It finally happened.....

For the first time in 27 months Hil and I went on a date! It was just meant to happen, Kasia went to her little playgroup/daycare meeting and Hils work schedule allowed her the day off and boom! Out for dinner, well lunch actually.

It was, I have to admit, a little pre-planned. Including driving Hil downtown 'as if' to drop her off at work (something that Kasia is used to) and then Kasia and I carrying on back up the freeway to her school. It seemed a little excessive to drive 20 mins in one direction only to turn around, drive all the way back and then finally to drive back downtown to collect my beautiful wife, all for the sake of tricking Kasia into not having a major meltdown. Well, luckily enough it worked and Hil and I were about to embark on our first date in over two years.

Crazily enough we just couldn't seem to decide on where to go. It was only 10am so we decided to go get coffee and wait for a restaurant to open at 11. I finally (after much deliberation) decided that I had always wanted to go to a seafood place that we had seen a million times on the way to Hils hospital, so in we went to Pappadeuxs seafood restaurant. It was awesome! We were celebrating our, albeit belated, sixth wedding anniversary and in true fashion pushed the boat out (no pun intended-you know boat/seafood? Oh never mind!). We ate Lobster, talked about everything and finished with a flurry of dessert, which frankly was way too much food, but a great time was had by all.

At this point I realize this has little or no relevance to my supposed SAHD experience theme, but it was just such a good time that it must have had a positive effect on the little Kasia monster. Unfortunately when we picked her up from school she'd had a bit of a rough time in class but the teacher said that she was 'majority OK'. So I took that to mean she will be welcomed back and the date was 100% worth it. I have a feeling Kasia is reaching one of the next milestones in her crazy little life. She is obsessed with having her nappy (diaper) changed. Every five minutes it seems, so the next big thing is potty time! Oh what joy, scraping turds out of a plastic bowl. My life, the everlasting gob-stopper of parental joy.....lets see what happens.

What if?

Just when I think I have my whole life set out, planned to perfection and steaming along at a steady pace I seem to sabotage that success by thinking too much. I don't mean thinking just for the sake of thinking but I start the often dangerous 'what if?' discussion in my head. Now, I realize that sometimes the 'what if' question remains as futile as it began but I really think that the process of thinking in terms of 'what if' can drive you to a new and exciting future.

This is basically a blog about what is (potentially) going to happen next in my SAHD world. I suppose it really began almost one year ago when I accidentally shaved my beard off! As stupid as it sounds the accidental shaving of the beard seems to have been a blessing in many ways. Firstly, it made me directly acknowledge the fact that I was clinically obese. I understand that some would not need a shaving accident to realize this obvious physical trait, but in my denial I chose to flagrantly ignore the obvious. The accident was in fact pretty silly as you can imagine. I was just trimming my beard when I sort of slipped and shaved a big chunk out of my goatee. Then, in my wisdom thought, I should just clean shave my face for the first time in about 10 years. What a mistake! I uncovered a fat, unrecognizable , almost middle aged man. I was devastated and swore that I needed to make a change, right there staring in the mirror. As luck would have it we were living in California at the time in a very nice apartment resort type place. This place was amazing and better than anything it had an awesome gym within walking distance from our apartment.

Now, I'm not about to blast on about weight-loss advice or any of that garbage, but I will say this. We all (I hope this is true) have a basic understanding of what it takes to stay (or get) healthy. Its not rocket science, eat sensible and exercise. It really is that simple. The whole "I've tried every diet and exercise program but they didn't work for me" thing is absolute crap. If you burn more calories than you put in, you will lose fat and therefore decrease your body fat percentage, hence healthier person. Too many times we are told to avoid using the word fat or being forced to use politically correct descriptions, because this is in my opinion part of the problem. We live in an obese-centric environment in the western world. We must face the problem, not hide behind kind words like 'heavy' or the always comical 'big-boned'.

Onto the 'what if' scenario. Since starting the journey to get healthy I have noticed that the world literally begins to open up. There are more things that I want to do with my life, things I want to see and achieve. The only problem now is that I have one of the most sedentary and socially constricting jobs around. I have to be at home all the time. My job is centered around the needs of a child and frankly now I have all this new found energy and an honest to goodness new lease on life and I want to use it! But I just don't know how. We, as parents, must look at what is best for the family unit. Right now what is best for my family is that I continue to stay at home. But the question now, is that whats best for me? Will it make Kasias life better if I'm always there and miserable or will it be better if I am seen to be doing all that I can but not around as much but ultimately happy? I don't know. There is a lot going right now in our analysis of the future. I'm not sure what I would be happy doing but 'what if' its something way out there, 'what if' I choose to put myself first.....I guess we will see.

