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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

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 ...

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.