Stay-Work-At-Home-Laundry-Cook-Driver-Dad...

There's no denying it, I’m a loving and caring husband, and you should know it from reading all my previous blogs.  This notion of men not helping out in the house is nothing more than a myth - at least in our household.  My hands are so well cared for ever since I started to use the Fairy dish-wash soap (the one with built-in moisturizer that pampers your hands and leaves your dishes feeling squeaky clean).  Basically, I'm an all-in-one wonder dad - if you ask me of course.

- click here for more information

Being an at-home-working-dad has given me an insight into the daily tasks required to keep the household going, on top of the traditional duties such as cleaning and cooking and more importantly ALL the kids’ daily rituals and after school activities.  I have no idea how my wife manages or has the energy to go from activity to activity. She has done so for several years now.  On top of that, she's breastfeeding every 2-3 hours, with the exception of when I wake up early (4-5am) to feed the baby.

Despite having two kids already, it’s still not easy to adapt to having a new addition in the family.  So to show my support, I took a few days off work, and worked from home a few days too, to look after the other two hobbits as much as possible.  Mind you, this in itself is a full-time job, because the missus is often stuck in a breastfeeding trance, so most of the day-to-day duties fall upon me too - I know, you feel sorry for me.  I've started to sing "go down Moses...let my people go" and "jump down pick 'o bale of cotton", which my wife doesn't find amusing. I just find it natural to sing these songs.  A man can only take so many strokes of the whip (unless he's into that stuff).

So, for the past 4 weeks, my involvement in the daily routines increased from bringing our daughter to school, to also bringing our son to school.  His school is a 30 minute drive from our house, on the motorway, so it is a fair distance. He goes there 3 times a week and 3 hours per day.  It is too far to go back, so I spent the time in the lovely Malahide village - home of the notorious yummy mummy gang, who have their headquarters in the local Starbucks.  I was sitting there one Wednesday trying to work while our son was in school, when the place was suddenly invaded by buggies, screaming kids and lactating women. Women and kids were all wearing the latest gear, and most of it could pay for our car.

To make the situation more complex and perhaps disturbing was that staff in Starbucks knew them all and started to prepare the various variations of coffee; skinny slim decaf columbian, hot coco made with soy milk and rye scones.  What ever happened to a normal cup of Joe?

My work laptop was being squirted with juice, crumbs, coffee, breast milk and baby pooh.  Not sure I could handle much more of this.  But, just as quickly as they had emerged from their gold plated SUV's, just as quickly did they vanish.

Later in the week, while dropping off our son at school, my daughter and I were waiting in the car for a few minutes, letting the traffic in the cul de sac calm down.  Suddenly, one of these bling-bling SUVs pulled up and parked in the middle of the street. Out jumped a yummy mummy dressed to kill in DKNY, Armani and D&G sun glasses.  She was dropping off her son to school that he was not in the slightest interested in going. He grabbed the nearest pole to resist entering the school. The mother started pulling his legs causing him into a vertical position.  She then attempted to trick him and picked him up to hug him,  while one of the teachers took the kid from behind trying to lift him into school.  As she gently pulled the kid away from the mother, he desperately clung on to his mum's DKNY shirt. All of a sudden the mum's shirt ripped open and revealed her right boob!  The mother "calmly" buttoned her shirt, fixed her sunglasses and pretended as if nothing had happened.  I quickly rolled up the window trying to suppress my laughter, but then my daughter and I looked at each other and we both burst out in hysterical laughter.

Other man duties during my stint off included bringing our daughter to horseback riding, theatre school and gym - all on different days and far from home of course.  It takes almost two hours each event, so I spend time working on my blog or playing with my iPhone.  Funnily enough, I'm most of the time the only husband/man at these events, much to the amazement of the yummy mummies. I can see them stare at me with utter disbelief because I don't "participate" with supporting comments and other gestures to my daughter.  I just let her do her stuff at her own pace and she really loves it.  She's sooooo proud every time and talks for hours about what she did that day.

It's not easy being a "single parent", looking after two maniac hobbits with millions of activities to do.  The car is being seriously tested in regards to mileage and my cleaning skills have improved immensely (BTW, My wife doesn't consider cleaning a woman's job). By the time I get to sit down with my cup of Joe in the sofa, it's almost 20.30. That's when my wife looks at me with begging puppy eyes wondering if I could give her some neck massage.

