And so it comes to an end... (again)

As I write this I have just finished my last official day of Additional Paternity Leave for the second time around.

Tomorrow is a night-shift so nothing is going to change for another 24 hours but I technically have 1 hour left of being a "Stay At Home Dad".

As such, I thought I'd try to sum up what I've learned this time around:


1. IT'S SO MUCH HARDER!
Genuinely it must be 3 or 4 times harder with 2. It may seem obvious that with 2 you have to worry about twice as much but it goes deeper than that.

A 2yr old doesn't understand that just because I take her little brother upstairs with his bottle in the afternoon I'm trying to get him to sleep. Even if she does she doesn't really get that this requires time and quiet. Therefore she doesn't understand that she can't stand at the bottom of the stairs (if I've remembered to close the stairgate behind me) shouting "DADDY" repeatedly at the top of her lungs...  Or knocking on his bedroom door (if I've not) isn't going to help.

Emilia wants a story read. Tal just wants to grab the book and (if possible) rip the pages up and eat them.

Tal can't understand where I go when I take Emilia to the toilet upstairs and leave him downstairs so he cries. If I take him up he heads for the cat litter as soon as my back is turned. And he's quick too.

If you put them in the trolley next to each other, Tal would grab Emilia's hair.

If one cries, the other often does too but you can't cuddle both because they are then too close one may touch the other making them cry louder. (I don't get it either).


2. You will feel guilt.
There is no way you can pay the same amount of attention to a 6-month-old and a 2-year-old all the time. There will always be one that needs your undivided attention. I felt for a long time that I wasn't paying Tal the attention he deserved. Sometimes that was because Emilia wouldn't leave me alone, sometimes it was because she was busy playing and Tal was happy enough just playing with his toys and I decided to do some chores but when I thought about it, I realised that 2 years ago, I'd have been on the floor with Emilia; talking to her, playing with her and teaching her. As long as Tal wasn't crying or breaking stuff I was happy to leave him.


3. What one is eating, the other must also. 
We had a perfect example of this last week. Emilia and Tal sit next to each other at the kitchen table for dinner. I sit one end and Emma sits at the other (sounds very grand. It's not). Emilia was having half an apple for pudding and Tal had a couple of slices of the other half. Tal started crying and we thought it was because he had finished his slice so Emma gave him another. He looked at it, then at Emilia's half, then at Emma and threw his slice across the table so it hit the kitchen wall. He only stopped crying when he was given the rest of his apple-half in 1 piece so he could eat it as Emilia was.


4. When one wakes in the morning, the other often will too.
05:30 is the witching hour for our 2 little angels at the moment. Actually has been since Tal was in a pattern. If they wake in the night, there's normally no issue but any noise around 5am onwards will wake one who will wake the other.


5. The second will learn from the first.
(Good and bad things)
Tal is almost walking which is a few months younger than Emilia was. On the negative though, he's also good at throwing (see No. 3 above) and tantrums.

He's watching everything Emilia does. He stands next to her at her play-table and watches her play with her HappyLand / Peppa toys and will grab any that she puts down within his reach. When she laughs, he laughs and he smiles at her constantly!


6. There is really no rest for the wicked.
The following is an idea of how my days panned out over the last 6 months:

0530 - Wake up
0630 - Breakfast
0700 - Emma would come down. (Sometimes I would go back to bed until 0800 but as I'd been up for 90 minutes it took me 45 minutes to get back to sleep and a 15 minute nap helps no-one)
0800 - Get everyone dressed.
0930 - Tal naps. Emilia and I go to group.
1130 - Tal wakes. I sort lunch.
1400 - Tal down for second nap. Emilia and I play downstairs.
1500 - I tried a handful of times to put Emilia down for a nap in the early days but she fought it so much that she often woke Tal up so in the end I gave up.
1600 - Emilia becomes overtired and spends half of the next 90 minutes on the Naughty Step in 2 minute spells
1730 - Supper for them (and sometimes us)
1800 - Bath and bedtime routine (with Emma's help)
1900 - Tidy the devastation that used to be a living room.
2000 - Walk dog.
2100 - Dinner (if I can be bothered)
2200 - Bed to sleep the Sleep of the Dead.

7. The house will never be tidy again and DIY jobs will never be completed.
I can't add a lot to this. Tal has been nicknamed Loki - The god of Destruction. As fast as you can tidy, he destroys. Toys out of boxes, boxes off shelves, books from bookshelves and pages from books.