It's so hard for me not to rant!!

I always will struggle with my inability to shut my mouth. I'm sure it gets old for everyone around me but no matter how much I try I just can't stop. I say this because I am really trying to avoid putting any of my verbal diarrhea on here. The funny thing is that it seems as if there are plenty of people out there who don't adhere to the same idea of self-censorship. I haven't really got a point to any of this but I guess it must be coming from somewhere. Oh yeah, I remember...its the way we seem to have a constant stream of 'right and wrong' advocates out there, especially when it comes to parenting.

So here we go....my take on childrens sleep patterns or lack there of! This is a huge deal as all you parents know, and to those of you that are not yet parents (or never want to be) its not as simple as you would think. It pretty much starts with your own idea of parenting in general. If you are someone that feels that a child needs to be 'trained' into behaviour you will undoubtedly disagree with everything that I have to say. The reason is that with sleep there are basically two ways to do it. First is to put the baby in a room on their own and let them cry until they go to sleep. The second is to comfort the child until he/she eventually goes to sleep. At this point I want to say that I have no problem with either technique, my issue is that others are determined to enforce their ideals upon me as a parent.

Hilery and I were blessed with a 'spirited' child who from day one has never really slept! Even on the way home from the hospital she was wide awake. At only days old she would routinely go 5-6 hours without sleep. So even as first time parents we knew we were going to have a rough time. The real problem came when we tried to do 'what the books said', we found that we just couldn't let her scream. She would scream for hours, puke, scream some more and in the end Hil and I decided that we didn't want to put her (or ourselves) through it. Now the argument is that this will only go on for a few days and then it will be better. Well, it never got better, after about 3 weeks with an hour sleep per night, we couldn't do it anymore. We kept her in her crib but would go to her if she cried, sit with her until she went to sleep and so on. This fun game went on for 7 months, finally we broke and our bed became and all in one deal. This was about the point that I decided to do some more reading on the subject.

The funniest things I discovered were from the 'old wisdom' of our forebears and they were nothing more than observations from personal experience and therefore amazingly subjective. There is no set plan for every child, or every parent for that matter. I was told (many, many times) that if you cuddle or 'baby' your child too much they will be clingy and nervous adults with no independence whatsoever. Apparently we were in fact 'spoiling' Kasia (I hate that phrase, always makes me think of spoiled or rotten food).

Well, case in point, me. I slept in my parents bed until I was five, I was the biggest mummy's boy you have ever seen (still am if I'm honest). Yet, I was the first in my family to go to University, I took part in international exchange programs and I topped it all off with leaving my family and friends and emigrating 5000 miles away to start my own family. Not bad for a clingy kid that was never supposed to leave his house let alone do anything else!

I guess what I am trying to say is that I would love to know what is so 'wrong' with your kid being in the bed with you and having a cuddle? Maybe it shows that we are not so economically flush that we can't afford at least two bedrooms circa 1840, no. Maybe its because we want to negatively effect all involved, er no. Or maybe its because we are doing the best we can and right now that means having a little munchkin, pee soaked nappy and all, in the family bed. Would I love it if Kasia was in her own room most of the time...yeah it would be awesome but at the same time we are now getting into a really nice routine with bed times at 8pm and waking up sometime in the daylight hours so really I can't complain. I just wish people would stop telling us that it is 'wrong' to have a family bed, because if it is so wrong then about 70% of the developing world are in fact doing it 'wrong', and maybe one day they will also hold in place the idea that sleeping baby=good parent and not sleeping baby=bad parent.

I could go on and on as most of you know, but frankly I have had a crappy day. Kasia won't eat, won't let go of me and basically is being a pickle so cheers to being parents and remember.......this too shall pass!

Snow day...and night!

It finally happened!! The time came when Hilery had to be away for the whole night and I alone was responsible for looking after Kasia for more than 24 hours on my own. Again to some this may not be a major thing but to me it has always been a scary prospect. Hilery had to go and sleep at the hospital last night so that she could be there for her shift today, all because of the snow. Now it wasn't just some snow, Fort Worth Texas got hit with 12.5" of snow in one day! Considering this is Texas and its pretty damn hot most of the time this was a record snowfall. As I mentioned before, Hilery and I share a car so she has taken the fabulously manly Hyundai Elantra in the ice and snow to work, leaving Kasia and I stranded in the house (not much fun). We did take Kasia out in the snow yesterday but, alas, she pretty much hated it. I guess she will learn to like it at some point but I'm not worried.

