Good Health

It's been a long day and I'm wary about a long weekend ahead.    

Today I took JDI Son through central London on the Underground to pick my wife up from hospital (minor day surgery - all is well).  

Apart from being a bit hot and bothered on the tube, he was great: full of beans at the other end and slept on the way back.  

My wariness stems from knowing my wife needs rest - and the possibility that I might be flying solo all weekend.  Without any grandparents around at the moment that means I'm cutting out any non-baby-related exercise and getting to bed as early as possible.  Add to that eating as much fruit and veg as possible (which is mostly cast-offs from my boy - some lovely unwanted and only slightly squeezed strawberries today).  

I'm not sure how parents cope with illness - there really isn't time!  And if one gets ill the other has to concentrate on not overdoing it so they don't burn out and get sick too.  

So yes, I put my boy straight into the Babybjorn harness tonight and danced him to sleep with couple of MTV tracks, ignoring Mrs JDI's concerns about creating difficulties with putting him to sleep in the future. The difficulty is NOW, I say!  So he sleeps... and I'm going to do the same while I can!  

On my wish list before my boy came along, was To Be More Disciplined and Get Properly Organised - true, not exactly measurable but if this sort of early night isn't disciplined I don't know what is!  And all bottles, tidying done for a clean slate tomorrow morning too.  'Night 'night! 

Must-have Items For New Parents

This will be a very individualistic list, but it's the sort of thing I asked a lot of people for when I was about to become a dad.  I'll explain why these things are so good, so you can judge for yourself whether it's appropriate for you or not.

1) Babybjorn carrier.  Get the one with the triangular back support and airtex cooling material - well worth the extra few quid.  This one is more for dads, as having a young baby on your chest can be uncomfortable for breastfeeding mothers, not to mention confusing for the baby.  But for dads wanting to be close to their child and help out as much as possible, I make it the number one acquisition.
I used ours from about 2 months onwards for long walks and even coming up to a year it is a great alternative to carrying freehand if my boy needs a few hugs to get to sleep.  At worst, in emergencies, I have lulled him to sleep and then slid onto the sofa and nodded off myself.  Usually he nods off with some rhythmic bobbing to a fast-paced music channel track.  I then leave it a minute before dancing into an adjacent quiet room, slipping off the two shoulder ties and one at the waist, gently hoist him onto the opposite shoulder and then clutch to me, supporting his head as I lay him down on the bed.  Bliss.  Very rarely fails.  Good for maintaining fitness and helping your partner put your child to sleep, utilising your strength rather than either of your patience.

2) Medicine dummy.  I include dummy (aka pacifier) in this recommendation.  Obvious drawback is that child might not take to it, in which case I say "unlucky"!  The medicine dummy has a flip cup to the back with mini-syringe that you fill with Calpol or other paracetamol or neurofen.  Easier than a spoon and gives them a slow dose in a soothing way with minimal spillage (as long as you prepare them before you go to bed - I spill loads at 3am!).

3) Moses Basket.  Short-term but soooo convenient for those first few weeks, when everything else seems so difficult.  We borrowed ours, as many people do.  Especially useful if room temperature in your home gets difficult to manage - too hot or too cold.  You can de-camp to the most appropriate nook with baby beside you.

4) Bouncing rocker.  Many babies take to these springy rockers that put them in a half-reclined, half-upright position.  Often with vibrating and musical backgrounds, they'll buy you precious time to yourself in the first few months and might even get them to sleep in the day without much effort.  Again, you might be able to borrow or buy this second hand as people only use them for a few months.

5) Bumbo.  I'd never heard of this before I became a dad.  It's like a thick rubber potty that acts as a seat to prop up babies who can't sit up straight on their own whilst also securing them in place.  From 6 months on this has been vital, taking over from (4) as the most useful.  I put my boy in the bumbo while I attend to my daily bathroom routine - great to find a way to do this while they're awake and relatively calm so that you can get presentable and ready to leave the house at a moment's notice.  Since a walk is always high on my list of ways to get him to sleep, I want to be dressed with mobile, keys & wallet firmly in my pockets before I meet the distraction of the day.  (lesson learned via a trip into Central London with little boy to get wife's spare keys in time for his next feed and before he needed a change - no pressure there then!)

There are of course all the mundane things you'll "need", but I promise you the 5 above have been at the centre of my fluid daily routines.  You'll notice they revolve around keeping your baby calm or asleep - sounds intuitive enough?!

Double Take

My wife is Chinese, I am English.  My son has subtly oriental eyes so is noticeably mixed to careful observers.
Whenever I attend toddlers' events or playgroups in London I naturally seek out Chinese parents, as I'm interested in whether they are teaching their children Mandarin and English jointly, as we are.

