Milestones & Transitions

It is a great pleasure watching Ellie grow, learn and try to make sense of the world around her. She is a bright, confident, curious and happy child. Of late I've been particularly struck by how well she verbally expresses herself. When younger, she would sometimes get frustrated if we did not understand what she was trying to tell us; now she tries different words and ideas if we don't get it. That said, we increasingly do get it - her saying "I want the song that makes my heart sing" was soon correctly interpreted as a request to listen to 'Wild Thing' by The Troggs!

On reflection, much of what I read to prepare me for impending fatherhood focussed on "milestones". This makes sense as these are the one-off, life-changing moments that most fledgling humans need to go through at some time or another; first steps, first word, first solid food etc. But, once they've done them, there over with. They are really a way of checking your child is developing 'normally'. Subsequently, they are really a way of reassuring sleep-deprived parents that it's all worth it!

Now, I read a fair bit in anticipation of Ellie's arrival - not as much as I meant to, I admit, but more than I think I needed. But I don't remember life's transitions getting much print area.

I've realised in recent months that Ellie has changed in subtle ways and I don't have a clue when the changes happened: she now uses grown-up cutlery, she chooses her own clothes, she requests to go to bed when she's tired, she dresses herself, she goes to the toilet by herself, she uses scissors and glue without assistance, she requests playing certain games, she problem-solves, she makes up stories, she describes her dreams (so beautiful!), she swims properly etc etc etc.....

I would say that these transitions and changes are far more enjoyable for me than the milestones were. They show less of how 'normal' she is and more of what a 'person' she is and how she is constantly changing. So I would say to any potential parents not to be too sad if they miss being around for a milestone - the transitions, which happen all the time, they won't miss. They won't spot them whilst they're happening, but you can certainly notice the difference.....

Absence

Oops.... it's been nearly 5 months since my last post. Sorry everyone! I'm afraid there isn't a good reason for my bloggy absence; to start with we lost broadband for about 6 weeks (our modem was fried during an amazing thunderstorm and the Royal Mail conspired with Talk Talk to delay us getting a replacement), then I just didn't seem to have the time. I kept putting it off thinking I would find the time and, finally, I have! Five months later than anticipated but still....

So much has happened in the missing months - I don't know where to start. My recovery continues slowly. I think I am having fewer absences per day but I am still forgetting a lot of stuff day to day. I've just about given up reading new novels as it was getting increasingly frustrating having to double back to see what had happened previously. Instead I'm rereading Terry Pratchett novels with which I feel fairly familiar and therefore less traumatised if I forget an evening's worth of reading.

We sold my car as it was surplus to requirement as I still am unable to drive due to the absences. Kitty vanished but a nice couple took her in and looked aftrer her for 4 days before spotting the Lost posters we had put up. Ellie and I have a packed social calendar; she's taken up trampolining (quite talented apparently - for a 3 year old) and she goes to active games and parachute games now as well as the special gym (where she's awesome on the rings and beams!). We had a lovely Halloween party for Ellie and her little friends. I was particularly proud of the icing on my gingerbread skeletons! I enjoyed a lovely autumn day at the seaside with Mal a few weeks ago which helped me recover from an awful cold. We have spent time with friends of course, including playing boardgames! We also helped a friend celebrate turning 40 - a momentous occasion!

Now I've found my way back to the keyboard I will try to post more frequently I promise.

Father's Day

As you may know, last Sunday was Father's Day. In recent years this has been a quietly sad day for me as I tend to think about my father who passed away far too early. Having Ellie and becoming a father myself somehow intensified this sadness; I think because my father didn't get to meet Ellie.

However, this year Ellie was completely aware that there is a special day for daddies. For some reason this excited her tremendously and her excitement was incredibly infectious! Mummy helped her make a beautiful card and she was part of an ever-widening conspiracy to give me a boardgame as a gift. For the days leading up to the special day she could barely contain her excitement. She revealed to me that I was getting a game called "number five". (It turned out it was copy 5 of 300 of the game Jack has just published, It's Alive!)

Ellie was really excited about bringing me breakfast in bed... and she insisted on helping me eat it! She gave me hugs and kisses frequently throughout the day unprompted! All in all we had a lovely, relaxed, loving day.

I toasteds my father quietly and privately and I still lament his much too early deaparture. But this year it was a day of gladness, not sadness; a day for me and my daughter, who my father would have adored.

Chronicles of a Stay at Home Dad #5

Ellie decided that she would like to go on a dragon hunt one day in the near future. We decided together that we therefore needed to make a big dragon and some armour to keep her safe.