In bed by 21.30 and up at 04.00.  Blimey, yesterday morning I folded the clothes and prepared pancakes well before 07.30 - I actually had to re-heat the pancakes as the rest of the family didn't come downstairs until 09.00  By then I was already changing to go outside to mow the lawn.

Who cares about expensive gyms, when you can be on the go for 12 hours daily.

First day of school [skool] for my daughter [daw-ter]

As parents you measure your life in milestones based on your children's activities.  The fact is, you no longer have your own activities and if you did, these would be very short and scheduled when the kids are asleep.  But, luckily the majority of people you socialise with are probably in the same situation, so going to the local pub once every 6 months should be possible.  Gym?  Haven't been to the gym for decades.

So, it is no surprise that when your child starts school, this big day is a major event and it is vital that both parents attend.  Our big day had been in planning ever since our daughter was born.  In Ireland, you have to register for school as soon as possible, to make sure the child gets in (ridiculous). So we registered our daughter 18 minutes after giving birth.  Felt stupid filling in forms still wearing the surgical outfit and goggles.

Our daugther started school, Junior Infants, last year.  It was somewhat surreal to attend the introduction meetings during the summer where the principal talked about what to expect.  This in itself was in hindsight planned at a ridiculous time.  It was in the evening at 19.00 (7pm), when kids are meant to be sleeping - at least ours.  If you don't have a babysitter and two kids, then this becomes a challenge.  Therefore, most parents attending this meeting had brought their kids along, making it almost impossible for the principal to speak.  Funnily enough, as soon as the principal stood up on stage all the men fell silent, and I did too.  I guess we all had some run-ins with the principal when we were kids. Now, we wanted to behave when the principal was nearby - a natural reaction, a power that comes with being The Principal.

All the proud parents attended the two hour long briefing on how important it is to drop off your kids and leg it, as well as the method they use to teach kids how to read and write.  They use phonetics, which is basically pronouncing the sounds of the letters when spelling.  For me, it was a challenge to understand my daughter for a few weeks after she started, as she was using these sounds for a lot of words.  It would be the same if you were to read [reed] phonetic /fəˈnɛtɪks, foʊ-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fuh-net-iks] writing [ra:i-ting].  Gradually, this becomes your second language when you do homework with your child and you have to have full conversations using the phonetic language (which doesn't exist by the way).  Having spent two hours on really uncomfortable chairs, we left the school no wiser and probably even more nervous about the Big Day.

This is were the madness began.  My wife wanted our daughter to have enough different outfits to last her the first school year, resulting in a shopping spree in Zara, H&M, Next, Benetton, Designer labels, picking up 238 outfits with matching accessories.  Slightly exaggerated, but we bought a lot.  This was pre-recession of course.  Due to the recession, my son will probably inherit all the clothes, hand-me-downs, when he starts school, which would make him a perfect target for being beaten up. Nobody, except Scottish kids, wear kilts to school!!

We also bought her a new school bag, with wheels on, and a lunchbox.  I provided some pens and paper, sponsored by my work. She was ready to take on Junior Infants.  We should have known better, but I gave her a pencil sharpener, which lead to all pencils being sharpened until they were an inch long.  I could not borrow more pencils from work, so we had to buy her a new pack.  All her books were bought as soon as we got the book list.

The Big Day finally arrived and my daughter was ecstatic. This was it, out little girl was all grown up now, leaving the house for a part-time school career.  Yes, she had attended play-school, but this was different and it felt different too - probably because my wife was sobbing the days leading up to the 1st day of school.

We left the house earlier that morning, to make sure we were on time, only to find that all streets within a mile were blocked by cars.  All parents in the area were taking their kids to school too - weird!  Luckily we had VIP parking in the area.  Dressed in the latest kids fashion, we proudly walked to school and made our way to the yard.  All kids were so excited, but the parents even more.

ALL parents, including ourselves, had brought along any film camera we could find, to document the special moment in our lives; mobile phones, digital cameras, video, polaroid, etc.  You name, it was there.  Every step you took, you were asked to get out of the frame or got a video camera in the face as the proud father was following his child walking with the school bag.  I was exactly the same, honestly, and I was even using a 'clapper' for the various scenes.  My wife was so embarrassed everytime I screamed "Action!".

