out and nights in the weeks and months to come. I'm not complaining. It now finally feels like I am properly the father of two sons, rather than a father of one and the occasional carer of another.

No longer a mummy's boy

For a child who, before his brother's birth, was the world's biggest mummy's boy, Zac has transformed over the last three months.

Ever since he was first able to state a preference, he has always chosen his mother for just about any activity you could care to mention: feeding, play-time, doing the nursery run - all of these were very much mummy first, with daddy a poor substitute. It's hardly surprising, given that he was breast-fed for his first nine months and indeed spent most of that period with his mother pretty much 24/7, but even so the preference has been very marked.

That's not to say I didn't spend any quality time with him - reading and bed-time, in particular - but until Toby's arrival there was always a clear pecking order, and I sat some way down it. Even so, I have always enjoyed what time I had with him without any resentment on my part.

But since Toby was born things have been much more equitable. Zac has been brilliant at accepting that he can no longer monopolise his mother's time, even to the extent of being genuinely helpful and caring around his brother. And as part of that he has started to embrace me wholeheartedly, rather than 'settling' for daddy. I now do the vast majority of his bed-times (while Heather is putting Toby down), we spend more time playing together, and he is now positively enthusiastic about climbing into my car, whether it is for one of our Sunday morning outings or just to go to nursery.

Perhaps the ultimate endorsement of my new-found status is the fact that, when he wakes up in the morning (typically around 5.30), he will always call specifically for "Daddy!" and greet me with a beaming smile and a cheery "Good morning" when I go to him.

That alone means the world to me. But then it's always the little things that make the biggest difference, isn't it?

Ps and Qs

I have developed a whole new vocabulary over the past couple of years since Isaac was born. Drat, Poppycock. Darnation. Fiddlesticks. You know the sort of thing: those child-friendly words or phrases which replace a tiny but not infrequently used subset of the English language which is best kept away from young but sponge-like minds.

It goes hand-in-hand with drilling all those other basic rules of etiquette into our children, which are frequently referred to as 'minding your Ps and Qs'.

(Incidentally, there is much dispute over the etymology of this particular phrase, with possible explanations ranging from the prosaic - children's pronunciations of "please" and "thank you" or "excuse me" - to the more obscure (for instance, a reminder to innkeepers to keep a tally of the pints and quarts their patrons consumed, or mistakenly transposing lower case p's and q's when typesetting on printing presses). Well, I find it interesting, anyway.)

What's been particularly fascinating - and funny - is to watch the take-up and correct contextual usage of such phrases by Zac as his command of the spoken word increases. Since shortly after Christmas, he has been regularly saying "Oh my God!" - accompanied by the requisite cartoonish inflection and wide-eyed expression - in perfect mimicry of his grandma. This has been followed in recent weeks by the gradual introduction of a number of old-fashioned colloquialisms such  as "Golly gosh!" and "Goodness gracious me!", all of which generate a level of amusement in any adult within earshot that encourages their repeated use.

I dread the day - which I know must inevitably come - when he turns round to us and uses a four-letter word for the first time. It will probably happen far sooner than we would hope for, and it will be one of those milestones which mark the end of innocence on his rapidly accelerating journey into adulthood.

I want my son to grow up in so many ways. This isn't one of them.

Easter

Maybe we were a bit ambitious with our Easter plans, because by the end of the long weekend both Toby and Zac were utterly exhausted. Mind you, maybe that's a good thing!

The morning of Good Friday saw us with friends at the Family Adventure Farm just south of Newbury. The original plan had been to have a bit of an explore around the place, see some of the animals and beat the rain before it was forecast to arrive in the afternoon.

Yeah, right.

I don't think we ever made it more than thirty metres from the entrance, as Zac became fixated by a giant muddy puddle, which kept him busy for at least ten minutes.

After that, there was a giant slide. I think we must have done the circuit of climb, slide, repeat at least twenty times between Heather and I. He was so enthralled by it, he didn't even mind the fact it started raining and I had to use every trick in the book to coerce him inside as the rain became increasingly monsoon-like. (It was supposed to be dry all morning, according to the forecast. Right-o.)

And then, after an early lunch, he dragged Heather outside - the rain was even heavier by this point - and ran around the little go-kart track for fully 20 minutes before we finally decided to call it a day and head for the drier, warmer surroundings of home.

Naturally, it was dry and sunny all afternoon after that. Typical.

On Saturday we did the run down to Dorset to see Heather's mum and stepdad for the day, then on the Sunday itself was an Easter egg hunt at a friend's, after which Zac spent ages bouncing up and down on their outdoor trampoline - well, standing and falling down, anyway; he doesn't really do bouncing - and generally engaging in some fairly robust rough-and-tumble with one of his friends.

Yesterday (Monday), we drove into London to have lunch with my parents, where Zac gave both his Grandpa and uncle the run-around all day. By the time we got home at about 5, it was all he could manage to eat a bit of dinner, have a bath and then collapse exhausted into bed. Toby was much the same, pretty much sleeping through the whole day - and, indeed, most of today as well.

Still, it's great to see how much Zac is growing up and his ever-growing confidence in his own abilities, and it's always fun to watch him interacting with his mates, which isn't something I get to see very often. He really is a proper boy now.

So, one bank holiday weekend down, two more to go in the next few weeks. Maybe we'll scale things down a bit next time ...