Today we made the dragon. Here are some photos showing its progress from a heap of carefully selected cardbopard boxes and containers, through it's assembly and finally it's painting:

Ellie was involved in all stages of manufacture - although she wasn't that interested in sticking the bits together to make the basic shape (this was quite fiddly though). I was surprised how good she was at choosing the boxes and bits - including little milk cartons for eyes and a jelly pot for the neck. She couldn't find anything that looked winglike but she said she liked my approach of cutting up some sheets of A3 green card! We had great fun! Just the armour to make now....

Ellie is three

Ellie had her third birthday a short while ago. It was a great couple of days and she really enjoyed it. I was like parents the world over who see a child's birthday as a chance to refelct on where has all that time gone? It seems like only last week that Ellie was being breast fed, that I could carry her with one hand, that she couldn't yet crawl, or talk.

There is a strange sadness watching a little one grow up. They become more independent, they physically need you less and you don't feel adored in quite the same way. This is far outweighed by the love they do demonstrate, the pride of watching them learn and becoming independent, but it is still there (I suspect that's why some people chose to have more babies so that those feelings can stay with them a bit longer).

This year I realised that part of the reason they 'grow up so fast' without you almost noticing is because their independence etc sneaks up so gradually.... there aren't many huge, monolithic events which carve themselves into your family history (well, not after first steps and first words).

But there have been many just as important developments which have occurred without us noticing; Ellie now uses grown up crockery and cutlery, she has conversations, she chooses to play by herself sometimes, she chooses films to watch, she chooses books to read, she chooses her clothes, she washes her own hair, she cleans her own teeth, she chooses her own treats, she tries to teach French words to other children, she explains things, she can describe her dreams, she can argue, she pours her own milk on cereal, she wears knickers rather than nappies, she tells us when she needs a wee and is getting better with poos!

Most of these events have gradually become the norm - there was no conscious decision to start her using grown up cutlery...it just happened. It is truly wonderful watching her grow up, and I am deeply proud of her and feel privileged to watch her trying to make sense of the world around her and her attempts to order it to her liking (she is so like her mother!).

And yet I find I miss her being tiny and needy; I miss her laughing whilst flat on her back before she could crawl; I miss how tiny she was, how small her fingers and toes were, I miss how she would suck my nose if it got to close to her ever-hungry mouth....

I guess seeing her growing up reminds me of how small she was and that makes me broody! Maybe that's some sort of biological programming to ensure the survival of the species. Still, even if we did have another child they wouldn't be Ellie, and in some strange way, that makes me a little sad to.

For the love of Jerry Orbach!

Ellie has developed quite a taste for Disney movies, particularly ones about princesses....which is a surprisingly high percentage! For a few weeks her clear favourite was 'Beauty and the Beast'. I was happy to watch this repeatedly with her as I found that I really like it too; how can you not like a film featuring a song containing the lines "I use antlers in all of my decorating" and "Im particularly good at expectorating"?

One of the characters is a talking candlestick, Lumiere, who has this ludicrous, over the top, mock French accent. One evening, when Ellie had chosen to watch part of the movie rather than read stories, I voiced a thought: "Lumiere sounds just how Jerry Orbach would sound if he did a French accent". Now, I didn't really mean to say this out loud but I was tired. Lisa asked "who's Jerry Orbach?" - "you know Lenny Briscoe in Law and Order, the dad in Dirty Dancing" - "oh him! Don't be silly, of course it's not!"

Lisa proceeded to tease and ridicule me for the rest of the movie... something she rarely does! Still I had the last laugh. The end credits said that Lumiere was voiced by one Jerry Orbach. Ha ha ha!

Actually, my favourite Disney movie is 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. I think its funny that a kids movie has songs about redemption and burning in hell! It also has the good song line "Becuase your shape, like a croissant is..." genius! Judge Claude Frollo is one of the best Disney villains ever.... from fetishistically sniffing Esmeralda's gypsy hair to instructing a torturer how to inflict more pain.... a real villain! I have a book explaining all the research the artists did about gothic buildings and the church of Notre Dame inparticular. A staggering amount of work was involved in just the planning stage. Well worth a look if any one is interested....

Missing weeks...

Hello everyone! I haven't posted for awhile as I was making the most of the lovely weather to catch up in the garden. I've also been trying to 'top up' my 6 hours a night sleep habit as directed by the Consultant Neurologist. Oh, and I'm now a stay at home dad proper for three days a week. All of which has left me with less time for blogging. I will try to make it a more regular event now....

Lots has happened since I last posted... far too much to write about in detail but..... here's a summary:

Ellie turned 3, she had a fab party at a Wacky Warehouse, we made a dragon, we bought our first goldfish, it died five days later, Ellie has developed something like an addiction for Disney films (mainly ones with princesses in), I've played lots of boardgames, we went to a wedding, we've put up trellising, weeded the entire garden, planted herbs which have really taken off, started going to 'French for Fidgets', visited the Nestle employees shop with Mal and his dad, seen the Neurologist again, taught Ellie to play 'Snakes and Ladders', have printed out a free copy of the first ever wargame I played...... and lots of other stuff I'm sure!