The teachers came out of each classroom, calling in the kids, and this is where emotions erupted.  Remember the scene in Indiana Jones, where the Nazi woman looks at the Jones' and screams "ALARM!"  It was like scenes from Titanic. All mothers holding on to their kids and whispering "Don't let go!"  In every direction you looked, people were crying and kids screaming.  I think the parents were the root of the problem. I had to be dragged screaming (and most likely crying too) out of the room by the school caretaker, holding on to my daughter and her table + chair.  My wife was locking herself to the rail, in the yard for some reason like some tree-hugger. She kept scratching me when I was trying to remove her from the rail while she was crying uncontrollably.  It was absolutely chaotic.  I remember seeing one parent pretending to faint hoping to delay school start - how childish!  All this caused our poor kids to get scared and start to cry.  I'm sure the teachers were dreading this day all summer.

Most kids sat in their chairs and were innocent spectators to their parents behaviours, not knowing how to react. They were just looking forward to their first day in school.

After the civil war scenes had finished with most parents receiving detention from the principal,  school finally started. All parents walked calmly to their cars.  Most women were still in tears and trying to find ways to run back, but their husbands held them back.

My wife picked up our daughter after lunch and she had had a blast in school, making so many friends and playing in the yard.  She ate her lunch and she was basically delighted to be in school.  The drama went on a few more mornings, for the other kids of course.  My wife had her moments every evening, questioning if our daughter was ready for this, quietly crying in the bathroom.   I was ordered to delete certain parts of the recorded footage, still and moving images, so I guess censorship still applies in some countries.

Anyway, we survived our daughter's first day in school. Now we are already planning our son's first day in school.

Good luck to all the new parents.  I've heard they have riot gear on sale in London, after the recent summit.

The PTA wants you...

As you know, our daughter started school last year, so my wife has just started her second term as proud yummy mummy - well, we have an SUV and my wife is gorgeous!  We have been "lucky" that my wife has been able to be the cool school runner, despite it would be nice with some extra cash, and it has worked out really well (for me).  My input as a not-so-yummy-dad has been limited to three school runs, whereof two were school year starts - so they don't really count.  And, my track record hasn't been the greatest either, as I was caught 5 minutes late in the hallway by the principal, last time I did the school run.

It is very difficult to keep up with all the activities in school and I've only made it to the annual Christmas show, and for some reason, my wife wants us to be a lot more involved in the school - why?  I'm not too sure.

I'd better explain that our daughter is attending one of the Educate Together Schools; not attached to a religion and no uniforms.  Educate Together is strongly based on parents' involvement in EVERYTHING from charity events, school parties, daily management and sports days.  Well, the latter is a big no-no for me anyway, mainly due to my poor physique and oddly shaped body.  You might remember from my School Run blog that I almost collapsed after a mere 60 minutes walk to/from school.

So, how do you get involved in the school you might ask?  Well, you volunteer.  Which in my humble opinion is ludicrous.  If there's something I've learned over the years, then it is NOT to volunteer for anything as this just means a lot more work and other parents get off the hook.  You know it too.  It is too easy to blame the participating parents that an event was a failure or it should have been done in a different way.  But you should never complain or come with suggestions.  Therefore, I decided not to volunteer - but, my wife had other plans.

The other day, when I came home from work, she proudly announced that the school is looking for parents to represent each class, and who better to represent our daughter's class than us!!  It was a near-death experience similar to when you stand too close to the curb and get knocked over by the wind-pressure from the passing 18-foot truck or you just lost (again) in Wii boxing to your 4 year old son.

Why would you join the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) of your kid's school?

I love my wife, but this was not a good idea, so I firmly accepted the challenge of representing our daughter's class.  Like so many men, I have my own ideas and opinions, but I tend to falter under the pressure from my wife's all-seeing eye and gaze - don't we all.  I know that if I had objected, I would have to sleep in the attic again, in my daughter's old bed, only covered with a shitty dog blanket.

We men know when to agree and disagree with our wives.  We stand tall for the family and we will take every challenge with a straight back.  The thing is, we know how to bargain too.  In this case, I get to see Champions League football twice this season, just because I accepted her demands.  That's double the amount of games I saw last year - I'm on a winning path.  Maybe next year I get to turn up the volume too...

I'm under the thumb like the rest of you chicken men, and I'm not scared to admit it  (this last line was written while my wife was watching me!).

Anyway, I'm ready for the PTA.  How hard can it be?  My iPod is fully loaded with music and I've bought smaller headphones.  I just hope the principal doesn't catch me out again.  At least I'm no longer smoking in the courtyard with the 12 year old boys.
...I just hope my wife has selected me for chairperson!!!

