Sad news

My apologies for not blogging for a while but my mother, Alphie’s Granny, died last Friday the 4th of March. I thought I’d put up the few words I said at her funeral. Normal Alphie blog service will be restored in the next week or so.

” Thank you for coming, we all appreciate it. Thank you Reverend Fathers for a lovely service – as Mary’s late father Jim would have observed “nothing beats a good funeral”.

Ma would have really hated it, and probably not turned up only for the fact the funeral home insisted. But she certainly would have been very happy and touched by the genuine good wishes and we have received over the last few days from everyone.

All you who knew my Mum will have their own memories of her, both good and bad but hopefully mostly good. I will remember her as my curmudgeonly old one with whom I had the pleasure of helping empty the odd bottle of Sherry. Ma to her children, Granny to her grandchildren, Raid to her friends and close ones but a very definite Mrs.O’Toole to everyone else.

She more or less single handily reared Shane and me, saw us through school and college and was always there to give any support. – She had a love of a good arguement and could be a difficult woman, but we never doubted her love for all of us and I know, she knew, she was loved back.

I am especially happy that she got to see her latest grandchild, my son Alphie, before she died. Only the other day she had him sitting on her knee and was calling him “my old dote” just as she called all her children and grand children in their time.

Several years ago, Ma told me that she would be very happy to slip away in her sleep as soon as God might have her. He took his time, but eventually her wish was granted and now she is at peace.

I loved her, I’ve missed her for quite a while now but we had a lovely week when she was in Michaels Hospital and was nearly back to her old self for a precious few days. We will all miss her but are very thankful that she is now out of pain and probably lighting up a well deserved celestial Silk cut as we speak – ——unless health and safety have got to heaven now also!

We will going to Deans Grange for the burial after the service and then back to the house where you are all welcome for eats and drinks from 2 o’clock . There will be balloons on the gate!

Finally we will be outside the church immediately afterwards to do the old hand shaking thing.
Thank you all again for coming.”

How the hell did this happen, colic teething and other tales

Today is a day off work, Danielle and Alphie are entertaining a flurry of mothers and babies in the living room and I have a chance to splurt out a little missive. Danielle suggested I write about how I got myself into this mess, only she put it as “how we met, fell in love and started our family”.  I reckon she was feeling left out and wanted her name in ‘Blog Lights’, she obviously hasn’t read the reader statistics.

Now knowing the star of the show is Alphie, I will spare you the sordid details of meeting up with Danielle, her youthful pursuit of mature me and her eventual success. Surfice to say, we met doing a course in Trinity College, found we had a mutual love of wine, food, and stupidity, she was looking for a gaff to crash at and promised me her collection of cooking pots as rent. I jumped at the chance of a live in cook and maid and ‘back of the net’ the rest is slightly fictitious also.

Alphie is four months and a bit, he is either teething or has rabies and has decided that night time is the time to be angry and awake. A nordie friend has been kind enough to buy us some gripe water (non alcho, non sugar) as you can’t get it down south and this will be tried once the milk intolerant thing has been tested. Not having slept well for the last, let me see, 4 and a bit months, I am a bit hazy on the details but long and short of it is, my son is a stranger to regular burping and farting. This malady only seem to bedevil him from about 19h00pm through to 06h00am. Then he wakes up smiles at the world and enjoys the day.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, I love it all, seriously love it. His smile is ‘Killer’, even at five in the morning, it floors me every time.

Right I hear the dulcet tones of the morning boob club departing so will throw this up on the net. Not a long one this time, I promise more next! 

Nesting and stuff

So the big day comes, and Alphie is coming home. Now for the uninitiated, or the pre-isofix parental units in the audience, a great deal of preparation goes into preparing the nest for the crib (no that is not a mixed metaphor). We were up to our oxters in preparation. Hell, we had to move apartment to fit everything. Admittedly, I am to knowing what clothes the little fellow owns what Roy Keane is to football management but I do know it beats the hell out of my wardrobe and that, like him, my ever-increasing waistline ensures a very short shelf life for many of the garments. That all said I manage to get more than a month out of my daddygrows.