I might elaborate on some of these in future posts!

Chronicles of a Stay at Home Dad #3

Well, I've finally recovered from my four days with Ellie last weekend. Eleanor is definately trying to assert her independence more of late. She is spending more time occupying herself and it is possible, at times, for me to feel a little redundant. Our new approach to toilet training (in which she has responsibility for her wees and poos) underlines this. We do not prompt her to go (although we do periodically remind her that she is repsonsible) as this upsets her; it challenges her image of herself as a 'big girl'. Our role has been reduced to helping her get changed and clean up after she has chosen to not take the responsibility! It has been fairly effective but has felt fairly stressful. A large part of this has been because there has been a shift in the power dynamic within our family; she is definately in charge of this process. It is a clear reminder thht she is growing up and that one day she will not need us as much.

We had a busy few days as we had a fairly full schedule, as usual. We went to Wacky Warehouse with Evie and Vin. Both girls were quite demanding of their daddy's attentions so Vin and I spent most of the time dodging sharks in the ball pools and being pushed down slides....not that we wanted to of course! Ellie and I also walked to the library and spent over an hour reading and looking at books. For some reason Ellie chose a couple of English/French dual language books (one of which we've borrowed before). I was a little embarrassed when one of the librarians came into the kids bit and praised my French accent! We also walked to our local playground where we, again, dodged sharks! We had a great time...until some louder, rougher and bigger children arrived. Ellie worked really hard at avoiding them! Before we left she looked dissaprovingly at them and said "They're loud - the sharks will eat them". This was said with a chilling certainty.

Lisa's 8-year old god daughter, Maisy, was due to arrive on Friday afternoon, so Eleanor was instrumental in helping with all the tidying and cleaning in preparation. She really enjoyed changing the bedding, vacuuming and particularly folding the towels - strange child! Ellie's excitement about Maisy's arrival was uncontainable; if she had arrived later than expected it was feasible that Ellie would have exploded!

We did all have a lovely weekend. Maisy was delightful company and was superb in her role of surrogate big sister. Ellie was like her shadow, although we did manage not to make Maisy feel that she was responsible for Ellie when they were doing things together.

On Saturday we all trooped off to Dig - a sort of archaeological experience for the whole family. We all loved it! Four real excavations from around York have been carefully recreated and covered in rubber chippings. You are guided by an archaeologist to see what you can find armed with a plastic trowel and a small brush! The kids all loved it and the grown ups seemed to relish the chance of recreating the Time Team experience without getting muddy! The last few minutes of this were a frantic hunt for a stash of Roman coins....

Then, with the aid of the archaeologist, you were asked to sort trays of artefacts and bits dug up around York, using tweezers. These were mainly animal bone fragments and oyster shells (key components of the Viking diet!). Ellie loved using the tweezers, and was surprisingly deft at sorting out the pieces of bone, brick and charcoal (she did the shells with her fingers!).

We were then shown real animal skulls which had been dug up and then several artefacts, including a well-preserved leather shoe-sole. Maisy got to touch a mineralised Viking poo - which she was quite disgusted by. After this we were free to look around the displays and play with all the interactive stuff. The kids' attention was not as strongly held by this and so we headed off to lunch.

We dined at the Spurriergate Centre; a converted church in the middle of York. It was fun showing the bell ropes and stained glass to Maisy and explaining how it would have been different a few centuries ago.

We then trooped off to the Jorvik Centre where there was almost no queue! This was good fun, although the kids interest flagged rapidly after the ride through the recreation of Viking York. This bit was lots better than I'd remembered it being, but the museum-bit afterwards seemed much smaller and linear than before. It barely held the kids' interest at all, so we soon departed. Given the admission cost it all seemed to be over rather quickly!

We had a roast leg of lamb for Sunday dinner with the rest of Maisy's family. It was nice to all sit down and chat over food and wine. Later, the house felt emptier than usual once Maisy had left. Ellie was a little upset that she had departed and is keen for her to visit again.

I had been impressed with how happily and ably the girls had played together. Lisa and I commented that we had felt a little redundant at times over the weekend as they were happy to play together for the best part of an hour without our intervention. I think this has prompted me to think about the role of "parent" a little differently. I miss how dependent Ellie was as a baby. She is now not a baby and is forcibly asserting and exploring her independence. Sometimes this can feel like she doesn't need us or even want us there sometimes. But I've realised that this is one of the many "balancing scales of parenthood"; she does need us and often wants us to be there to help, support, engage or simply observe. Other times we need to be in the background. The balance tilts. As she grows up I expect that the balance will tilt more towards her being independent - the severing of the apron strings! But I think it will be a fluctuating balance - it will not inexorably move towards complete independence. Even in adulthood it will tilt back and she will want and need us to be there to help, support, engage and simply observe. Knowing when to step back and when to get stuck in is a part of the art of parenthood.

