Bodily function drama

Haven't posted anything in a few days because, frankly, the kids haven't done anything that interesting lately. It's a case of just getting on with life and trying to hang on to sanity. The most dramatic thing that's happened in the past few days is bodily function related. In my experience an unfeasibly high percentage of things concerning the rearing of small children centre around bodily functions. For the first few months of life they literally are nothing more than a small bag of flailing limbs and bodily functions.

Anyway, Fraser had done a particularly interesting bowel movement (which is a euphanism for "a shit that made me dry heave") and required a full body makeover - new nappy, vest, sleepsuit and half a pack of wipes. I was right in the middle when his brother decided that right then was the time to dabble in projectile vomiting that began in the living room and continued on into the dining room, and just in case it felt left out, a little bit was left over for the kitchen.

Three rooms in one sitting is an impressive feat for a two year old imho. I think I've only ever managed two. So, one child covered his his own piss and shit, with the other and most of downstairs covered in vomit.

All that was missing was a third child having an earwax ejection episode.

Sometimes I wonder if we actually knew what parenthood was like, in detail, if any of us would opt for it.

The giggling baby

If there's one thing that puts the shine of being a father it's making your kids laugh. It's a truly magical thing - especially when they're little. There's a video on our facebook timeline from about 2 years ago of me making Jamie laugh by having him punch me in the face (I know, what a truly irresponsible thing to teach a child to do) but he thought this was absolutely hilarious - which overrides any requirement for sensible parenting.

It's probably my favourite piece of cinematography (I realise calling it that is a bit of a stretch, but meh). Hollywood can go taking a flying f***, it'll never produce anything as entertaining for me as that two minute video.

Anyway, last night, his little brother giggled for the first time - and only very briefly, but it was enough to make me gasp and forgive the last three months of dirty nappies. What prompted this post was I just got a text from my wife telling me he'd just done it for her as well, so it seems that the giggle ferry has arrived and now the search for things he finds amusing begins - I suspect more face punching will be involved.

Early morning screwup

Damn, did I start the day in the bad books. I use my phone as an alarm clock and after messing around with it last night I had accidentally set it to the wrong time and as it turned out - to the worst possible time... it went off 5 minutes after my wife had got back into bed after the 5am feeding and woke the wee one up (he's still in our room btw).

As starts to the day go, this one could have gone better.

Anyway, after 10 minutes or so it became obvious, despite him not screaming the house down, he wasn't going to go back to sleep on his own. So up I got and settled him back down, which to be fair wasn't too bad, no more than 5 minutes of rocking and gently lowered him back into his moses basket - treating him like a piece of live ordnance. I considered going back to bed, it was another 45 minutes before my alarm would go off for real, but could sense the rage emanating from the far side of the bed and decided the last thing this day needed was alarm going off again - so discretion being the better part of valor I etreated off work early.

I don't need a crytal ball to know there's some apologising in my future.

Incidental comedy

Whilst I will moan and complain about the many many downsides of being a father, I wouldn't give it up for the world as it offers moments of complete hilarity that come out of nowhere and not only make your day brighter  but will, at least temporarily, eclipse all the pain and stress. I was luck enough to catch one of those moments on a photograph.

It's such a simple thing, a baby sticking it's tongue out just at the right moment, but it brought me so much happiness, and continues to do so even a week later, and hopefully for a long time to come.

Maybe I should get it printed, framed and put somewhere prominent to help take the edge off the 4am feeds.