I just can't control my feet

While there's no stopping Isaac when it comes to singing, it has to be said his dancing leaves a lot to be desired. (Yes, he has the same two left feet as his father.)

However, it's a real joy listening to him singing along to music on the stereo/radio/TV/iPod, even though I can see we're heading for a spot of serious parental embarrassment in the very near future as he increasingly gets to grips with the lyrics of his all-time favourite, Lily Allen.

If anything, his confidence - and, with that, his enthusiasm - have cranked up a notch over the last week or so. Zac's singing is louder and more frequent; he has rediscovered the microphone we bought him for his birthday and thoroughly embraced it. And he is clearly absorbing dance routines too, even if his attempts to recreate them while singing at the same time are very much of the two-left-feet variety, as this snippet of Alexandra Burke's 'Bad Boys' all too evidently demonstrates. (Ah, the wonders of video cameras.)

I'll never laugh at Girls Aloud again. Well, maybe every now and then. Oh, alright, I'm still laughing. But you know what I mean.

Don't stop the music

Music has always been an important part of my life, but I've never shown any great talent for it (other than being able to identify obscure songs from short snippets of their intros, which has proven lucrative at pub quiz nights). Sure, I'm a big music fan and I did play the flute for several years in school, but - to put it kindly - I'm never going to win X Factor.

Heather would be the first to agree that she is even less talented than I, rarely tackling a stage more public than the shower with her singing.

We will have to wait and see with Toby, but music is certainly an important part of Zac's life already, and has been ever since he was born. He has always responded well to soothing (if somewhat tuneless) singing, belted out nursery rhymes word and pitch-perfect earlier than pretty much any other child I know, and showed an early interest in any musical instrument we cared to thrust towards him - the louder the better, obviously.

He has a real affinity with contemporary pop music too. In the latter months of his first year, he would often wake up in the small hours of the morning, crying inconsolably. After a number of remedies were tried unsuccessfully, I discovered the one thing guaranteed to calm him down and then ease him back to sleep was a recording of a Suzanne Vega concert - 'Live At Montreux' in 2004 - I had lying around. Within minutes, the crying would stop as his eyes fixed on the screen, a small smile would touch his lips, and soon enough the eyelids would start to weigh heavily and close. We went through this routine so many times that I knew which songs he found the most relaxing and would send him off to sleep. ('The Queen and the Soldier', by the way, coincidentally one of my favourite Vega tracks.)

Since then, music has become an integral part of both his daytime and night-time routines. When I am putting him to bed, the last thing we always do is sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' together - the 12-inch version with the extra verses (although he does also have his very own Slipknot-inspired thrash version, which has to be heard to be believed). He regularly wanders around the house singing songs from his favourite TV programmes. And he has a well-established pattern of latching on to one song for several weeks at a time, which he will insist on listening to/watching over and over again until he has memorised it to his satisfaction.

So, over the past year or so, he has obsessively listened to the following:
- 'Heart of Glass', Blondie
- 'Not Fair', Lily Allen (he is a huge Lily fan, although less so since the restraining order)
- 'Remedy', Little Boots
- 'Bad Boys', Alexandra Burke
- 'Fireflies', Owl City
- 'Don't Stop The Music', Rihanna (his current favourite)

And when I say obsessive, I really do mean it. There was one Saturday morning recently when we watched the video of the song repeatedly for over an hour - 16 times consecutively - before 8am. When we go out in the car he will ask to play it non-stop. And when he sees my iPhone or iPod, it is the first thing he looks for. You get the idea.

Much though I think it's a great track, when you've heard it 50 times or more in a single week it does start to grate somewhat. Mind you, it is hilarious when you're driving along and you hear Zac in the back of the car belting out whole phrases of the song with good enough accuracy in terms of words and tune for it to be instantly recognisable to anyone.

I don't know whether he will show an interest in becoming a musician or whether he will, like his uncle Peter (who has a room stuffed full of CDs and typically goes to at least a couple of gigs a week) and I just be a music-lover. Either way, it's good to know he already has an excellent ear - it rarely takes more than the first five or six notes of a song he knows to come on the radio before his head snaps around in recognition and he tells you who the artist is - so if you ever want someone with good musical knowledge to complete your pub quiz team, Zac's your boy.

Mother's Day without mummy

For reasons too convoluted to go into here, Heather and I had to rejig our Mother's Day plans and spend yesterday 100 miles apart with our respective mothers - she with Toby, me with Zac.

I've had Zac on my own for the day plenty of times in the past, but we'd never previously strayed too far away from home; we have always stayed fairly local and not spent more than a couple of hours away. So this was the first time in his two-and-a-quarter years that we had done a 'proper' day out with just the two of us. (Is it unusual that we hadn't previously done big father/son trips? I don't know.)

I was quite excited. Petrified too. Zac has always been (a) a handful and (b) a real mummy's boy, so even the prospect of bundling him into the car and hitting the motorway had me a bit concerned. Not least because all four of us had taken the train into Reading on Saturday, and Zac had thrown a couple of lie-down-on-the-floor-and-cry tantrums. (I had refused to allow him to go up and down in the lift after about 20 consecutive rides.)