8. You will have fun
I know it hasn't sounded like it from the last 10 blog entries but I really have enjoyed my time "off".  I got to see Tal turn into a proper, smiley, single-minded little boy. I have also listened to Emilia's language develop and can now listen to her have both halves of a conversation with her stuffed pig about going to the cafe and eating chips. (Oh yeah. That's what I live for nowadays)!

I love that I have shared the joy and stresses of being around for this important time in both my children's lives. Also gave me an extra chance to be involved with Emilia's Terrible Twos, potty training and watching her start to think things through for herself and develop.

The Joy of Shopping (pt 2)

Feeling a little smug today.

Emma bought some bread rolls specifically for Tal... until I pointed out that they were "not suitable for those allergic to egg, dairy or soya due to manufacturing processes".

Apparently it can happen to the best of us :-)

The Joy of Shopping

So Emma normally deals with the food shopping (well all shopping) and it has become a bit more difficult since Tal was diagnosed. For +Sainsbury's and the unaware, a test:

You have 10 seconds to answer the following question while someone talks at you and tries to pick up everything within reach.

Go!

Question: In this scenario your child is allergic to milk, soya and egg. Can they eat the below product? 

[Answer below]

Find the info in here...

Background story: Emilia and I went to Tumble Tots whilst Tal stayed home with Em (he was sleeping). One of the activities was to make "pizzas" using different coloured beanbags and a foam disc base. Emilia therefore decided that she wanted pizza for lunch so I said we'd call in to Sainsbury's on the way back to pick up some pizza bases. Normally I make my own dough but it was a last minute decision so had to improvise.

So checked the pizza base:
No dairy - check
No soya - check
No egg - check
(only allergen in bold was wheat) - sorted!

New Gruffalo tops for Emilia (from the boy's section as they don't seem to do gruffalo clothes for girls. Grrr.) - doubly sorted; and back home for lunch and brownie points.

So we get home, and there's the usual herding Emilia through the door, whilst holding Tal and getting her past the dog who's come over to give a lick, and get her to move out of the way so I can get inside because we're getting wet and I need to close the door and put the shopping down but she's dropped Peppa Pig on the floor so has to tell me about it and look sadly at the toy whilst not actually picking her up or moving out of the way! [and breathe]

And I start prepping everything when Emma points out to me the sentence on the bases that states "not suitable for those with a milk allergy due to manufacturing processes". Grrr!!!!

[Side Note: A "may contain" is not too bad and a risk we usually take. This however means its not just made in the same factory but the same line, meaning although dairy isn't an ingredient there is a VERY high probability of cross contamination. Why isn't this also in bold +Sainsbury's?!?!?]

Answer: No.

So frustrating! We ended up doing "cheese" (Violife, so not cheese but suitable for Tal) on toast for him (we won't mention to Emma the bit of Emilia's pizza he grabbed and started eating - oops!).

So there you have it, you have to check everything as you can't just assume (Emma discovered yesterday some jams have butter in) and even then you also need to not just check the allergens but also if the manufacturing process has an effect. I'm definitely leaving the shopping to Emma!

I wonder if an apple would be safe for lunch tomorrow...

The stakes have been raised...

I'm sorry for the lack of blogging recently. I have literally had no time!

I was watching Tal at the dinner table today, proudly picking up sweetcorn and throwing it over the side of the high-chair and I was starting to get *really* angry at him. I then realised that he is only 9 months and I should be proud of the fact that he's picking up stuff as small as a sweetcorn.

I get angry when he doesn't sleep in the day. He's not being naughty, he's not being bad, he's just found something more interesting to do at that moment (or I've completely misjudged his energy levels) but I get really annoyed. I don't think I got this stressed first time round.

I wonder if it's because the stakes are higher this time. I'm conscious of the fact that if there's sweetcorn on the floor in the kitchen, I'm going to have to clean it up. This normally means leaving both children in the living room - unsupervised. As much as I try; this house is not toddler / crawler proof.

If there's a pen nearby and I'm not watching, there will be trouble...

Emilia's artwork

...alternatively I will be away for 30 seconds and hear a thump and Tal crying and lying on the floor. When I asked Emilia what had happened, she (without a sign of guilt or even maliciousness) said "I pushed Baby Tal over". 

