My Place in the Circle of Life

Baby

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:47:11 GMT

I’ve been a dad for a month now, and as the amount of time she spends sleeping decreases the novelty is wearing off.

When our daughter was slowly making her way into the world we went to hospital at 6 o’clock on the Friday morning. We met six different midwives and did the puzzles in two different magazines but still nothing had happened by 11 o’clock that night so they used a drip to bring on contractions. But that still didn’t work, and by 4am they decided that the baby’s heart rate was dropping so they needed to do a Caesarean.

So I got dressed up in a set of surgical scrubs (the waist of the trousers was a bit too small) and a hair net (not sure this was really necessary, or even if it should be called a ‘hair’ net in my case) and waited next to the resuscitation machine in the foyer until they were ready to let me in. The local anaesthetic didn’t work so they had to use general anaesthetic, which meant that I wasn’t allowed in theatre.

I was sent down to a waiting room where there were only two magazines to take my mind off it – one had an interview with Fatima Whitbread after she came out of the I’m a Celebrity jungle and a story about Mariah Carey losing weight, the other was even more boring than that.

Then a nurse came, said “Hello Dad” and took me down to meet my daughter. When she was born she had a problem breathing – because there was fluid in her lungs which gets squeezed out during normal delivery – and she needed tests to see if she was OK as it had been so long since the waters broke so they had to take her away to the neo-natal ward.

After another two hours of waiting, pacing around and staring out of the window I was allowed to see Emma. Then I was told it was OK to go up to the neo-natal ward.

She was in the ward with all the premature babies, and as she was 8 days overdue she looked like a monster-child that could eat her room-mates for breakfast. The nurse told me that it was Ok for me to pick her, but having never held a baby before, I just looked at her with panic in my eyes and she helped me lift her out of the crib thing. So I held her while the nurse took a photo of us, cutting my head off in the picture, and got one of her colleagues to take a second one. Then a doctor came to look at her and asked me to put her back in the crib but with her head the opposite end to where it needed to be for me to put it down. I looked at him, looked at crib, looked at the baby then looked at him again. He said “this is your first baby isn’t it?” and took her off me.

Later on the Saturday they were transferred to the mother and baby ward for monitoring. There were lots of midwifes and nurses there to help with all our questions like “How the hell do I feed her?”, “Arrgh, she’s being sick, what do I do?” and “He arms won’t bend, how do I dress her without hurting her?”

My parents and gran came down on the Sunday. They arrived well before visiting time so we were waving at them through the window. My baby took one look at my gran’s ageing face and instantly did her first poo. Which I had to clean. It was black and sticky.

We were allowed home the next day. The first middle of the night bout of screaming came as a bit of a shock and making up a feed in the early of hours of the morning while there’s a baby screaming is unnecessarily difficult.

We’ve got used to making feeds now, and learnt how to collapse and put-up the pushchair. Now we need just need to learn how to stop her crying.

When my parents and gran came down again she pooed as soon as my gran started holding her. The faces of the elderly, it seems, are a good cure for baby constipation. The poo is yellow and runny now.

She’s started sleeping through most of the night (10:30pm to 5am last night). She’s also started following things with her eyes now. Its’ like having one of those paintings where the eyes follow you round a room. Only the painting screams. And poos.

She’s going to be celebrating being one month old by watching us eat pancakes this evening.

Dad's what I'm talking about

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:01:59 GMT

Emma and I are expecting a baby.

It's due in January (Friday 13th). We've got the second scan this afternoon and, hopefully, we will discover what sex it is then. We have a bet on it (if it's a boy Emma buys tea tonight, if it's a girl I'm buying), but if it's as un-cooperative as it was at the last scan it will be in the wrong position for us to know. Last time it was in the wrong position for the nurse to get a decent scan picture. Poking and prodding it with the scanner only made it stamp its feet and not move into position. If it's that stroppy and unhelpful we're assuming it's female, but I've been buying clothes with cars and Liverpool on them and trying to convince Emma that the colours are neutral enough for them to be worn by a boy or a girl.

My Dad's the most excited I've ever seen and he's has my Mum buying nappies and re-arranging the furniture in their spare room to fit a travel cot in already.

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:39:23 GMT

I've just realised that it's ten years this month since I started at Aber. Ten years.

Ten years since I was left in aroom in PJM watching the rain through the window, listening out for my new housemates to arrive, wondering what I was going to eat because I'd never cooked anything before and hoping life in Aber was going to be less scary than it felt that day.

Now I'm sitting in an office, watching the rain through the window, listening to the gentle whirr of the photocopier and colleagues swearing, wondering whether to have roast or baked potatoes with the my lamb steak for tea and realising that life will probably never be as much fun again as it was in Aber.

For some reason thinking about that made me try to remember my password for this blog. Now I have to try and think of something more meaningful to write for future updates.