The worst thing about attending these meetings, is that you actually sit in a class room and not in the teacher's area.  This means that you sit on children's chairs that are extremely small and low.  They are perfect for my wife, but they cause my legs to cramp every 5 minutes or "fall asleep" because I'm pinching a blood vein that results in blood not circulating.  I nearly fell over at the last PTA meeting. When I stood up, I realised that my leg was fully asleep.  I quickly grabbed the nearest person not to fall, almost knocking over the teacher representative too. Man, these teachers get smaller and younger - this one looked like she was just out of school herself.

So, school just started, so we only have another 11 PTA meetings to go.  Wish me luck.

Of course I can do the school run!!

It was Tuesday morning and the alarm woke me up at 06.00 (am).  My God!  It was still dark outside and it was still raining - nothing had changed since I went to bed in regards to the weather.  As for me, I was still as tired as the night before, and my looks hadn't changed for the better either.

It was the morning of my son's grommets surgery.  My daughter had had her grommets surgery last week, so we somewhat knew what to expect:

1. Stuck all day in the hospital
2. Starving child
   
3. Staff not knowing what was happening
4. Starving child
5. Hours of fun, sitting on a shitty chair
6. Starving child
   

My wife was meant to bring him to the hospital at 07.30 (am), so she had to get going earlier than usual.  Unfortunately, she sleeps very well and it can be VERY difficult to get her back to this World.  The way she was breathing and snorring, I would say she was hovering in between Worlds - completly zen and relaxed.  From the high nasal pitch, probably Narnia.  There was no hope in hell of waking her up.

Finally, after a few kicks to the kidneys, an old Steven Seagal trick, I got her back from Narnia and she moved like a zombie to the bathroom for a quick shower.

Our son is more like me. We are both up and running quickly.  The adrenaline was pumping and he was ready for a day of surgery.  He had no idea what he was getting himself into.  The poor thing hadn't eaten since the previous evening at 19.00 (7 pm), and he was not allowed to eat at all. The nurses in hospital would feel his wrath quickly, if there were any long delays.

My wife left the house with our son, who later (according to my wife) turns into a mum's worst nightmare; screaming and poohing all over in the hospital toilet. At least, she sent me a text asking to bring clean clothes, so something bad must have happened.

Anyway, as you know, I love my wife and family and I'm a great dad.  So, I'd taken the morning off work to help out.  It would be my second time (in 18 months) to bring our daughter to school, so this was still very new to both of us and also exciting.  Keep in mind, I trust my daughter, because she is 5 years old and she knows what is best for her (see "Horseback Riding" story). So, it was bound to be an interesting morning.

Our daughter wakes up just as "quickly" as my wife. So, getting her to eat breakfast, get dressed and her teeth brushed was challenging, especially since she was still asleep.

I made her lunch, a sandwich she designed herself. I hoped she would like it.  I'm not too sure how nice a a nutella and cheese sandwich, sprinkled with cornflakes would be!  But, she is 5 and she knows what she wants.

Because my wife took the car to the hosiptal, and my daughter doesn't have a bike helmet for the scooter, we decided to walk.  My daughter wanted to bring Angel, as she is very easy to walk with.

We put on the wellies, rain coat and bag pack and headed off to her school.  It would probably take 10-15 minutes by car, so it shouldn't take no more than 30 minutes walking.  My daughter was ensuring me that it wouldn't be a problem and that she had done this several times with Mummy.  OK then!

It wasn't raining when we set off, but I had (based on skills learned by watching Ray Meare's TV series) predicted it would start to lash later that morning.  I didn't start to rain until I was walking back.  We walked at a normal speed. I had calculated the route to take 28 minutes, which would leave us with 2 minutes to spare, as her class starts at 08.50.

At 08.49 I texted my wife, just to double check when school starts, as we were still a bit away from the school.  The last mile to school was the hardest for all three of us.

• Angel because she had had a stroke about 4 weeks ago and she needed to be gradually trained up again, but exercise should be good for her, right?
  
• Our daughter because I had taken the route we would drive by car, meaning it was a mile longer than expected, but she is 5 year old and she is perfectly capable
  
• Me because my body was (and is) NOT designed for exercise and I haven't done much exercise since the kids were born, but I had to start exercising at some stage...
  

So, after walking for almost 40 minutes, I was dragging the dog and kid behind me the last 200 meters, much to the amusement of fellow parents and the school patrol.  My daughter at one point asked if she could open her jacket, as she was sticky from sweat, but I thought it was too cold and wet to do so, and said no.