So, new car with isofix, isofix base, Maxi Cosi, Moses basket, back-up crib, new mattresses for same, changing mat, more muslins than you could shake a camel kebab at, bouncy chair, jungle gym, ….. The list goes on and on. Sorry to labour the point but, it’s a lot of stuff.

My middle age has been attained without accumulating much stuff. I go so far as to describe my possessions to date as being meagre, but all of a sudden I am to stuff what Hugh Heffner is to blonds, what Dun Laoghaire is to smack heads and new clubs are to Robbie Keane.

I am an expert in prams, sorry buggies, sorry 3 in one baby transport systems; I can tell a Bugaboo from a Phil & Ted from 100 metres. I can actively describe the different absorbency levels of Tesco’s v pamper’s nappies.

I apologise I am, as of yet, a stranger to the initial thrust of this piece. So to continue, Alphie came home three days after he was born. There he was greeted by his Granny, Grandad and Uncle.

Once they left and the door closed, the cold reality of what you have done begins to dawn on you. It is just the three of you now, and it is then and only then that you thank god for being made to buy all the stuff; in fact, it isn’t nearly enough.

I want a machine that carries a baby back and forward without me having to get a tired arm. I want a rocking machine that sways his cot. Oh, while I’m at it I want a mechanism that will lift the baby up without disturbance and gently deposit him into his cot. I want a nappy that does not cost an arm and a leg that I can get rid of without destroying the environment that the wearer of same is going to grow up in. I want a machete for stranger’s incoming hands that seek to cuddle my son with germs.   I want all cars to drive slower, speed bumps outside my front door, re-education for anyone that liked Michael Jackson for anything other than his music and/or dancing, my money back from the Top Gear Live show, anyone other than Enda, and the right to rabbit punch the backs of the heads of mobile phone users that walk slowly and stop for no reason. But, I digress.

On a cautionary note when shopping, beware of the ‘It’s essential’ advice given by well-intentioned FWoBs (friends with older babies).  To that end, I give you the ‘Fisher Price mobile’; the price of which my wife won’t tell me – versus the IKEA mobile for 3 euro 50 cent! Guess which one fascinates and keeps Alphie entertained for longer. 

Questions

“Would you like to read what your father was thinking when you entered the world?”

This question was posited in response to my last missive. Absolutely I would, was my immediate reaction.  I didn’t know my dad, he died when I was six, but ­­­I am definitely the apple hanging out close to the tree considering he didn’t have me until the age of 53.

Nevertheless, it made me think and the question did raise some other pertinent questions about this blog:

Do I put up pictures of my son?

Do I use friends and family names without their say so?

How much do I say/tell before it crosses over into our personal life negatively?

I was sent a link to a blog this morning, http://www.howtogetagrip.com/2010/how-to-change-your-life-foreve/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+HowToGetAGr     it is similar to mine but a tad more graphic than I dare. If I was his wife, I might not be thanking him for the backhanded complement he bestows.  Is this the kind of blog I want to write?

Should I do a nitty gritty, nappy-by-nappy expose of what a new dad does with a baby, or just a yuc fest of “you’ll never guess what a cute thing he did today”? or something different?

There are 5 thousand blogs for women by women about the whole baby thing. Women have the boob club (the eastern health board call it something else) to go to once a week in order to talk to others and share each other’s experiences. We don’t – now I really don’t want to morph into a Daddy Guru Baby whisperer type gig, or dress up as Batman and bannerise buildings. I think I just want to write what it means to me and leave it at that.

So now with that bit of reflective nonsense out of the way, tune in next time when we will be constantly saying, “Jebus, he’s small” when we bring him home, and out for his first walk/push at 5 days.

“Jebus, but he really is small.”

The Birth

The big day eventually arrives, I was ok to wait a few more days but you might find the carrier of your impending bundle of joy is, by this time, just dying to get it out of her.

We started labour, (notice I said ‘We’ – by ‘we’ I of course mean ‘she’) they’ll tell you this isn’t the ‘actual labour’ in the hospital and that it only starts when the waters burst of something. – it’s funny it only happened 3 months ago and I have forgotten so much of the stuff that went on –  but when you are sitting up from about 3 in the AM with someone in pain I assure you it’s splitting hairs to call it anything else but labour.