With the benefit of hindsight, I don't know why I was so worried. After all, it's not as if I haven't developed an array of coping strategies to deal with all his little tricks. And we were going to see grandma and grandpa, a prospect which had him jumping up and down in excitement. So, having spent most of the previous 24 hours warning him that today it would be just him and daddy because mummy had to go somewhere else for the day, Zac hopped into his car seat with a smile and we drove off chatting, with the only rebuke from the back coming when I wasn't playing the right song on the stereo. He even fell asleep halfway there. Perfect.

It's just over an hour's drive to my parents' house, so the nap he had was perfect for recharging his batteries. When we arrived and he saw his grandparents at the front door waving to him, he was straight in there, immediately homing in on grandpa's laptop and commandeering it.

Providing IT support for grandpa

From there, we all set off along with Uncle Pete for a slap-up Chinese lunch, where Zac amazed us all by picking up a piece of dim sum unaided with his chopsticks and generally eating like a proper grown-up boy. (Okay, he never managed it again, but even so, seriously impressive.)

Chopsticks? Easy peasy!

A bit of after-lunch shopping was followed by a good afternoon nap in the car, some playing in the garden, and then the drive home, which we spent most of singing Lily Allen and Rihanna songs together. (Yes, I know they're not the most child-friendly of songs. You try telling him.)

Throughout the day, Zac had been all beaming smiles and showing off for the family. Where he usually fidgets and moans through meals, he was all patience and cute curiosity at lunch. And though there was a bit of need-a-nap restlessness while shopping, it was nothing like what we had had to negotiate the previous day in Reading.

Basically, we both had a great day. It was the best one I've had with Zac in ages, maybe the best ever. I can't wait for the next one; for sure, I will be planning something a bit more ambitious than usual for him. Who needs mummy, eh? (Famous last words ...)

Counting sheep

If there's one thing I would change about the way we looked after Zac in his first few months, it would be the way we dealt with his sleeping (or, to be more precise, the lack of it).

In some respects, our older boy is very good. With the exception of a couple of short phases, he has generally been very good about getting down to sleep consistently and easily between 7 and 7.30 every evening. We have also discovered that he generally blocks out the sound of Toby's crying completely (a useful skill he inherited from his father).

It's everything else that's the problem.

Even though he has a lunchtime nap on a mat at nursery, we have never been able to get him to sleep in his cot/bed at home during the day; it has always required a stroll in the pushchair or a drive in the car. (Consequently, he was particularly horrendous when we were cooped up indoors and unable to go out during the recent heavy snows.)

And he has always been an early riser. Thankfully, he grew out of his phase of being up by (at the latest) 4.30am, but even now we consider it a lie-in if he manages the right side of 6.00 - most mornings he is up and turbo-charged by 5.30. The only times he has ever made it beyond 6.45 have been when he is ill.

Naturally, two years of this this has taken its toll. Despite sharing the early morning workload, Zac has two parents who are constantly in need of another hour or two's sleep. And obviously things are trickier with Toby, at seven weeks, yet to settle into a proper routine and requiring feeding typically 3-4 times a night.

To be honest, I get by far the easier half of this gig. Heather goes to sleep early most evenings, leaving me to potter around and come to bed in my own time (which, admittedly, is rarely past 10.30). While Heather is still exclusively breast-feeding, I have the luxury of sleeping through - thankfully, as alluded to above, I am a sound sleeper, so my nights aren't excessively disrupted. And while I do my fair share of early mornings with Zac, I find it much easier to grab forty winks here and there during the day (which Heather finds very difficult to do).

Anyhow, in my roundabout way, what I'm saying is that Zac's anti-social sleeping habits probably have at least as much to do with nurture as they do with nature. In other words: odds are it's our fault.

I think we've learned our lesson this time round with Toby. When he is tired he will often howl after we have put him down in his basket; his brother was the same. But whereas with Zac one of us would have caved in after a minute or two and picked him up, now we are getting used to leaving him for a bit longer to see what happens. (I find this much easier to do than Heather - but then, as a dad, I don't have every hormone in my body screaming at me to do something.) More often than not, he soon falls asleep.

Already Toby is showing signs of being a better sleeper than Zac, who at the same age needed to be carried and cuddled for long spells before he could sleep. Maybe what we're doing differently second time around is making the difference; maybe it's having no effect at all. The acid test will come once we start settling him into a routine: we'll see if he can sleep in his own cot during the day without having to go through the whole going-out rigmarole. Whatever happens, at least we're feeling much better and more in control of matters than we ever did with Zac, and that alone is a good thing.

Now if only we could persuade Toby to feed less often during the night. Oh well, one challenge at a time ...

Rules for toddlers

Dear Zac (and, eventually, Toby),

Here are some rules which we hope you will find invaluable as you navigate your way towards that weird and wonderful state us adults call 'being grown-up'.

Rule #1: We will always be right, and you will always be wrong. Even when you're right, we will still be more right than you. So there.

Rule #2: We reserve the right to change the rules at any time. There will be times when you will be told to eat your dinner for your own good. There will also be times when you will be sent to your room without dinner and be told it's for your own good. Don't bother arguing about the apparent flaws in our logic (see rule #1).

Rule #3: You will always be "our adorable little boy", even when you are a teenager with an attitude problem and halitosis - until the point at which you realise you can take advantage of this status, at which point this rule becomes null and void with immediate effect.