Finally, we opened the door to the school, walking slowly towards her classroom - only 7 minutes late.  Of all people, who did we bump into - literally?  The school principal.  We were caught late, in the hallway, by the principal.  She looked at us, both sweaty and exhausted, and said good morning.  She even knew my daughter's name.  I hope I didn't get my daughter into trouble.  So, I helped my daughter with getting her jacket off and pushed her into the class, and gave the teacher an apologetic face.  The teacher stared at our daughter as she stood in the classroom with red cheecks, sweaty patches under the armpits and about to collapse.  I wonder what was on the teacher's mind.

Now, all I had to do was to walk back with Angel, get dressed for work and head to the hospital to provide some moral support to my wife and son.

At this point, Angel had started to walk slowly - extremely slowly.  Suddenly she stopped and I spun around, afraid that she had passed out.  But no, she had to pooh!  Remember, this was morning rush hour, so the road was packed with queueing cars, all looking at me and my dog doing it's business!  To my fear, Angel had decided to pooh in the middle of the road.   Aaargghhhhh, the horror, fear and embarrasment.
...thankfully I had brought plastic bags, just in case.  I could almost hear the drivers clap as I scooped up the pooh with the bag, feeling the warmth on my fingers through the plastic.  It's unbelievable what we dog owners sacrifice to keep the environment free of dog poohs. My dignity was at stake here.  Now, all I needed was a bin, but the nearest was 0.5 mile away, meaning I had to carry the little bundle of joy a bit further, swinging in my hand following the rhythm of my walk.  By the way, Angel is a Bernese Mountain dog, so it was a decent size pooh, not easy to hide or carry - I just hoped the bag would last that long.

We finally arrived back at the house, soaked and exhausted.  I had to sit down for a few minutes.  I stripped down, which might be a horrible image for some readers, but the sweat was rolling off me.  I'm getting too old for this shit!

I'm sure there was a much faster way to school, by foot, and according to my wife, there was.  The other route, which nobody told me about (and I didn't ask about either) until after the event had taken place, only takes 20-25 minutes.

I finally left the house and headed to the hospital.  Here I was greeted by my exhausted wife and starving son.  It was at this point 10.15 (am) and he still hadn't been seen by the doctors.  It turned out that they had misplaced my son's medical chart, meaning that they couldn't do surgery on him.  We were getting closer to an apocalyptic event, as my son hadn't eaten for more than 16 hours, so something had to happen...and quickly.  I could even see bite marks on most of the furniture and toys in the room, but  luckily for the staff, he was getting low on energy.  Thankfully they located his file.

I must admit, I was somewhat worried that they could loose a file, when they knew he was scheduled for surgery a year in advance.  What else do they loose in the hospital?  Actually, I don't want to know the answer to that question.

He was rolled into the operation theatre (OT) at 11.40.  It was my wife's turn to support our son, while the nurses tried to put him to sleep with a mask.  A mask?  How naive!  My son fought with tooth and nail not to get covered by the mask, but he finally surrendered - I guess not having eaten for 18 hours takes its toll.  As my wife emerged from the OT, I spotted the red upper lip, which indicates that she was about to cry.  Now she knows what I felt like, when our daughter had cleft palette surgery and I had to support her - not nice.

Our son emerged from Neverland 45 minutes later, fairly pissed off and tired, but most of all very hungry.  The nurse kindly gave him 1 juice, but it took 3 to calm him down.  Then he downed 3 yogurts, 2 bananas and a bag of biscuits - it has to be said that he didn't want to eat by himself, so we had to assist him, holding the DVD player in one hand and the food in the other.  If you tipped the DVD player slightly, so he couldn't see the screen, he would let you know quickly either by screaming of throwing a bisquit at you.
...ah, the joys of being a loving and supportive parent.

So, that was the morning gone, now what?  Well, I had to go to work and my wife had to head home once he was discharged.  She was wrecked at this stage and she couldn't find the parking ticket, so she could pay and leave.  From what I've seen since, most of the damage to the interior of the car was caused by punches and biting.  Thankfully she found the ticket in her wallet and made it home, leaving the exterior intact.

It's funnny, we had been waiting for our kids to get the grommets done for months, and then they get scheduled to be done within 1 week of each other, in two different hospitals.  At least it is done now, and the kids still love us - phew!