Are we there yet?

I thought I was the intrepid traveller at age 17 when I first set foot on a plane and got a passport in my twenties. But my 3 year old had a passport before she hit 6 months. The baby passport is an exercise in useless bureaucracy because in the photo she looks like a sleepy, chubby, hairless baby and 2.5 years later she bears little resemblance to the photo, whilst the signature space denotes: “no signature”. Even three months later I suspect we could have presented any similar aged baby and received the passport stamp to exotic NZ.

First time around we planned lots of driving and sightseeing, assuming she would sleep in the car and as long as we settled into our accommodation early enough we would be as happy as the Griswolds.

Well, we thought we had broken our precious baby and her carefully established sleeping routine and by the last night were pretty sure we were the worst parents in the world.

When planning for the upcoming holiday we had a couple of golden rules.

1. It must be domestic. Whilst our kids have never been seriously sick or anything has gone wrong on holidays, the extra stress associated with different cultures and lengthy flights makes a holiday overseas not worth it for us with two young kids
2. There must be minimal changes in accommodation. Aside from the travel, packing etc, we have found the changing around stressful for the kids.
3. Too many day trips wears the kids out.
4. Day trips must be on a flexible timeline where possible. Nobody enjoys forcing an upset child to endure a car, plane, boat, and bus.

So whilst I am aspiring to be like this “Fitness Professional Managing her Website” I’m not sure if I will be this diligent over the next week or two.

Not my department #2

One of the things I have struggled with, as a Dad is the quantity of products that seem to come with a baby. But I knew we needed to buy a pram and so to paraphrase Frank the Tank from Old School:

“Actually we’ve got a nice little Saturday planned. We’re going to Baby Bunting to pick out some prams, then maybe we’ll hit Bed Bath and Beyond… I don’t know! I don’t know if we’ll have enough time!”

After reading reviews, checking features, visiting Baby Bunting, Baby Co and Twinkle Tots and finally checking the apparatus fitted in our car, a pram was purchased. Then like any good male I headed home to assemble it without reading the instruction manual. As you would expect I had no problems.

I envisaged competing with David Beckham to be father of the year whilst out pushing the pram. But my passion for the pram extends to checking the tire pressure and using this as an excuse for buying a new pista bike pump. Instead I have styled myself on Brad Pitt and prefer to carry the kids. Now I will go to just about any length to claim that the pram is not my department (other than pumping up the tires).

The pram has been invaluable for my mother-in-law when she looks after the children and my wife uses it regularly. However, on our upcoming holiday we are not going to take it. Below I have listed a few reasons why I don’t like using it much.

• The pram gets in people’s way when walking on most paths, streets, trails and shops/ cafes.
• I like the feel of carrying my baby
• It takes up too much space in the car
• I want to encourage my toddler to walk and explore the world
• I love chasing and playing games with my toddler
• I don’t feel as safe with an object that can roll away!

Underlying all of this is that sometimes I am stuck carrying two kids long distances and I am physically capable of doing this. My mother-in-law doesn’t have this luxury and it would be a huge strain for my wife.

Finally, the online world is alive with people posting their view of the legacy of Michael Jackson. I will preface my comments with the recognition that the death of anyone is sad and upsetting for my people. However, he was a weird dad and I leave you with this image of him and his children. 

Good idea at the time

Whilst on holidays with my family last year I was inspired by brochures of boats speeding across the ocean. The idea of the wind flowing through my hair and my partner gazing adoringly at my rugged good looks was too hard to resist.

So my wife, 2 year old daughter and I departed the marina full of ideals of adventure. Perhaps when I sat my daughter in the tin dinghy I should have realised my reality was quite different to the brochure. When I started the noisy and smelly outboard motor maybe then I should have realised. And definitely when it took 15mins to exit the harbour I should have acknowledged that I wasn’t in charge of a vessel about to conquer the Pacific ocean. But no. It wasn’t until our ears were ringing from the noise of the outboard and the island that I was intending to explore didn’t appear to be getting any closer, did I start to question what I had got my 2 year old into.

I consulted my trusty map and realised that I couldn’t blame my confusion on my wife’s map reading ability. If I was correct in reading the map I was right in the middle of a shipping passage.

It was time to be a responsible dad and turn around. However, we were not done with our adventures. A deserted island loomed over the bow and we were going to be the first people to set foot on it.

