almostwitty | Entries tagged with fatherhood

If, like us, your household has been sucked into endlessly shopping at Sainsbury’s in an attempt to get more golden Lego trading cards, then you’ll also have amassed a huge collection of duplicates.

In case you want to swap one of your duplicates, for one of our duplicates, then here’s our list of Lego trading card duplicates. Please comment below if you want to do a swap!

Mirrored from almost witty.

I used to devour apocalyptic literature – I read a lot of it as a kid, watched many a movie about the end of the world, and even wrote essays about it at University. Back then, it never used to phase me or scare me as a topic – I’d have a kind of horrified fascination with it, and during the height of the Cold War, the End could potentially be no more than four minutes away for the United Kingdom.

Fast forward to now, though, and I’m living in West London and a married father to a kid who really couldn’t even begin to fend for himself for another seven years… so oddly that puts a totally different spin on things. I’m not so much horribly fascinated by “black” topics so much as just horrified and actively repelled by them – so that’s another thing that changes in the transition to fatherhood…

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When the first sustained period of sunshine comes after the long dark winter, people tend to go a bit mad, and gobble up as much of the sunshine as they can. We even went for an impromptu picnic on Sunday – although onto a piece of green land surrounded by busy roads, so it’s rather arguable how close to nature we got.

However, during the week, what can I do to take advantage of all this sunshine? Sure, I could go out and sit on the lawn – but then what? My brain won’t switch off from worrying about emails, and it’s not as if I’ll be hanging out with my team – i tried to organise a work celebration lunch three times but scheduling conflicts always seemed to get in the way. And going further afield for a spot of good lunch seems rather impractical.

So I end up grabbing a lunch from somewhere, and sitting back at my desk – with the brief exposure to noon sunshine enough to convince me that it’s bloody hot out there, and I should head back inside to the safety of my desk and emails.

Oddly, I then started IMing my wife, asking if she and our son had been outside for a bit of sun yet. Why is it that I’m eager for our baby son to have some sunshine (albeit with protection) when I tend to run and hide from it?

Mirrored from almost witty.

Progress notes on day 10 with the new baby can be found on a new seperate blog, geekfamily.co.uk – so join us there!

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Last week – Thursday 20 January – bijziend was induced.

SIXTY SIX hours of labour later, Alexander Joseph Ming Hin Wong was brought into the world in a very messy manner on Sunday morning, weighing 8lbs 1oz. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…

We were finally allowed to bring Alexander home on Wednesday afternoon, after three nights of bijziend and Alexander being stuck in a noisy ward full of screaming babies, Alexander included.

Thus Wednesday night was the first night of hell for both of us, with a screaming baby that could only be placated by a combination of feeds, bumps, crooning Lady GaGa lullabies and finally him sleeping in my arms while I was propped up on the sofa and could take a nap myself. Tips for getting babies to sleep at night are highly appreciated!

And that’s already taken up one week of paternity leave – just two more to go.

( Pics under the cut... )

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This time last year, most of my non-work time was spent alone hunched up with my laptop on the sofa, playing games or doing emails etc.

Tonight, when I get home, my wife will be on our laptop cranking out another 3000 words for her NaNoWriMo project, while I’ll be watching TV and occasionally waiting for her to finish.

In about three months time, we’ll be trying to juggle laptop time (as I have termed it) with WeaponX time. Although, naturally, WeaponX will get the lion’s share of attention.

But since then, I’ve been wondering about how other people transition from being alone with a laptop, to being a couple with a laptop, to being a family with a laptop. Cory Doctorow has an interesting article on how he juggles fatherhood with laptop time – mainly by letting his daughter watch things on the laptop.

This sounds like a straightforward idea, but then at the back of my mind, I can’t shake the feeling that time spent on a laptop is time spent away from my wife or my future family, even if we are physically all together sat on the same sofa… whereas at least if we’re watching TV together, we’re watching TV together.

How do you tackle that dual need between “together time” and “laptop time”?

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When my friends found out I was going to the Baby Show, they commended me on making such a brave decision. Which seems odd – if I’m going to buy an Apple Mac, I’d think about going to the Apple Show. So surely deciding to go to a baby show – to give us a clue as to what lies in store for the next 15 years – is a no-brainer?

This turns out to have been not an altogether-wise decision. Silly us, we thought bringing up a child would be about meeting its basic needs, and ensuring it was loved and cared for. Oh no, apparently it was actually all about getting expensive and irrelevant nursery equipment, even more expensive buggies that are sold like cars (ie no price guides), and some frankly bizarre stands. Designer clothes for babies? Ensuring your child is circumcised by hiring the CircumSurgery?

There was a huge line to get a free Pampers plastic box. But in order to get it, you had to give your personal details to their marketing ladies. Top marks for getting us all to type it into a netbook instead of filling out bits of paper, but did we really need to give you answers to two random questions? It’s a nappy, not a bank!

There was also a stand promoting a website where dads could talk to dads. Why it needed four people to man it is another question entirely – but maybe one of them should have gotten some spell-checking skills. The website required me to register with an email address, whereupon I got a rather interesting email titled “RESPONCE REQUIRED”.

For a website that discusses fatherhood, it was also a bit disconcerting to find fatherhood 9th on the list of topics, and some boards not updated since late September. The board on jokes and current affairs, on the other hand, is alive and flourishing.

What other baby forums are there for fathers? Is there a DadsNet? Or should I just set up my own ?!

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As befits a child who will be born to two geeky parents, we have come up with our first environmental experiment…

If you sing “Can you tell me how to get?” to a bunch of 30-year-olds, American or British, we’ll sing the rest of the song: “To Sesame Street!”. Big Bird, The Count (“Ha! Ha! Ha!”), Bert and Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, and of course the character who has given the Internet the phrase Nom Nom Nom – The Cookie Monster.

But Sesame Street was never particularly loved by the British TV establishment. According to the BBC News Magazine, the BBC rejected it in the 1970s because of its’ “authoritarian aims” (because learning to count and get along with people of all creeds and types is such a terrible idea) so it hasn’t been seen on British TV screens since 2001, and it’s unlikely to come back.

So here’s the experiment. When my wife forces our kid (aka WeaponX) to watch the occasional episode of Sesame Street, and then he/she goes to kindergarten – will WeaponX start talking about Sesame Street? And if so, will the other kids shun him/her for doing so?

It’s a toughie.

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