A retrospective – birthday, births and midwives

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My youngest is one tomorrow. I’ve been having a retrospective moment or two.

Firstly, it is unreal how quickly this year has gone. I know we all say this but it’s actually a bit scary. I guess it is testament to how much rushing around having three (or any) children makes you do. Adding to that is: work, which has gone flip-tits in a good, but time and energy consuming, way; my wife’s blogging, which is absolutely flying; and that she published the book she’s dreamed of for many years. It’s no wonder it’s all a bit a blur!

This birthday has also made my think back to all our children’s births. It’s hard now to properly imagine them as newborns as they all look grown up their own ways.

All three of our births were very different and in all three my wife was a total superhero. The second stars of the show were the midwives, if any of you are reading this then much respect and admiration to you. They fought to keep Renee the centre of everything each time.

There’s the first midwife who, despite having been awake for well clear of 36 hours, told the entire labour ward that they could essentially stick their processes up their arse and that Renee was getting an epidural no matter what.

I’ll also never forget the midwife who delivered our second facing off against a group of doctors and consultants who wanted to take Renee to theatre as she’d been pushing for too long – “No! You will give her five more minutes”. And she was right, Clara was born naturally inside five minutes. What a legend!

And the third, which was actually relatively straightforward as both a go (I said relative ladies!). Well she just made it a great experience from start to finish.

So there you go, the product of my brain on a train journey shortly before my son’s birthday. Sorry for the slightly rambling nature of this post. I’m struggling to find time to write anything at the moment so if I have to squeeze what could have been two posts into one, then so be it.

Fit Mums & Dads – where to start

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I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth repeating – walking, start with walking.

It’s free and can help you get to places you need to get to anyway.

10,000 steps is a good target to start with. This seems like a big number, and it is, but it’s very doable. It’s about 1hr 15mins a day. I’ve found that 5 mins each way home-station and 20 mins station-work is about 8000, it doesn’t take much to bump it up. There are some ideas here.

This alone will start to make a difference. Firstly your amount of exercise  will go up – result! And , secondly it forces you to think about your activity levels, plan for it, make time for it – this is how we make space for more in the future.

Making this the first good habit you build sets a great foundation. It’s good for you and, if you’re walking instead of travelling by car, then so are your children and it’s good for them too.

Fit Mums & Dads – a call to arms

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I don’t know about you but charts like this scare the crap out of me.

I love to exercise, and a lot of the things I like are purely personal, but fostering good habits in my children is my no1 motivation for doing it. These figures are terrifying and we parents are at the front line in making a change. Society will not protect our children for us.

We can blame the food industry, computer games or any number of other external factors, but we create the food and culture in our families. We control our children’s education and attitude. And we set the examples which they will follow (on a good day at least).

This is where the fitness industry becomes less helpful. We do not need ‘6 weeks to bigger gunz or Lopez buns’. Were’s the lesson in that? We need to make small, sustainable changes that can be built upon.

How far you take this is up to you and your situation. The level and intensity of activity is your choice, no one expects anyone to turn into an Arnie-at-his prime (especially the Mums!). However, inactivity can no longer be an option – we must do enough to inspire good habits in our children.

The chart will not change itself, clearly the steps our governments and the people that make and sell the food we eat are not being effective. So it is up to us, the parents, the people with the greatest interest in having healthy children to make the line point downwards.

We’re all adults, we know how much is really enough exercise and we also know what foods are actually just shit.

If we think it’s important, then let’s change it. I’ve seen in various posts and comments that plenty of people set health resolutions at the start of the year. How are they going?

If you’re struggling for motivation then think of you children. If you can’t do it for you, then do it to set a good example for them.

Andy’s jukebox #13 – The ladies rule edition

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The ladies rule our house this weekend.

Actually, who am I kidding, they rule all day every day. Freddy tries to even things up but look what they did to him earlier this week, the poor little guy doesn’t stand a chance.

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Anyway, here’s some music We’ve been playing today.

Janelle Monáe – Dance Apocalyptic

La Roux – In for the Kill (Skream’s Let’s Get Raving Remix) –

New year resolutions – my list

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I’m not normally one for setting resolutions but this year there are a few things I’m aiming for. A post by Tom over at Diary of the Dad has inspired me to write them down.

Be calm and controlled when speaking to the children (shout less)
My wife recently wrote about our efforts to change our parenting for the better. We have been following the steps in the book 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child. Our eldest can be a massively challenging, defiant and sometimes violent little person but the way we, and especially me, had been reacting was not at all cool – way too many outbursts of shouting. Basically doing a bunch of stuff I was shouting at them for doing and not setting a particularly good example.

So far we’re happy with what the steps in this book are doing for us so resolution number one is to just keep it up.

Exercise more often than not
Simple – do some kind of exercise more days of the week than I don’t. It doesn’t have to be an epic workout every time, just something to try and undo all the desk time.

More non-kidlet time
I love them dearly but the relentless cycle in the latter half of the year of work – shout at kids – sleep – repeat was pretty grinding. Ditching the shouting is helping but both me and my wife are a bit shit about making time away from the kids for us as a couple and as individuals.

F is now nearly one so becoming less dependent on Reneé. Now we need to cash in some of those offers of childcare and look after ourselves a bit more. We’ll be better parents for it.

How about you? Any resolutions this year?

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2014 – the year I could no longer escape the fact I am a grown up

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That may seem like a weird thing to say as at the start of or the year I was already a dad to two, married for five and in a relationship for ten.

Then in February we had Freddy who is awesome, even though he seems to hate sleep (sorry buddy, you are getting evicted into your own room very soon).

So now I’m a Dad to three children. Three! That’s more than I have hands! And I’m supposed to teach them about a world I’m not sure I understand myself.

The doubting demon in the back of my mind says “How can you do this, you’re not even a proper grown up”. Now, as much as that demon can be quite convincing, I’m starting to think he’s wrong. I mean, none of them have ever been hurt too seriously in my care, they’re fed pretty well and happy most of the time – so maybe I am a proper grown up?

Then there’s work, which went nuts half way through the year when three out of our team of six left in the same month. Suddenly I’m stepping up to do work that was previously done be people way above my pay grade. Don’t get me wrong, career wise this is great and I’m so much happier with my job now than the one I was doing at the start of the year. The weird thing is now new people have joined the team suddenly I’m the one they come to with questions and for advice. They’re expecting me to make decisions for crying out loud!

Along comes the doubting demon again “Andy, what if they find out you’re faking it, don’t really know what you are doing and aren’t even a proper grown up?” But then I start talking and people nod like it makes sense, they go do what I said and it works.

It makes me wonder. I might not feel like a grown up, or even behave like one, but I seem to be OK at some of the ‘grown up stuff’. Maybe, just maybe, the doubting demon is wrong and would be best to shut the fuck up?

So there you go. 2014, the year Andy grew up (aged 34). But not totally, I still like Thundercats and stuff like that, I’m just a bit more grown up than in 2013.

Does any of this sound familiar? Are you a non-grown up doing grown up stuff fearing the day you get exposed as a fraud?