Colin McRae RIP

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 06:19:46 GMT

Stories on the news this morning that Colin McRae, 1995 World Rally Champion, has died in an helicopter crash. Normally when there's stories like that on the news i just think "great, but I wish they'd hurry up and get to the sports stories" but McRae was, in my opinion the greatest British sports star of all time. He was responsible for a massive increase in the interest in rallying in this country during the early 90s (something that ITV's poor WRC coverage seems to trying to kill off) due to his flat out driving style, often spectacular crashes and his personality outside of the car. On the day that he won the world championship I was in the Chester hotel where the official finish f the RAC rally was taking place - my uncle had been competing on the same event. Colin signed the shirt I was wearing .He'd just become World Champion and he had time to autograph the shirt of some geeky kid in the hotel lobby. I feel a little bit ashamed this morning that I no longer know where that shirt is.
RIP

The journal that heard Andy's Winston Churchill song for the first time yesterday

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:30:17 GMT

A good choice of songs on the EP.

Form: What is you learning goal for this course?

Old lady: to be able to use a computer to find out about my special interests.

Two minutes of yesterday's time audit was spent counting the number of days till christmas.

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:42:18 GMT

The 'Tempting Fate' meme:
1. Make an LJ-cut post with "DO NOT READ" as the text.
2. Do not select a 'mood' for this post.
3. If anyone clicks the cut, they are to comment and admit to doing so.
4. Anyone who reads this also has to do the same in THEIR journal, thus continuing the never-ending madness

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:00:30 GMT

From Mediawatch on football365:

Don’t You Just Hate It When This Happens

August: Michael Owen confirms he's leaving Liverpool says he is delighted to be joining the "best team in the world" after being unveiled by Real Madrid.

March: Real Madrid crash out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage while Liverpool march through with a 6-2 aggregate triumph.

The journal that's gonna have a fit swedish bird coming to stay

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:40:05 GMT

Emma's school are doing a swedish exchange and there's a teacher at the other school who needs somewhere to stay when they come over here and apparantly she's very attractive. And Swedish

An anagram of "Daily Time Audit" is "I'm a dead utility"
The first fifty minutes of today's exciting audit was spent reading the reports on last night's Liverpool game (and looking for jobs on the intermet but I'm not gonna put that - there are a couple advertised at centre for alternative technology)

11:42 - 11:42 and 30 seconds yesterday - "feeling physically sick because an old woman came in in a short skirt" - and no, it wasn't Mrs Bent showing off her peculiar bits again

An anagram of "Learndirect Centre" is "Rent a electric nerd"

There's a middle age woman who appears to be teaching a child to walk upstairs in the library arm in arm with her. They've been up three times now, practiced a turn at the top of the stairs and then gone back down arm in arm.

The journal that won't go breaking your heart

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:20:28 GMT

I couldn't if i tried

Worked late last night.
Going home at 3 today.
That's 4 hours 40 minutes away.

10 minutes of my time audit yesterday was Mrs Bent showing me her peculiar bits.

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:18:19 GMT

3:50 - 3:56 - Seeing how many words I could make out of the phrase "Time Audit" in 6 minutes. I got 29.

It's just occurred to me as I type this that I didn't get "audit"

The journal that is checking for emails from learners

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:30:22 GMT

According to my Time Audit thing anyway.
I can't put catching up on emails/blogs cos that's what I was doing for the first forty minutes of the day and I don't wanna repeat myself.
4:30 - 5 on friday I was "Driving back to Daventry avoiding all the posh girls riding their horses on the country lanes"
Wonder if they'll notice that I'm not taking this audit too seriously.

Javine was on GMTV this morning talking about Eurovision. (D)Eamon asked her where it was being held and she said "It's in Estonia, Kiev" Let's hope she's not arranging her own travel or she's got no chance of winning.

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:30:50 GMT

Highlights of today's time audit:
12.25 - 12.50: Discussing internet courses with crazy woman
1 - 2: Din Dins
2.40 - 2.55: Filling in time audit
3.20 - 3.40: Looking for last 2 days' time audits because they got mixed up with paperwork
3.55 - 4.10: Building my own team on fi.fantasy-manager.com
4.10 - 4.15: Emailing mate to arrange plans for easter
At the moment I'm "looking for errors"

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:03:21 GMT

There's two men- meant to be some sort of secret agents - that appear in the latest Learndirect ad campaign. I have been sent a (nearly) lifesize cut out of them to use as a leaflet dispenser.
This means that I have been able to write: "Erecting my men and deciding where to keep them" on my time audit

The journal that wants to spend all your money

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 11:01:51 GMT

At the gay bar.

Went to see Electric 6 at the Roadmender in Northampton last night.
They were fucking amamzing.
The crowd were much better than last time i saw them at Leeds (where the tent was just full of a load of twats who just wanted to see/hear Gay Bar)
The venue was quite good too - it felt like a union bar, which was nice.
One of the support bands was cherry hinton who were also quite good. The other was Slimmy (I think??), who was a bit rubbish.

So far today on the works time audit thing I've got:
20 minutes printing posters
10 helping someone with course
30 doing stuff i couldn't do yeaterday cos the computers were broken
30 putting up new posters
15 looking for power leads for laptops
10 typing letters to send to learners
10 minutes filling in the time audit form.