At last our daughter could wander and pick up shells, play in the sand and importantly relieve her tinnitis. Whilst taking happy snaps on the beach I noticed the tide going out and the coral reef appearing. The dinghy was starting to become marooned on the reef.

2 years prior, being stuck on the island Castaway style like Tom Hanks probably wouldn’t have overly concerned me but as I’m still finding a child hugely changes your priorities. It was a sprint to the dinghy and little regard was shown for the fragile reef as we headed to deeper waters.

Despite the memories and great photos we have of this adventure I did get this activity wrong. But I will continue to look for challenging and fun adventures for my children on holiday next week.

As a follow up to yesterday I came across this picture of children’s clothing. It is truly weird.

Designer clothing

Despite my proclaimed lack of awareness of children’s clothing sizes I have become aware of the cost of kids clothing.

KARLISX - All over printed long sleeved tee $108

$108!! It is a t-shirt with weird screen printing on it.

DANEL - reversible tweed wool mix easy fit elastic waist $262

Elastic fit waist? This sounds like something my Mum made for me for the cost of the material at Lincraft and mental scarring for my father and I for the visit to Lincraft.

Baby Walker Fur Lined Boot $39.95

Say it out loud: “UGG Boot”. And I actually looked at the sizes of this item- it comes in three, easy for me to understand, sizes 0-3 months, 3-6 months and 6-12 months but kids this age don’t walk. So why is it called a “walker”?

Putting aside personal style preferences and the potential for making your child a fashion victim. I find it hard to believe that a significant percentage of the population can afford to buy these items for their precious children to wear for 3 -6 months before they outgrow them.

Inappropriate advertisements

Last week The Age wrote an article about the sexual imagery used by American Apparel and it reminded me of the billboard about 200m from home advertising a Melbourne brothel. Last year the said billboard contained a woman in a suggestive and provocative pose. Now I am aware that my children are going to receive more creative, more invasive and probably more liberal advertising than I could ever imagine but what really got to me with this billboard was that the bottom of it was head height and therefore could be touched by my daughter.

I thought about going to the hardware store and buying spray cans to deface the billboard and getting a disguise kit to hide in the night. But ultimately what stopped me doing it was the realisation that explaining to my daughter why her Dad was in prison was far worse than the billboard.

Thankfully the prolific graffiti culture in Melbourne came to my aid and regularly the billboard was defaced in the way I never had the courage to. The cost of cleaning and replacing the advertisement must have been too much because security cameras were installed and then eventually the whole billboard was raised about 3m on the building. Now it is simply a massive poster with no image, just letters.

I hope my goody two shoes attitude is because one of my responsibilties as a dad is to shield my children from things they can’t yet understand and not that I am becoming an old fuddy duddy. Incidentally, in my desperation to cling to my youth I have purchased jeans at American Apparel and would happily do it again.

Not my department #1

Last week a work colleague asked me about my 4 month old son and I told her he was very long (soon he will be tall). She then asked what size clothes is he in? 000, 00, 0? I paused and considered guessing but instead replied: “I have no idea. That is not my department.”

Since telling people my wife was pregnant almost 4 years ago I have sought lots of information from books, parents, family, internet, shops, wife, children, just about everywhere and by and large I have either been genuinely interested or have faked an interest either for my wife’s sake or my children’s sake. However, there are numerous things that I have stubbornly remained ignorant of. This is the first in that list.

0000, 000, 00, 0, 1 and so on. I didn’t know these categories even existed until my wife asked what size should she take to the hospital for birth. I have purchased clothes for babies but I went into the store and said the child was X age and tall or short. I regularly dress my child but simply pick “nice” clothes from the drawer.

I realise it is not hard to work out sizes and I could try to lamely justify my attitude with “they change quickly; “sizes are inconsistent”; etc. but really deep down my wife knows more about this and I’m happy to remain ignorant. I promise if I need to buy clothes that would fit Fatboy Slim I will rapidly “upskill” my knowledge.

Kids at work

“So why should this politician – an employee of the people – be able to carry her young child into the Australian Senate for a voting session?” “What was the 27-year-old senator thinking when she took her two-year-old daughter, Kora, into the Senate chamber? Ask any working mother: this was always going to end in tears.”