The best part of the snow yesterday wasn't building a snowman or just reveling in the wintry glory, it was in fact something far less glamorous but nevertheless practical and fun. I had to put chains on the front tires of the car. I had to do this because the only way I could get the car up the hill in the snow was to finally use them. I had bought these chains when we lived near Yosemite National Park in California (you have to have them there by law) but I figured I would never get to use them in Texas! Well, I did and I got the car out and Hilery made it to work where she had to sleep on a stretcher all night. Nursing is just one of those jobs where you can't just call in and say 'nah, not coming in today...bad weather!'. Nurses in the US are licensed and as such even when one graduates Nursing School one has to pass a board of certification test before a license to practice can be issued. Therefore, a nurses patients are his/her responsibility and the nurses are legally bound to provide care, in short Hil had to get her ass to work!

So today, I sit in the house waiting for either the snow to melt (not gonna happen) or maybe some inspiration as to how to keep a two year old entertained for the next couple of days. The Play-dough is out, the toys are strewn across the house and lets just hope that Hil is able to get home tonight. This is a blessing in disguise in many ways because all three of us have to practice this new system (Mummy away and Daddy on his own for a while) so that in June when the big one happens we will be somewhat prepared. I will no doubt be blabbering on about the events in June at some length pretty soon, wow I bet everyone reading this is just beyond excited for that one!

I had a bunch of stuff to say....but I've forgotten!

Don't you just hate it when you have a bunch if things you need to kinda sweep clear out of your head and then you just can't remember what in the hell those things were! Mind you, I guess the point is that if you don't remember then they must not have been that important to begin with. Oh well.

On the subject of randomness, it's snowing. Now Texas isn't supposed to get much in the way of the fluffy stuff but it seems that we are getting a few inches. Now this plays into my role as SAHD because some how I have to get Hilery to work in the ice and snow tomorrow morning. The reason it's such a pain is because Hilery and I share one car. We used to have my little truck but due to a whole heap of reasons we got rid of it. The real problem is that in order to share a car Hilery, myself and Kasia have to get in the car at 6am and take Hil to work. It's not the most pleasant thing to have to drag a 2 year old out of bed at the best of times but in the ice and snow it just seems like a horrible risk! So our options are limited but it seems Hil may have to go to the hospital tonight and sleep there so that she can nurse on the floor tomorrow. Boo hiss! All in all being a stay at home parent and not having access to a car sucks. It's not like back home in the UK where you can walk to the store etc, here in beautiful Texas everything is about 500 miles away! But I must not complain to much. Life throws us these curve balls and the least we can do is have a swing at them....

Here's the thing....

As some of you know Hilery works 12 hour shifts on a rotating (kinda random actually!) schedule which basically means that she works two days on then two days off. Awesome I hear you cry, you must have so much time to do other things! Umm, for some reason...no, not really. I mean there are two distinct ways that we run our house, when Hil is at work and the baby care is all down to me, then there is the shared responsibility. I quite honestly don't know how parents cope when one does 99% of the daily child care while the other works an out of the home job. I cannot even begin to imagine being a single parent. Basically the point I am not so eloquently trying to make is that I really believe in duel parental responsibility. Take tonight for example, we were invited to a friends house (who we hadn't seen for a while) to watch the Superbowl...um the World Championship of only American participant teams...ummm anyway, and we had a blast. I love the fact that Hilery gets to be 'the Mum' but I have such a pivotal role in how we raise Kasia. I love telling stories of what Kasia has been doing and how shes growing into a little person. If I were the stereotypical Dad I don't think I would get to experience these amazing things.

That's not to say that I don't respect the hell out of the Dads that get out there and do there own jobs. Every day I think about what my parents went through to raise me and my sister. The luxury vacations in Broadstairs (a quaint English seaside town..not exactly the Bahamas I can assure you), the unbelievable lack of resources, the hypothermia on the train station platform because you have no car and no winter coat so that your kids don't go without. These are things my parents did, and guess what...that's what its all about. Sacrifice. Does it make you a better person for going through it. That I don't know, all I know is that having kids is a choice (for the most part). One doesn't just slip and fall and boom a baby is made! We make choices and we live by them, plain and simple.