Rule #4: You will constantly be told - in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary - how things were so much better when your mum and dad were your age, even though we only had three TV channels and had never heard of plasma, HD or CBeebies. Just nod in agreement; some battles really aren't worth the effort.

Rule #5: "No" means "maybe". "NO!" means "no". And "NOOOO!!!" following on from "No" and "NO!" means you have pushed things just a little too far and the wrath of all things holy is about to descend on you. But you knew that already, didn't you?

Rule #6: Your father will spend the next few years encouraging you to play football/cricket/rugby/bass guitar or to do some other activity he wishes he'd been any good at when he was a child. You may not be that keen, but try to humour him; he means well.

Rule #7: Your mother will praise you when you are a good boy and publicly castigate you when you refuse to do as she says, but secretly she will be proud of your independent streak. This gives you some latitude for stubbornness - but don't push it too far.

Rule #8: There will come a time (probably as you enter your teenage years) when we will become a profound source of embarrassment to you because of our clothes, taste in music, boring lives and/or just the fact we are visible. That's okay, but just remember this: we have changed your nappies in public. Want to talk about who embarrasses whom now?

Rule #9: Remember, no matter how old, successful and respected you turn out to be, we reserve the right to humiliate you with naked baby photos and videos. Don't even think about deleting them: we have backups. Lots of them.

Rule #10: The formula for calculating the age at which you become exempt from rule #9 is as follows:

Age (in years) = never

There are no exceptions to the above equation, even if you have children of your own.

Love,

Mum & Dad

Toddler 2.0

It never ceases to amaze me just how good a grasp Zac has of modern technology.

There are three factors at play here, I think. Firstly, he is a child of the 21st century, so he is used to being surrounded by all kinds of consumer technology: computers, mobile phones, iPods and other gadgets that require buttons to be pressed. Secondly, his dad is a bit of a geek. And thirdly, comparing him to his mates he does genuinely seem to possess both greater interest in playing with gadgets (conversely, he's not at all interested in football), and then a quite astonishing aptitude for operating them unassisted.

He is exactly two years and three months old today. That is officially scary. (Unofficially, though, I am also hugely proud of him.)

Some examples:

Channel hopping

From around the time of his first birthday Zac has shown a keen interest in our Sky+ remote control. At first, to ward off his grasping attentions, we gave him an old, non-functioning remote to play with. After a couple of days of pointing it at the TV and pressing buttons, he soon realised he'd been sold a duff one. Every time I offered him 'his' remote, he would recognise it, shake his head vigorously, and demand one that actually worked.

That was then, this is now. He has now pretty much worked out how to navigate through the menus to play his favourite programmes. No kidding. I can wander out to the kitchen to get a drink, and return to find that the Arsenal match has been replaced by his favourite episode of Timmy Time. It won't be long until he learns to set the parental controls to lock us out ...

W, W, W, dot, B, down, down, down, enter

To keep Zac from forever venturing into our study to play with our PC - he had an unerring knack of storming in and turning it off while I was in the middle of editing photos or videos - we gave him our old laptop to use instead. He carries it in both hands around the house with almost reverential care - think of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai bearing the tablets with the Ten Commandments and you're not far off - and he certainly seems to appreciate it's more than just another toy to be flung around.

More than that, he already understands how to use it, at least at a basic level. Leave him to his own devices, and he will switch the machine on, fire up Internet Explorer, and utter "W, W, W, dot, B, down, down, down, enter", which is the exact sequence of keystrokes required to load up the CBeebies website.

Once he has arrived at the CBeebies home page, he is increasingly confident in his ability to move the cursor around the screen and make whatever series of clicks he needs to load pages, play games and generally navigate his way around. It's not just that he's memorised where things are on particular pages; take him to a new page and, without prompting, he will quickly identify where the buttons and arrows are that he can click on. It is seriously impressive; Heather and I have been trying, with limited success, to teach one of Zac's grandparents how to do this for over two years, and our boy is already streets ahead of this because it is all so intuitive to him.

Don't stop the music

Zac's favourite gadget of all is my iPhone, which has fascinated him for the past year. He has long since mastered the basic principles of operating the touch-screen to get from A to B. So, for instance, I can hand him the device and he will first unlock it (which requires him to press the 'home' button and then slide a bar on the screen), then press the 'iPod' and 'videos' buttons, and finally scroll down the list to select his favourite video (currently Rihanna's 'Don't Stop The Music'). He will then crank up the volume and, if desired, bring up the 'back' button to restart the video.

To him, using technology is the most natural and comfortable thing in the world which, combined with his innate curiosity, means he is already far better equipped to cope with the future than his parents ever will be. I doubt it will be long before the shoe is on the other foot and it is Zac who has to show me how to do things.

Our tech-savvy, web-enabled Toddler 2.0 will never be Wayne Rooney. But I bet he'll be great playing FIFA 2010. I'll take that.

Rules for dads

In my previous post, I outlined five basic rules of parenthood. In general, though, it's not so much parents as fathers who need the most help when it comes to this parenting lark. So here are ten additional rules that all dads should take heed of.

(A health warning: tongue is inserted firmly in cheek here, but many fellow fathers will recognise a grain of truth in most of the following situations.)

Rule #1: If you're not doing something, you should be. You may not know what it is, but there is definitely something. (It will be written on a list somewhere, even if it's one that only exists in your wife's/partner's head.)