During the week I read the headlines and a few articles with quotes not dissimilar to the above quotes. And like most people I quickly formed the view – this mother had made a mistake! Was she a “bad mother”?

Well, it was a Dad that convinced me otherwise. Tony Wright wrote an article that contained the crucial information:

“The bells required senators to hurry into the chamber for a vote. With no one handy to care for the child, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young simply entered the Senate and sat her child beside her, where she contented herself happily. The vote would take no more than a few minutes.”

You would hope that in todays age most workplaces would recognise that sometimes parenting doesn’t always go to plan and that mum isn’t always at home tending to the kids, cooking dinner and preparing the homefront for an eagerly awaited return by the hard working dad. And all of us at some stage bring something personal to the workplace that is a temporary distraction, however we still get out paid work done.

The local pub

The end of the working week meant a beer and chicken parmigiana at the local pub for the family. We find the beer garden tends to calm the 4 month old down, the coopers on tap is perfect and there is no preparation, dishes or wiping the floor after so the only downside is the rate at which chips disappear from my plate. As much as I tried I couldn’t “win friends with salad“. Our three (almost) year old is like a seagull when it comes to chips.

The local is great because of the diverse crowd, reflective of our local community. Amongst the smiles we received tonight were smiles from largish guys wearing leather and facial hair that kissed each other in greeting.

Parenting can be a pretty tough gig at the best of times and I can only imagine how hard it must be at times for same-sex couples. A friend I used to ride with has recently had a child with her wife and same for my cousin. From a distance they seem to be going great. So here is a big cheers from me and my pub to same-sex couples raising kids in a loving, committed environment.

Cycling

I don’t know why I do this to myself but every so often bike riding hits the news mostly with headlines like:

“Crackdown on Rogue cyclists”

And I read the inevitable arguments for and against bike riders using the roads and registration. The comments and lack of  respect for cyclists make me feel frustrated for my own bike riding but reminiscent of my childhood. I remember the pride I felt when I learnt to ride without training wheels, the races around the oval with a neighbour, the birds swooping me on the way to school, and saving to buy a 10 speed (!) bike. I still maintain that my neighbour beat me because he had a BMX with tuffs. Whilst I had a more old fashioned bike.

I would like my children to have some of these memories about bike riding. I have brought a child seat for the bike and as soon as my daughter could hold her head up whilst seated (about 6 months) I headed out on progressively longer excursions. And when she hit two I got a bike with training wheels and she loves riding it around the backyard and down the lane.

She is a long way off matching Cadel Evans, as pictured but I do think she would look better in pink than Cadel.

I just wish I could feel as positive about her bike riding as she ditches the training wheels and heads out like I did. She is looking at the current scar on my hand and wondering how I got that whilst riding home from work. I don’t want to tell her that some people don’t think bikes should share the road with cars.

Juggling act

Yet another article in The Age today addressed the career/ stay at home, maternity leave, inequality debate, this time starting off from the book: I read excerpts from the book and can’t make a glib comment about it. Mostly because I didn’t understand her viewpoint. But that is not going to stop me adding my sweeping statements to the debate.

Firstly, women can’t have it all and it doesn’t help to pretend they can. Having established manary glands are demeaning and pointless it is useful to remember that breastfeeding is generally accepted as best for babies for at least 6 months and preferably 12 months. So, it is an exceptional mother than can have a high income, full time career whilst breastfeeding day and night. Therefore, ideally the mum will be mostly at home for at least the first 6 – 12months of a babies life (and not just for breastfeeding).

None of this is earth shattering news and I’m not adding anything to the debate so far. What I do differ in is my attitude after the first 12 months of a childs life. The pre-school, primary school and for that matter high school drop off and pick up is still dominated by the mother. Why?

Is it that families make rational decisions that they would rather have mum at home? Or is it that the balance is rarely discussed and men continue working full-time and mums are forced to fit around their kids? After the child/ren hit 12 months why don’t more men support their wife and quit their job or go part-time so that their wife can resume her career and the dad has a temporary hiatus? I suspect men aren’t prepared to rock the boat either at work or amongst friends. I currently work 4 days a week and am planning to further reduce this once junior hits 12months. I’m nervous about me but by then my wife will have been doing it for almost 4 years. Time to get some equality I think.

I briefly watched this video from 60 minutes and was stunned that the discussion could be reduced to aprons.