 In between contractions, I had  that sort of detached slightly guilty feeling you get when you think you are supposed to be feeling something but don’t really, so of course I did the man thing and  began the ‘vital’ activity of writing down every contraction as it happened and timing the gaps. All bloody useless, but it does give you something to do. The feeling of helplessness you have felt for the last 9 months is about to go through quite an intense period of feeling even more redundant.

So you drive to the hospital, and check in, this is where I presented my detailed history of timed contractions and not for the first time that day was dismissed with a polite but patronising “yes Mr.O’Toole, how interesting”.  Actually it was the only time that day since you directly talked to by anyone other than ‘she who is about to drop’ for the next long long time.

Gentlemen, once you pass over the threshold of a maternity hospital you have entered the planet of ‘She’ – this is a woman’s world and you have become the guy who was sub hooker for Keith Woods for all those years that didn’t even get on when Woods retired ’cause Flannery took over. Sorry for the tortuous analogy, but basically you are going to sit on your arse and do nothing until you pick up your newly born baby for the first time in, God help you, many many hours.

So what to bring to the hospital? pack a sandwich, it could be the middle of the night and no shops are open. – That’s about it. Oh, bring a camera for afterwards, and a phone charger is probably a good idea.
You can bring something to read but you probably won’t read it, I brought the Irish Times to do the crossword – never even opened it.

You are in charge of, keeping relatives and friends up to date with what’s happening, or like as not, what is not happening. You chat nonsense with ‘her in pain’ and wipe foreheads etc, you’ve all seen it on TV.
Well it’s nothing like TV, not even close. If you have ever seen boxing live, you will know what I mean. Boxing on TV is violent but you are once removed; when you actually see another human hit a guy in the face, watch the blood fly out of his mouth and his head flash from one side to the other quicker than the eye can track, then you haven’t experienced boxing. This is not an: in, scream, and pick up the sprog session, all done in a tidy half hour segment punctuated with say, going to the kitchen for a cup of tea – this is probably the hardest of hard hardcore experiences of your adult life and it can go on for hours and hours. And, and, and, you are only watching,

I will spare you the nitty gritty, at the time I was stuck for words to describe it, and still haven’t really done better than  ‘Wow’.  At the risk of sounding like an inarticulate schoolboy,  it is seriously, like seriously ‘Wow’.

A Dads Pregnancy

Now although we play an important support role in the ‘build up to drop’ process, dads are very much destined for the role of spectator. Later on, after the drop, this will improve to the position of  first substitute.

The pre-natal class is a hoot, definitely advisable if only  for the ‘Twink’ look-alike that gave it and her comic but professional approach. The scans are incredible – you get to see and if you are lucky hear your baby – this is probably the first of many whelming events and presents you with your second choice, the first one being (unless it was a surprise package of course) the reason for getting a scan!. We both decided we wanted to know the sex, I was being purely mercenary – nobody can buy you stuff if they don’t know what colour to go for. It’s nice to be able to call him ‘him’ rather than ‘i’t for the months he is at swim.

So apart from holding hands, and nodding sagely alot when talking about the future, oh and here is the kicker, I now have a future – it isn’t mine  to decide any more either, what I have embarked on and at the time vaguely was aware of, is a 24 hours a day constant conveyor belt of nappies, cuddles, crying, laughing, and smiles, oh the smiles – so far there has been nothing better than when he focuses in you and smiles. I digressed again, so apart from all of that you really don’t have much to do for the pregnancy bit. Pregnancy and childbirth is and should be all about the Mum.

First born

My son was born at about 19h30 on October the 7th.

Since that day, I have been learning the job of being a dad. Now what this actually means, I have found in the first few months, is learning how to be a better husband.

First things first, back story: I married late and certainly had a first child later than most. The last experience I had with nappies and the like was when I baby-sat for my nephews and that was between 20 and 30 years ago.
So, of course I was an expert. I knew how to change them,  I knew how to walk back and forward with them crying on my shoulder,  I knew that I liked them.  Yep, that was about the size of my vast knowledge – surely there was little else for me to learn.

The best bit thing anyone said to before the birth of my son was that kids “are a pain in the hole but you are guaranteed a belly laugh every day for the next decade or so”. Now he hasn’t quite shaken my ribs yet but I have been grinning like an idiot for the past three months.