Chronicles of a Stay at Home Dad # 2

Last Thursday and Friday Eleanor and I stayed at home together. We had a great time! As well as walking to our local playground (at which Ellie spent ages on the swings shouting "I love it! I love it!" as I pushed her) we did lots of fun things at home. Here are some photos:


Ellie built this castle all by herself! I was particularly impressed as the red and blue towers are actually smooth wooden building blocks which she has carefully balanced on the larger, slotted blocks....



We played the Shopping List game. Ellie won....this was her victory dance upon finding an item for her trolley....


Ellie relaxing (watching CBeebies) dressed as a fairy....

We baked some chocolate and mint cupcakes which were fab! Ellie really enjoyed stirring the mixture, icing the cakes and decorating them. Her favourite part was licking the bowl clean of course....

Dolly having a sleep....


Lunch!

Ellie playing with her castle, knights, dragon and one of Uncle Richard's origami space ships! She put some of the figures on the window sill. The ELC King and Queen were positioned on one side, along with a cook and falconer, whilst the more militaristic Schleich figures were positioned on the other side. An accident?

This was a bit strange.... in an effort to stop dolly from crying, Ellie moved everything she could get her tiny hands on from one end of the lounge to the other. She then layed everything out in neat rows....she is so her mother's daughter!

We spent ages playing with her medieval bowling set. Aren't they cute!


This is a 'party' as Ellie calls it. When she has a bath all the toys etc are placed on he windowsill and filled with water....the better to enjoy the party of course!

We also read lots of books, did some painting and potato printing, walked to the shop and cuddled. I am really enjoying the time we have together. I love her running commentary on everything we do and the questions she asks.....which are often inadvertently very funny e.g "Daddy I'm angry....what does angry mean?"

The days go by really quickly, whihc reinforces that awareness that she is growing up at an alarming rate. Still, I'm glad I'm getting to watch it happen!

Elliespeak

I just wanted to share something Eleanor said as I helped her dry off after a bath recently. She looked at me from the depths of a fluffy towel and said: "Daddy, I don't want to be purple and have horns!". She had watched Monsters Inc that morning so I think there may be a connection but....who knows!

Yesterday...

I had a great day yesterday. Eleanor spent the day with me, as is now our routine. She was in a lovely mood all day. We went swimming, collecting leaves for another leaf picture on the way. We did animal impressions and played shop in the pool. She then played in the padded area at the gym before declaring herself hungry and tired. We then went home, with Ellie enjoying a tube of Smarties on the way (of which she dropped about half but didn't seem to mind!).

We then made beans and toast. Ellie went to sit down halfway through then came and asked me to sit with her. She put her arms around me and said she needed a cuddle. So sweet!

She then went for a nap without any fuss. Lisa S and Baby Emma then came around for a cup of tea and a gossip. Emma is on the verge of crawling and demonstrated her ability to crawl backwards! She is so beautiful! When Ellie awoke she enjoyed fussing over Emma - trying to explain how her toys worked to her. Ellie then helped me tidy and organise dinner once Lisa and Emma had left.

Lisa then came home earlier than expected and we all had dinner together. We then took Ellie for a bath and spent ages playing with measuring cups and getting very wet in the process. Ellie gave me a hug and a kiss before heading for bed.

Earlier in the day my friend Jack had posted pictures of the game he created, published, and is now selling 'Border Reivers'. The photos show the prototype pieces made of Fimo (they are now commercially produced wooden pieces - which are fantastic!) and just made me feel....happy! I think the happiness was for Jack; he has really done well with this game and I am in awe of him seeing it through from idea to production and beyond. As a result of this I suggested a quick two-player game of 'Border Reivers' before Lisa went swimming. Lisa agreed and we happily played a game (I won!).

On top of this my Christmas Craft Campaign is going well and is only now a little behind schedule. If it wasn't for the visual spectacle of Gladiator which kept distracting me from painting I would be on schedule! Still...good film.

That reminds me... my friend Mal rang to say that he had watched a film I recommended and thoroughly enjoyed it. He went on to say that everything I had said about it was spot on. Of course, I can't now remember what I did say about it but it must have been fairly accurate! (If you were wondering the film is a Russian sort-of-horror called Nightwatch. It is the first part of a trilogy and has been compared to The Matrix; I think it has the potential to be much better. I strongly recommend it).

Best of all though was that I've taught Ellie what Hobbits are! When asked 'who lives in a hole in the ground' she replies: "I do, with a hobbit!" I'm so proud.

So even in the midst of neorological problems, financial worries, job-losing possibilities and the stresses of Christmas I can still have a fabulous day! Now, if I can just get Ellie to do a Gollum impersonation....