Not sure if I can put 15 minutes checking mates' blogs and updating my own

The journal that moved house at the weekend

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 11:23:26 GMT

After a lot more pissing about from the estate agents:
it was as if they didn't want the rent we're gonna pay - they didn't give us the form for bank details to fill in
They gave us a key for one of the doors. But not for the back door, the back gate or the shed
They didn't send the letter telling us we needed a bankers draft for the deposit and they won't take cheques so we had to get the keys a day late so that we had time to go the cash machine and pay cash

And we pay them for that kind of service. Although, we haven't signed contracts cos through all their messing they weren't done in time but we have the key. And they don't have our bank details.

My and Emma's parents were both helping. They get on scarily well.

I have to a time audit for work to say what I'm doing every minute for the whole of this month. Which means that I have to think of as many different ways of re-phrasing looking at crapo on the internet as I can. Suggestions welcome.

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 13:47:31 GMT

100 greatest cartoons on channel 4 last night. Lion King was only number 7. Behind Shrek.

The journal that stole your heart

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:37:47 GMT

And that's what really hurts.

Signing contracts on new house tonight.
Moving tomorrow.
And if the estate agents carry on fucking about I'm gonna break in and live there anyway.
Those of you that need to know the address (so that I can recieve future PWL releases )will be sent it when i know the postcode. Unless i forget. In which case ask if uyou need it.

I had a bloke in for a taster of a computer course yesterday who i think was just hiding from the snow. He spent most of the session looking out of the window in fear. But still paid the money and signed up so that's OK.

The journal that's OFFICIALLY cool

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:03:28 GMT

Me: "How cool is it to work in a library?"
AQA: "Working in libraries has has traditionally been given a bad press, but it is in actuality very cool to have all that information at your fingetrips"

I rock

The journal that likes walking in the snow

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:54:25 GMT

It's like walking in the rain but the getting wet process is delayed.

It rained at dinner time - but not enough to finish early cos this morning's snow melted and this won't stick cos the ground is wet from this morning's meltwater.

On the Tromanight game on rockmonkey I managed to collect Bryn, Ruth, JTA, Andy, two types of pizza (which would probably have got cold) and two DVDs, have a random (although strangely normal) encounter with the Hatman but I can't get the real ale from the police station.
It's really really annoying
If it stays this quiet I'll have another go after.

I had a learner in this morning that on the part of the course that teaches you to use the help option on Excel. The little Microsoft PaperClip character* had appeared with a list of options. The course told her to press the "see more" button, an instruction which she needed to ask me for help with. I pointed to the spot right in the centre of the screen that said "see more."
"Oh, that makes sense now" she said
She got less than 25% in her last assignment.

*The Microsoft Paperclip Character is based on the DGP0045621(X) model, as produced at the famous Daventry Guinea Pig Paperclip Factory between March 1979 and October 1993, when a decline in the domestic Paperclip market coupled with competion from rats in Thailand led to many guinea pig job losses here, with only production of the more successful DGP0045619 model continuing, for a couple of years until in 1996 government grants and the development of the DGP0045623 model led to the rebirth of the Daventry paperclip industry.

NB - some parts of this post may not be true.

The journal that's very very cold.

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:30:44 GMT

Why can't women drive up a hill in the snow?
4 have gone past the library so far with their wheels spinning.

If it snows much more today I can go home early.

The journal that's been on holiday

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:05:33 GMT

I think long blonde hair really suits me. I don't remember having those photos taken.

It was really good to have conversations with people that I actually like again. I've missed being the butt of all the jokes and laughing till my stomach hurts.

Other highlights:
Animalarium (not sure if I've spelt that right - let's call it a zoo) - getting attacked by a parrot thing and seeing the Timones and the Zazoo bird.
Driving round most of midwales looking for windfarms for Emma to take pictures of.

You never really realise how much you're gonna miss the place till you leave.

The journal that should be in Aber in about 78 hours.

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:07:04 GMT

Wogan's assessment of the Brits yesterday?
Joss Stone won Best Urban Act....................She's from Devon!

We've got a new house - it's on Stanley Way, which is named after HM Stanley, the explorer. He is from St Asaph. That is where I was born.

We should be moving in about a fortnight - it's much nicer than the one we're in now.

going to Emma's parents' tonight - her mum's doing a buffet.
Then we're going to coventry to watch coventry v burnley tomorrow with her dad and some of his mates.

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 12:26:34 GMT

We have a for sale sign outside our house.
The landlord is asking 123000 for it. We looked at all the estate agents in the town and it apperas to be the most expensive two bedroom house in Daventry. And it's a mid terrace, poorly built, no garage, shed or storage space whatsoever.
Good luck to him.
We've got an appointment to view a couple of other houses on wednesday (to rent them till July, when hopefully we can move to someplace nicer - and preferably somewhere north of birmingham)

This time next week we'll be on our way to Aber

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:42:53 GMT

10 days

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 11:52:24 GMT

Note to self: Drive to work more slowly. I had two wheels in a ditch this morning whilst listening to fleetwood mac ''don't stop''
Velvet Revolver were on kerrang radio last night encouraging people to illegally download songs by Europe and/or nickleback.
Becky (who works in a bank) reckons it's gonna be tough for me and emma to get a mortgage as neither of us have definite jobs after july.