Rule #2: Watching The Gadget Show or playing Call Of Duty while occasionally talking to your child does not qualify as 'quality father/son (or daughter) time', no matter how interested they are in what you're doing.

Rule #3: Even if you are the sole bread-winner, change every nappy and are the CEO of a multinational industrial conglomerate, as a father you are the least important person in the household (and that includes any and all pets). Deal with it.

Rule #4: You will lose every argument with your children. If you're already in a long-term relationship, you should be used to that by now, though. (Zac's current ace-in-the-hole is to fire up the death stare and ask "Why not?" with utter conviction when told he can't do something. It's really quite disarming.)

Rule #5: The slightest whiff of criticism of your partner's abilities as a mother is a straight red card offence. However, expect to be told on a daily basis about all the things that you do, don't do, should do more/less of or just plain do wrong. It's a mother's God-given right. Grin and bear it.

Rule #6: Under no circumstances - irrespective of how many times your sleep was interrupted during the night or what time your children dragged you out of bed in the morning - ever mention to your wife how tired you are. Unless your ears need clearing out, that is.

Rule #7: When your other half gets all teary-eyed and emotional because they've had only three hours' sleep for the fourth night in a row and have just had to deal with a poo-up-the-back incident, the only correct response is to be understanding and supportive. However, if you go all emo, you are being a drama queen. Man up and crack open a beer like any self-respecting, emotionally-stunted male should.

Rule #8: Whatever you most want your child to be is the thing they will be least inclined to do. (For instance, I want Zac to be as interested in sports as his parents are, but the moment I put the football on he runs over to the TV, switches it off and goes back to his macramé. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But only slightly.)

Rule #9: If, like me, you delivered your own baby BBA (Born Before Arrival of midwife/ambulance/other person who has some vague idea what they should be doing), this automatically confers a degree of coolness upon you as a father, no matter how uncool you really are. Dine out on it while you can. The effect wears off as quickly as your holiday tan.

Rule #10: The 'illusion of free will' is a reality. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Or a free evening out with the lads. Or a free round of golf. Everything comes with a price tag. It's just that you can't always see it.

The formula to calculate 'free' time (where 'free' means time for which there is not some quid pro quo child/mother-related action required in return) is as follows:

Free time (in hours) = 0

Think about it. For every boys' night out there is an agreement (either explicit or implicit) to babysit for a girly shopping trip. Your Sunday round of golf is worth its weight in chocolate. Even that new Wii controller will be offset by an afternoon pushing the pram around Mothercare. It may not always be obvious, but like taxes you will end up paying somehow some day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go. I'm pretty sure I'm contravening rules 1, 2 and 10, and I'm heading for another slap-down from rule 4.

Rules of parenthood

Originally posted on 22 February 2010

As the proud father of boys aged two years (Isaac) and one month (Toby), I have learned to accept my place as the fourth-most important person in our household. I've read the books (well, some of them, anyway), I've compared experiences with other mums and dads, and I've decided it's a shame no one ever tells you what the real rules of parenthood are, the ones that really govern our lives as parents and that most of us end up discovering only through painful experience.

Off the top of my head, here are five valuable and immutable rules of parenthood:

Rule #1: Newborn babies are public property (just as pregnant mothers' bumps are). So when complete strangers descend on you in Waitrose, peer into the pram and engage you in conversation when all you really want to do is pay up and go home, just smile and remember that you're only the parent and have no rights as such.

Rule #2: Keep the remote control - and any other valuable gadget with buttons - out of reach. You may think it's difficult to delete the contents of your Sky+ box. To a child it's, well, child's play.

Rule #3: There is no better negotiator in this world than a 2-3 year old toddler. By this age, they possess significant native cunning (and aren't afraid to use it), they have enough vocabulary to state exactly what they want, they are well practised in the art of mega-tantrums and they know they can punch/pinch/slap you in public without fear of retribution with the might of disapproving onlookers and the Child Protection Agency on their side. Just learn to be gracious in defeat: it makes life much easier.

Rule #4: You will always need to do an emergency nappy change when you are already running late for that important doctor's / dentist's / hairdresser's / insert as applicable appointment.

Rule #5: Here is the formula for calculating how long you need to get ready to leave the house with children:

Time required (in minutes) = n(t+15) + x + r

Where n is the number of children you have, t is the time (in minutes) it used to take you to get ready pre-children, x is the number you first thought of, and r is a random number between 5 and 60 to cover emergency nappy changes, toddler tantrums and returning to the house to retrieve wallets / birthday presents / favourite toys. It doesn't really matter, because you'll still be late anyway no matter what.

There are many other rules governing parenthood; I'm sure you will have some of your own. Feel free to share - after all, us parents are in this together ...

A long time in parenthood

Originally posted on 26 January 2010

It was Harold Wilson who said "a week is a long time in politics". Well, it's a pretty long time in the world of parenthood too.

Today is Toby's one-week 'birthday', and already the circumstances of his sudden arrival are starting to feel slightly surreal. (We have joked about marking the spot on the living room floor where he was delivered with a ceremonial 'X'. Me, I'd go for one of those round plaques you see on the side of famous people's homes.)