The stakes are higher with afternoon naps too. If Emilia is going down for a nap (which doesn't happen regularly) then Tal needs to go down once Emilia's asleep so that she doesn't wake him by talking / playing / shouting that she doesn't want a nap. 

If he decides that talking / wriggling / grizzling is better than a nap then I have to deal with both of them for the rest of the afternoon. 

Did I just write that down? I don't mean it in a bad way but it is nice to have an hour or so on my own. (To clean up sweetcorn from the kitchen floor)

What do normal adults talk about?

It's official; I have forgotten how to have a normal conversation with normal adults! I've lost my Mojo!

Today was the clarification of this fact but I know I have fallen foul of it before.

The family and I were at a very nice little party this afternoon hosted by friends and there were lots of nice people there - many of whom were parents with their respective children.

I started talking to a nice couple who had a couple of older boys themselves. Within minutes, I had managed to bore them with stories of potty-training and non-napping children. Minutes! And they were parents! I simply couldn't remember how to start a conversation with a stranger that didn't revolve around my children.

I used to be quite good at striking up a conversation with a stranger, make small-talk and have a laugh with random people but now my entire attention is on Emilia or Tal and I literally cannot think of anything else to say to people.

I tried to talk to other "grown-ups" today but even when I am having a "normal" conversation with Emilia present (for it is always Emilia that needs the most of my attention), I find that I have to shout at her / call her / comfort her or generally listen to her narration, mid-thought so I am finding it really hard to have a clear chain of thought. I must also seem really rude!

As I said, this is not the first time that I have forgotten the etiquette of conversation:

A little while ago I was part of a group conversation with some mums and I jumped in to tell an anecdote that would have been tenuous 3 topics ago. Not only did I jump in, I apologised that I had done it - but carried on anyway - and what made it worse is that the story I told fell absolutely flat and I had to slink away.

Where did HE come from?

I never thought that 2 of my children could be so different!

5 months into my Paternity Leave with Emilia,  I wrote an entry asking how it happened that a little pooing, sleeping and crying thing became a little person. Well we've reached that stage already this time round.

Tal is much more of a do-er. Emilia was a watcher (still is). She would watch what everyone else was doing and only when she felt confident enough, would she copy. Tal just goes straight for it!

He wriggles and squirms and lunges for things that he wants. He is desperate to move and do things too. He will not sit still and if he's in my arms, and I'm not walking around, he wriggles, strains and pulls until I eventually put him down. (At which point he complains that he can't go anywhere!)

Emilia, at this age (I remember), was much happier to sit in your lap at group, or in the house and have toys passed to her. She was never particularly interested in crawling (in fact I wrote a blog entry in October 2013 saying that she had just done her first bit of crawling) whereas Tal is already up on all-fours and rocking, ready to start going! Emma and I are taking bets on how long it will be before I have to baby-proof the living room again

Tal making a tentative bid for freedom having destroyed the living room

They do have their shared characteristics too though: They are both smiley, cuddly and loving; they are both obsessed with electronics. (We bought Emilia a toy remote control to stop her playing with our real one and Tal has found that 2 years later. He is also desperate to press all the buttons and smack the laptop - even if it's closed and off he tries to pick it up and eat it!).

Oh, and they are both gorgeous!

I love them both but if I thought Emilia had her hard moments... I'm worried about what the next few months and then years have in store!

Emilia the Dog

**Firstly, Emilia, I'm sorry for posting this and I'm sure it'll come up in the Father-of-the-Bride speech**

This week we officially started potty-training.

I've been reading a book called "Potty Training for Girls" and it pretty much does what it says on the tin.

The idea is that you introduce the concept gradually; going nappy-less for an hour (closely supervised!) and suggest the potty a couple of times in that hour - or when you notice "signs".

After they've got the hang of pottys, you suggest that

Today I took her nappy off and we sat on the floor and played with her Peppa-Pig figures. The potty was to one side and towels were on stand-by incase of an accident.

I suggested she may need a wee and she thought about it for a second before making a "psssss" noise but refused the potty. She got up and made her way straight out of the back door onto the lawn where she squatted slightly and wee'd right on the grass!

I honestly didn't know weather to chastise her for peeing on the grass; or congratulate her for knowing not to wee on the floor!

Apparently we've been watching our dog go outside for a wee and decided that that's the place to do it.

I'm glad it wasn't raining!