So at my regular Tuesday play session, a few weeks ago I got chatting to a lovely Chinese lady called Qing (pronounced something like "Ching" to my western ears).  Anyway the next week I glanced up from playing with my son and saw her again.  I said "Hello Qing, good to see you again" and, while her reply was friendly, a flicker of confusion showed in her smile.

I looked down at her child, trying to remember her name, but drew a complete blank with the girl's face.  That's not unheard of, but I do tend to have a good memory for faces - if not 100% with the dozens of mothers and children I meet every week.

After another few minutes of chatting it dawned on me that this was not Qing.  And it dawned on her that I thought she was someone else.  Mortifying for my pride at embracing the Chinese culture, falling foul of the old cliche that "they all look the same".

But then the lady pointed to her friend, Qing, who had appeared just behind her.  "This is my friend, Qing: my name is Xing."  Ah.  We shared an embarrassed chuckle in which I nervously said "Oh yes, Xing, it means Star in Mandarin."  And then couldn't stop myself from saying "And also Orang Utan."  Excellent work.

I bowed my head in disgrace and when I looked up Xing and Qing were both talking to each other.  One was slim with long straight black hair and DKNY glasses.  The other was, er, slim with long straight black hair and DKNY glasses.   At this point I made a hasty retreat to mingle elsewhere until I could speak to one of them alone.

A minute later, still disorientated I look up from my boy again and see a bowed head covered in long straight black hair.  I make up my mind to start talking to her and only mid-sentence do I realise this lady is neither Qing nor Xing.  She turns out to be Thai, called Jah.  I am rarely this dizzy.

I make my excuses and lead my son back to the bouncy castle while I remove both feet from my mouth.

First Walk

A hot day with a picnic in the park after a "soft play" session complete with bouncy castle.
I even let my boy have a go.
And then he did his first proper walk!
He'd managed three "walks" of 4 steps yesterday but blew that out of the water with an 8-stepper after a crawl on the bouncy castle.  It must have been the good influence of all the older toddlers walking and jumping around.

The picnic ended badly with a huge bird poo on his pram seat - urgh!

My To Do list has many items around teaching my boy languages at an early age.
Today a fellow stay-at-home dad said that nursery teachers told him that there is a clear improvement in 2-3 year olds' aptitude if they are exposed to a second or multiple languages at an early age.
Well, that's what I'd expect, so I'll believe it!  Especially as it is another motivation for me to continue learning Mandarin and a selection of European languages.

Count to Ten in NINE Languages - then count to twenty!

I'll be brief today - we want our boy to be bilingual in Mandarin/English and to have the building blocks to learn several European languages from an early age.  I'm told by linguistics experts it is feasible and I know I'll only do it if I can keep it fun for us both - I have no expertise in these languages so it will be mostly fresh for me too.

So here is a starter for you new parents to sing your kids to sleep with - 180 words in 9 languages.  I believe you'll remember these after a week.  Seriously.  There are so many similarities - it's easier than you think!

     English     Mandarin Cantonese      French   Spanish     Italian    
1   One         Yi(1)             Yat           Un         Uno          Uno      
2   Two         Er(4)            Yih           Deux     Dos           Due      
3   Three       San(1)         Saam        Trois     Tres           Tre      
4   Four         Si(4)            Sei            Quatre  Cuatro      Quattro
5   Five          Wu(3)          Ng            Cinq     Cinco         Cinque  
6   Six            Liu(4)           Luht          Six       Seis            Sei        
7   Seven       Qi(1)            Chat          Sept     Siete          Sette      
8   Eight         Ba(1)            Baat         Huit      Ocho         Otto      
9   Nine         Jiu(3)            Gau          Neuf     Nueve        Nove    
10 Ten          Shi(2)            Sahp        Dix       Diez           Dieci      
    
11 Eleven      Shi(2) yi(1)    Sahp yaht Onze    Once         Undici    
12 Twelve     Shi(2) er(4)   Sahp yih   Douze   Doce         Dodici  
13 Thirteen    Shi(2) san(1) Sahp saam Treize  Trece        Tredici  
14 Fourteen   Shi(2) si(4)  Sahp sei  Quatorze Catorce  Quattordici
15 Fifteen      Shi(2) wu(3) Sahp ng    Quinze   Quince     Quindici
16 Sixteen     Shi(2) liu(4)   Sahp luht  Seize     Dieciseis   Sedici  
17 Seventeen Shi(2) qi(1) Sahp chat  Dix-sept Diecisiete Diciasette
18 Eighteen   Shi(2) ba(1)  Sahp baat Dix-huit  Dieciocho Diciotto
19 Nineteen  Shi(2) jiu(3) Sahp gau Dix-neuf Diechinueve Dicanove
20 Twenty    Er(4) shi(2)   Yih sahp    Vingt      Veinte        Venti  