Apparently, in certain circles I am now unofficially 'Superdad' or alternatively 'The Coolest Dad In Town' (I'm thinking about filing for the latter as a personal trademark). I have to admit, though, I don't feel particularly super; I've certainly never been cool. In fact, looking back, the sum total of my achievements appears to be (a) I was there, (b) I didn't pass out and (c) I didn't drop Toby. So, I wasn't down the pub, I stayed awake and I am overqualified to play cricket for England. Hey, if people think that's cool or super, then who am I to question them?

So, what's happened this week while I've been at home with my feet up? (Yeah, right, ha ha.)

Well, Toby has taken to breast-feeding like a real natural, eating for England at every possible opportunity, a trait clearly inherited from his dad. (I'm thinking about putting a vending machine in his room.) He also seems to have settled into a three-hourly routine during the night, which is good news. He seems pretty bright and alert too; he is certainly awake for more of the day than Isaac was at a week old.

You talking to me?

Speaking of whom, Zac has taken everything in his stride reasonably well. Given that he's always been a real mummy's boy, he doesn't seem too jealous for the most part (although he keeps demanding a cuddle whenever he sees Toby being fed) and he's even being quite helpful at times. When Toby cries, Zac will wander over to the crib, peer in, say "Toby's crying. I'll sort it", and then give it a rock. Quite cute, really. He might get a bit more antsy once I'm back at work next week and he can no longer demand both our attentions, but he's doing okay.

Heather is understandably tired but seems to be recovering well, and managing the sudden transition back to night feeds without too much trouble. She's certainly pleased to be able to see her feet and tie her own shoelaces again. And it has helped that she has had a steady stream of friends coming to visit too.

Finally, me. I'm having a really good time. Other than finishing a few bits and pieces, I've been able to take my mind off work and actually enjoy my paternity leave. I've been able to spend some quality time with Zac - well, I appreciate it, I'm not so sure he does - taking him to playgroup sessions a couple of times and generally keeping him out of Heather's hair. Being home during the day also means I have time to indulge in proper cooking - a saltimbocca last night, and I'll be hand-making gnocchi tonight - in between all the household chores. (How can one small baby get through so many clothes in one day?) And I've even had the chance to start catching up on my large collection of unread books and unwatched TV programmes.

Just chilling with my dad

All in all, it has been about as smooth a first week as we could have ever hoped for.

What's next? Well, I don't go back to work until Thursday week, so we're hoping to get out and about a bit more over the next week. We're taking Toby down to see Heather's mum for the first time tomorrow, then hopefully the three of us (minus Zac, who will be in nursery) will head into Oxford for lunch on Thursday. And then I've got dinners to plan, and photos to sort out, and ...

It's a busy time, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

And then there were four

Originally posted on 20 January 2010

If this was a cricket scorecard, it would have read: Liew c Liew b Liew.

Allow me to explain.

Long story short, by the time I got home at 6:30 last night, Heather had been having regular contractions for a couple of hours, so we knew we were in for an eventful evening. Having phoned my parents - who had been on yellow alert for more than a fortnight - and asked them to head westwards out of London, we decided to settle in and have as normal an evening as possible under the circumstances to take our minds off things. Which meant putting Zac to bed, followed by takeaway curry in front of Countdown and Hustle on TV.

So far, so mundane.

The grandparents pitched up at about 9:30, quickly followed by our midwife, Amanda. A quick physical exam suggested everything was fine and we were still several hours away from serious action, so Amanda headed off, suggesting we all get some sleep.

We were preparing for bed at around 11:10 when, without any warning, all hell broke loose. Two huge contractions sent Heather scrambling downstairs while I dashed around phoning Amanda, grabbing towels, firing up our birth playlist on the iPod and so on. Although things had moved on too far too fast to make use of the birthing pool, fortunately everything else was proceeding without complication. Textbook stuff.

The only problem was I hadn't actually read the textbook. I had literally just been settling down with the book to revise the details I had so studiously memorised when Zac was born when I was suddenly called up to perform my practical exam. And as the contractions came harder and faster, it became clear that Amanda wasn't going to get here in time. I was on my own.

Fortunately, earlier in the evening I had watched an episode of the American TV drama Brothers & Sisters which - instructively - featured a birth scene. They didn't actually show the detailed process, but I nonetheless followed carefully as a group of actors in matching, pristine surgical gowns glided purposefully around a delivery room in beautifully choreographed slow motion to the strains of Coldplay's 'Fix You'. Surely that's all you need to know to deliver a baby yourself? (The sequence also featured the father-to-be collapsing in a car park as he rushed to the hospital, with what turned out to be a non-fatal heart attack. I thought it best not to try and replicate that particular bit.)

Anyway, I had enough of my wits about me to project an air of calm reassurance for Heather (in truth, there simply wasn't enough time for panic to set in), to remind her about her breathing at the appropriate moments, and to be in position as the baby manoeuvred itself into launch position with one contraction, crowned with the next one, and finally with a deft wriggle of the shoulders slithered gracefully out where I was waiting to make the catch with a towel at the ready. A quick glance at the clock to note the time of birth, and a pause to register which song was playing on our randomised playlist - Sinead O'Connor's classic version of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U', in case you were wondering - and job done.

Amanda arrived five minutes later. Which was good, because (a) I got to cut the cord without having to worry about cleaning up the surrounding mess and (b) I really didn't fancy filling in the paperwork myself.

(Incidentally, I wonder if there is a separate name for the male equivalent of a midwife - 'midhusband' doesn't really sound the part, does it?)