All in all I was proud tonight. Proud of my baby girl for behaving so well, proud of my wife for being just an awesome person and honestly proud of myself for being able to say yeah, I'm a Stay at Home Dad....and it seems like I'm doing OK so far.

Just a quick note.....

Kasia finished her first ever day at play school today! She did amazing, no melt downs...she didn't even seem to miss me. Anyway I guess next week will be the real test.

Step 1: Ignoring advice.

OK, I will admit, right now, to reading an article on 'How to blog'. The only piece of advice it gave that was even worth reading was that one must write on these blogs as if people are actually reading them, and furthermore one must write as if these people reading have no prior knowledge of you or what you are writing about. Therefore I am going to be one of those annoying people and just blabber on about pretty much everything.

I will say this though, I'm not going to use this thing to go off on a political tirade or rants about life in general (I am firmly down off of my high horse!) instead I am trying to simply write about my life as a SAHD (Stay At Home Dad). Now as boring as this may be to some, thats why I'm doing this. Its kinda of a therapy really, a crappy, cheap form of therapy!

So I have been a SAHD now since Kasia was born, well on my own after Hilery (my wife) went back to work. The reason she went back to work and I stayed at home was simple. Hilery makes good money as a Registered Nurse and I, well um, don't! I have no degree, no real skills and frankly have little to offer a well paying occupation. I say that with a hint of jest but its pretty much true. Anyway, I figured like most that being a SAHD would consist mainly of sitting, watching Oprah and generally doing very little. Reality came crashing in around me when at 3 months old, Kasia was my sole responsibility during the day. Now, Kasia is currently 26 months old so I must have done something right but the journey so far has been less than joyful.

Thats not to say that I don't love what I do in a weird kinda way. It's just the biggest issue remains a social one. We (as a society) are still not ready for SAHDs. No matter what people say on the subject, they may say its great and all this, bla bla bla, but in reality women are more comfortable being around other women in regards to a child care situation. That's what makes it a difficult job.

So to the title of this post. Ignoring advice is something that I am amazingly good at. For better or for worse I hate people telling me what to do, that includes good steady advice. I am trying to change this facet of my personality but frankly I fear it is set in stone. The biggest piece of advice that I ignored, which turned out to be a monumental mistake, was not to move away from family and friends and then decide to start having kids. Duh! Right? But at the time Hil and I just wanted to do our own thing and we basically thought we knew better. We didn't. Most people say that when they have kids they don't get to go out or do anything or see anybody, but if I told you I could count on one hand the amount or people that have simply dropped by to see if we are OK, I wouldn't be exaggerating. I'm not saying that anyone should, I'm just saying that it would be nice. Hilery and I have not had a 'date night' in 26 months. Not one meal, not one movie, not one walk on our own. I sound like I'm moaning which I kinda am, but really its just to suggest to anyone reading this that doesn't have kids yet....DON'T MOVE AWAY FROM FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND THEN HAVE KIDS! It doesn't matter how much your parents get on your nerves or any of that, just take all the help you can get.

At this point I have to cut this off! Oh dear what a shame!! But its because I have to go and get Kasia from a playgroup. Yes, that's right we finally found a little playgroup where she stays there for 5 whole hours!! It's her first day and I have felt physically sick since I dropped her off. Not helped, mind you, when as I'm walking down the corridor to leave her for the first time in 2 years she sweetly yells.."Daddy where are you!!", I honestly thought that I was gonna start crying in front of all these Mums and teachers...however I stayed strong and went to the gym. What else could I do apart from then come home and write on this bloggy thing. Anyway, must dash and sorry its long winded, but that's me folks! Peace....wish me luck.

Number one...first post.

Now, as it must be plainly clear this is the first post on this blog. I honestly have never read more than a couple of pages on any blog so I'm not entirely sure how all this works. All I do know is that about a million people have told me to do something and write my story. This is my feeble attempt at doing so.

Stinky features, aka Kasia (my adorable daughter) and I have just returned from the worst kids club in the world. Instead of a joyous union of toddlers and parents it was just a bunch of people selling stuff in the middle of the mall! So that will be the last time that I will be going there! I am trying though. I go to all the story times that I can and I'm a regular at the zoo. There just isn't much that's fun around here. Maybe theres no fun anywhere, for me at least!

At this point I should probably serve up some background on my situation. But for now I am going to go cook dinner for my ladies and try this thing again tomorrow.