German        Latin              Japanese
1  Eins          Unus              Ichi
2  Zwei         Duo               Ni
3  Drei          Tres               San
4  Vier         Quattuor         Shi
5  Funf         Quinque         Go
6  Sechs       Sex                Roku
7  Sieben     Septem           Shichi
8  Acht        Octo               Hachi
9  Neun       Novem           Kyu
10 Zehn        Decem          Ju

11 Elf           Undecim       Juu ichi
12 Zwolf      Duodecim      Juu ni
13 Dreizehn  Tredecim       Juu san
14 Vierzehn Quattuordecim Juu yon
15 Funfzehn  Quindecim     Juu go
16 Sechzehn  Sedecim        Juu roku
17 Siebzehn   Septendecim Juu nana
18 Achtzehn   Duodeviginti Juu hachi
19 Neunzehn Undeviginti    Juu Kyuu
20 Zwanzig    Viginti           Ni juu

Note I've included the numerical equivalents of the four tones used in Mandarin - if you memorise the above, sounding the "i" at the end of a word as an "r", and ignoring the tones, you'll be pretty close - you can hone your skills by looking at an excellent Singaporean Government Mandarin site: http://xuele.edumall.sg/xuele/slot/u107/index.html
Lots of excellent multilingual material once you know a little so that you can navigate to the beginners' modules (email me if you want any help as this is a really fabulous resource.

Finally, please do email me any corrections or suggestions - I may well link to further pronunciation guides at a later time.

Rest and Recovery

Surprise, surprise, my day starts at 5am!

The hangover from yesterday's Naming Day / Surprise Wedding celebrations isn't as bad as expected given my much-reduced alcohol tolerance, but still I'm not feeling too "bouncy" (which at least means I'm not still drunk!).

Once the check-list has been attended to (give son water, hug, milk etc) he is still not ready to sleep.  It is morning.  My goal is to give JDI Mummy a few hours more of recovery sleep after she was "on duty" in the night.  Out tag team working well again.

Little boy was tired and needed hugs so I tried the BabyBjorn carrier, to settle him.  Some squats and rhythmic swaying to MTV Dance soon lulled him to silence - then for the tricky manoeuvre.

I dance into the spare room, close the door silently behind me, undo 3 clips on the carrier and hoist him onto my shoulder, still rocking to the music coursing through my blood.  Then cupping his head and pressing his body to me, now free from the harness, I lay him on the pre-prepared bed next to his Flopsy Bunny (I admit I named that one, am a tad embarrassed about it, but it is apt).

Then comes the crucial moment of withdrawal as if whipping away a table cloth without disturbing the crockery.  This works about 90% of the time.  But not today.  With a sigh I return him to the carrier, retreat to the plasma screen and bob and weave as before.

He is so tired that I know he needs sleep even more than I do, so selflessness kicks in.  When he drifts off I merely melt onto the sofa, tv control and bottle of sugared water to hand.  He remains asleep!  I'm too tired to move.  if I can't have sleep then rest will suffice.

Then it's SkyPlus to the rescue and I'm grateful I recorded a few things.  I watch a full uninterrupted episode of Big Bang Theory and then settle into Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey - a classic suited to my temporary intellectual level.  My eyelids fall for a moment, I slide a few inches down the sofa, almost lying down, legs stretching into the middle of the living room.  The next second the credits are rolling and my wife is spying through the glass in the door, miming whether I want eggs?  I swat her away sleepily and drift off again.

By the time I wake and my boy starts to stir, it's amazingly 9.30am!  More sleep than I could possibly have hope for!  JDI Mummy has scrambled eggs on toast sorted and we both look fresh - unbelievable!

I'll resume items from my To Do list tomorrow, as there are days, like today, when you just need to enjoy the moment, well fed and well rested!

Some Surprises

1) Being woken up at 5am was a surprise.  Maybe it shouldn't have been and maybe it should more accurately be called a shock.
2) Attended my sister's son's naming ceremony.  Innocuously tagged onto the end of the ceremony was the marriage ceremony for my sister and her (now) husband.  That was a surprise too (can you smell understatement??!).  The paralysis on relatives' faces in that split second should really have been caught on camera but no-one could have reacted to press the button.
3) In celebrations after my nephew's naming ceremony and my sister's wedding, my uncle enjoyed a large mojito before introducing himself to the man standing next to me, saying, "We haven't met yet have we?"  The man standing next to me was my brother, not unknown to my uncle and, indeed, part of the conversation with my uncle just moments before, during the drinking of said mojito.  It's rare that my brother and I are lost for words, but we were silent awaiting our uncle's punchline, but were given only "Oh, it's you!" There began a long period of squirming and rationale for why uncle's memory / recognition have never been good, with the final, somewhat convenient sci-fi explanation being that he had momentarily slipped into a different dimension (less of a parallel universe than a hugely tangential one...).

If tomorrow brings such surprises it might even be worth experiencing it with a similar lack of sleep, though I hope not...