By 1 o'clock, everything that needed to be done was done (including a beer for me to balance the slide down from my adrenalin high). We started the evening as a household of three; we ended it as a family of four.

Overdue

Originally posted on 18 January 2010

No, I'm not talking about library books or utility bills. Yesterday was D-Day - as in our due date.

It came. It went. And today is just another day closer. So now we enter a period of indeterminate length which could be a mere smattering of hours or as long as two weeks, with the worst case scenario being an induced birth.

It's a period which can best be characterised by one word: boredom. Tedious, mind-numbing boredom. Like responsible parents, we've made all the preparations we need to make. And socially, we've been cramming in as much as we can over the last few weeks (the weather hasn't helped on that front), but we haven't planned anything beyond yesterday. Which means we are currently gazing into the abyss of a social vacuum - yes, I know it's a mixed metaphor - with nothing to look forward to as a distraction. We can't really stray too far from home. And even though we're planning a home birth, I need to be sober enough to drive to the hospital in the event of any complications.

Fundamentally, all that remains is to sit and wait patiently, silently cursing the weather forecast which is still predicting heavy snow for Wednesday.

I've never quite been sure why we place such importance on the expected date of delivery. Of course, it's important in terms of determining the timing of pre-natal checks, scans and so on, but its calculation is fairly arbitrary, being simply the date 40 weeks from the mother's last menstrual period. The statistical reality is that under five percent of births - in other words, fewer than one in 20 - occur on the due date. If there's one thing you can be reasonably sure of, it's that the baby won't arrive on the expected date.

(Hmm, I know way too much about this.)

Anyway, we've been in this position before, as Zac was also a late arrival (by 12 days). It was a situation we worked around in our usual way: by going out to dinner pretty much every night until Zac arrived. (I've never shifted the weight gained as a result of that, but hey.) However, with a two-year old to look after, that's not such an easy option this time around - although, obviously, that's why God created the takeaway and then bettered Himself by following that up with the invention of delivery services. (I'm betting He then invested heavily in Domino's Pizza shares. Well, you just would, wouldn't you?)

So there we are. We sit. We wait. We use the birthing pool as a spa bath. Speaking of which, it's time to empty, clean and refill the pool again tonight. If that doesn't invoke sod's law and induce labour, I'm not sure what will.

Still, at least this is one situation where being overdue doesn't involve the accumulation of fines or threatening letters to send in the debt collectors. Small mercies and all that, eh?

Waiting

Originally posted on 4 January 2010

T minus 13 days and counting. At least now we know for sure which decade the baby will be born in.

As we're now within two weeks of Heather's due date, I'm effectively on call 24/7 and ready to make a mad dash for home from the office at the first ring of my mobile. (Note to self: assign a suitably comical ringtone to Heather tonight.) So, no alcohol - well, maybe just a little.

Our birthing pool is being delivered tomorrow, ready to be assembled and filled with water. Once that's done, we are basically all ready to go for the planned home birth. In the event of complications requiring a transfer to the Royal Berkshire, we have packed hospital bags. And the baby seat is currently sitting in the hallway; it will be taking up residence in the boot of my car as of tonight.

Other than that, the plan from my end is to minimise the amount of time I spend away from home between now and the birth. Fortunately, there is very little I actually need to be in the office for over the next couple of weeks - I've already turned down a two-day trip to France this week and am mulling over the wisdom of a two hour-plus drive over towards Bedford next Wednesday, but other than that the plan is to work from home a couple of days a week, and leave the office no later than 4pm on other days to avoid the evening rush hour (meaning I should never be more than half an hour from home). Everything else in my diary is either movable, doable by phone or expendable. It means planning my work-flow for January is a complete nightmare, but that's just tough. The world will, I'm sure, manage to muddle along without me for a couple of weeks.

So, other than a couple of small, non-essential tasks - such as baby names! - we're as ready as we're ever going to be. The only major job remaining is the hardest thing of all: to sit and wait.

What's in a name?

Originally posted on 29 December 2009

Another box ticked today. (Well, sort of.)

After dropping Zac off at nursery, Heather and I headed into Oxford to do a bit of shopping and - importantly - have a spot of lunch at our favourite restaurant (the Liaison Chinese restaurant on Castle Street, if you're ever passing that way).

I say importantly for two reasons.

Firstly it was perhaps the last opportunity for the two of us to go out to lunch together before we embark into logistically challenging two high-chair territory.

And secondly, as we discovered during Heather's first pregnancy, a restaurant table represents a very pleasant environment for the discussion of baby names.

So, as we tucked into our grilled dumplings, cheung fun and Singapore noodles, two lists were produced and names were revealed in turn. (It was a bit like the recent football World Cup draw, only without Charlize Theron.) Some names were vetoed by one or the other of us, and there were occasional squeals of joy as we discovered a few names which were common to both our lists. (You should see how excited we get when we play snap.)

At the end of it all, we had two combined shortlists: one containing exactly a dozen boy's names; the other, coincidentally, twelve girl's names.

For what it's worth, there had been quite a lot of overlap between us when comparing boy's names - to the extent where we've now both agreed on a favourite - and none whatsoever with our lists of girl's names. When Isaac was born, it was the other way round: we had to sleep on it overnight before deciding on his name, whereas if 'he' had been a 'she' we already had both first and middle names picked out.

Which, presumably, means we will have a daughter now ...

Green light

Originally posted on 28 December 2009

Three key milestones passed yesterday.

Firstly, Arsenal beat Aston Villa 3-0 to pull clear of the Midlands club in the Premier League title race. That's not directly relevant to the matter at hand, but it's still a notable event in my world.

Secondly, Heather completed the 37th week of her pregnancy, which is important because it means a planned home birth is now viable, barring any unforeseen complications. (Cue lots of online research into birthing pools.)

And finally, we had a home appointment with our midwife, A (commonly referred to locally as the 'mad-wife'), to check on the baby's progress and go over our birth plan - which basically is the same as last time: entonox, tick; pethidine, tick; vitamin K, tick; proud father to cut the cord, tick.

If it all started to feel particularly real for us on Boxing Day, it's doubly so now. All the detail and emotion of that evening when Zac was born are coming back to me now, from the mad rush to fill the pool to the exhiliration of feeling his head for the first time as he started to 'crown'.

Zac also got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, so he's very much part of the experience now too. If he doesn't yet understand quite enough to be excited, he is certainly curious and very much aware of the presence of 'baby' in mummy's tummy. The poor thing won't know what's hit him; as a proper mummy's boy it's going to be a bit of a shock to him when he isn't automatically the primary focus for Heather any more.

So, 21 - now 20 - days to the due date, and we have a green light. Time to get our skates on ...

End of days

Originally posted on 26 December 2009

No, it’s not the biblical apocalypse. But it does feel like the end of an era, or at the very least like this particular phase of my life is drawing irrevocably to a close.

It’s late on the afternoon on Boxing Day as I write this. My parents and brother are driving home after spending Christmas with us, having been waved off by an almost tearful Isaac saying “see you soon” hopefully. More relevantly, I’m now looking at an empty dining room, which has been cleared in preparation to accommodate a birthing pool.

That means the next time we eat at the dining table (now residing in the garage) we will, hopefully, be a four-person household, not a three.

The combination of that thought and the sight of the currently empty room have suddenly made the whole impending birth thing very, very real. At least in my head, a line has been crossed from which there is no going back.

Of course, we have always known this time would come. Heather is due on January 17th, a date which has been seared into our minds for several months now. And it’s not as if we haven’t started making preparations. But you have to understand that for so long that date has been a barely visible blip on our personal horizons, and as time has marched on we have had the not inconsiderable dual distractions of Zac’s birthday (December 6th) and Christmas to attend to.

No longer. Now there are no other events to plan. The timeframe is measurable in days rather than weeks, and final arrangements are a matter of real and increasing urgency rather than abstract items on a to do list.

It may still be as much as a month away - or it may be mere hours - but a time will soon come when our lives are transformed and made, at the same time, both more complex and more wonderful.

I have never felt so unprepared.

Gulp.

Welcome to me & my blog

Hi there. I’m Tim, I’m 39, and I'm a father of two and serial blogger. 

While writing a series of posts for my personal blog recently it occurred to me that, while there are plenty of books, blogs and websites catering to mums, there is precious little for dads.

So here I am, and here is my blog about the manifold joys and occasional frustrations of fatherhood. I'm hoping this will turn out to be in equal parts serious and light-hearted, and serve as a personal journal, a forum to share my experiences and the lessons I have learned (often the hard way), and somewhere I can blow off steam on those occasions when things aren't going so well.

If you're a fellow father reading this: welcome, and I would greatly value your feedback about anything and everything. If you're the wife/partner of a fellow father, you are equally welcome to read, share and comment; hopefully you'll glean some small insights into what it's like to be on the other side of the fence. If you don't have kids: seriously, why are you still here?!?

Anyway, to kick off, here's a little bit about me so you know where I'm coming from.

As I said up top, I'm Tim and I'm 39. I live in Thatcham near Newbury. And I've been married to Heather for 12 years and now have two sons, Isaac (Zac) and Tobias (Toby), who are two-and-a-quarter years and six weeks old respectively.

There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary or exciting about me, but I like to think I'm a pretty diverse kind of guy.

Why?

Well, for starters, I like to think of myself as multi-cultural. I was born in London and consider myself unwaveringly British (hey, it’s what my passport says I am), but my parents are both Malaysian Chinese, so although I sound like your average middle-class Londoner - whatever that is these days – I don’t look it. Heather’s half-British (mum) and half-Australian (dad), and I think it’s fair to say we’re both keen that our boys grow up with a full appreciation of their diverse origins.

What else? Having (barely) completed a chemistry degree, I haven’t seen the inside of a laboratory since - no great loss on either my part or the scientific world’s - and have worked in marketing ever since. I’m currently employed by a large American multinational manufacturer, having previously worked for, among others, a large British media corporation, a very large retailer and the same public sector business as Postman Pat.

Let’s just say I’ve built a rich portfolio of experiences. It sounds better than “never really had a career plan”, doesn’t it?

The same goes for my interests: I like variety. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to 20-something countries, and I love discovering different cultures. I follow many sports but football is my first passion (specifically Arsenal), and although I like rugby I much prefer American football and Aussie Rules. I like photography; I like to read; I like to write (hence this blog).

Anyway, that’s me in 300 or so words. And this is my blog. Hope to see you around.