The world we live in!

I just want to touch on something that caught my eye during the week. An ex footballer aged 31 " went to the doctor, got Lipo with your money ". I'm surprised and not surprised as to why he did it. I'm not surprised as I know how easy it is to put on weight. Men are under pressure too to look there best. As I sit here with my Spotlight Whitening strips on!!

All you have to do is flick on the tv at 9pm and you will come across Love Island. At my last count there were 8 guys in there - 6 had a 6 pack, 1 had about a 15 pack and Jack had a bit of a belly but the most amazing teeth I've ever seen ( he is my favourite ).

I'm surprised as he was an ex professional athlete and he knows what it takes to keep his body in shape. You just have to look at the lifestyle, all the holidays and the socialising. Unless your prepared to make lifestyle changes I can't see the quick fix that is Lipo actually working. Speaking of lifestyle changes I better stop cutting the crust off Gray's toast and eating them.

I started my lifestyle changes a few days ago and I am still in the obsessed with food stage.  Why is it when you decide to be healthy you can't stop thinking about pizza! On a more serious  note it's not all about looking good, it's about staying healthy. In that note in off to play a bit of tennis!!

Kel

The adjustment

I walked into the sitting room yesterday and I had to avoid the teepee, side step the walker, hop over the toy basket then shuffle past the jumperoo. Why did nobody tell me before the baby arrived to sell the sofa, the foot stool and to build an extension onto the sitting room which happens to be in the middle level of our home.

Never mind the chaos within the house. It's the military style precision when leaving the house amazes me. Have you packed the baby bag? How long are we going out for? What is he wearing? Is it cold out? How much food do we need to bring? You just get all the answers to the above questions then question time from C starts. Did you pack a bib? Did you pack a spoon? Have we enough milk? Did you pack 5 vests and 18 nappies? No sooner am I at the car when I think to myself, what's that smell? Back into the house I go to change the nappy. Bare in mind we are only going up the road for a coffee.

Do you like guessing games? No! Well okay we are going to play one anyway. My life is now one big guessing game. Why is he crying? Is it his teeth? Pain in the belly? Is he hungry? Is he tired? Does he wear glasses? Is he bald? Does he wear a red scarf? Is it Tom?

When your 37 having your first baby, you are use to going to bed and setting your alarm, by alarm I mean my I phone not the little human I created. Getting use to lack of sleep or broken sleep is very hard to adjust to. I remember going to play golf when Gray was a few months old and thinking will I just stay in the car and have a sleep for 4 hours. You start to live in hope tomorrow is the day he will decide to sleep through the night. As Garth Brooks once sang if tomorrow never comes. You start to rope MIL in for a night's babysitting but not so we can go out just so we can get some sleep. Funny thing about all this is when he's asleep I think how cute is he I just want to wake him.

Kel

Who said having a baby was easy?

I'm about to get serious very quickly here. Over the weekend I read the first blog post of my neighbour Brona @snaphappymammy and it really hit a nerve. Brona spoke so candidly about suffering from Post Natal Depression (PND) and I honestly almost cried reading it. I will tell you why now...

It's no secret my wife C was diagnosed with PND when Gray was only a few months old. I watched C struggle and I put it down to her having a traumatic pregnancy as well as her dad passing when she was 6 months pregnant. As time went on I noticed her withdraw from Gray and myself. I began to worry but I had no idea how to fix the situation. I went through a whole range of emotions. As a Daddy it's extremely difficult to watch the woman who gave you your little boy struggle so badly.

Before C had Gray all I heard from people was say goodbye to sleep. Never once did PND come up in conversation. It actually shocked me considering 15% of new mothers suffer from it. It's crazy to think it's such a non topic of conversation and it got me thinking how many women might actually suffer in silence. After reading Brona's post I realised how it can effect mothers differently. To touch slightly on one of the ways it affects C -she struggles daily with constant fear something bad is going to happen to Gray. The first time Gray was fed toast C was standing in the back garden crying afraid Gray was going to choke. To this day she really struggles to feed him anything lumpy. This makes her take a step back leaving me with nearly all the responsibility.
I never foreseen things playing out like this.

It's bloody hard and I take each day as it comes. I wish it was spoken about more especially for those suffering and us daddies to try understand a bit more of what's going on. The struggle is real and our way of coping is to speak about it as much as possible. Luckily we have a good support system to help us.

Post Natal Depression is not a choice.

Kel

Orlando

When C was 5 months pregnant the Big Dog thought it would be a good idea to book a trip to Orlando for the whole family – the baby was going to be 6 weeks old. After the Big Dog was taken from us we made a family decision to still go on the holiday as that’s what he would have wanted.

Unfortunately, two days before we were due to travel the Big Dog’s sister passed away suddenly. This pushed our trip back and Gray was 12 weeks old when set off for Orlando.

Bags packed to include the car seat, travel cot, microwave sterilizer and 110 bottles of Aptamil baby milk and away we went. The Big Dog liked us to travel in style so we were booked to fly Business Class with AerLingus. This made the 9-hour flight less daunting knowing we had extra room to cope with such a young infant. From the moment, we got on the plane the air hostess was besotted with Gray and made us feel really comfortable. Sitting down, strapped in with a glass of bubbly in my hand not knowing what was ahead for the next 9 hours. We need not have worried as Gray slept for 8 of the 9 hours only to wake for his bottle and a cuddly from the air hostess.

 We stayed in the Sheraton Apartments just off International Drive. We had a 2-bed apartment and it worked out really well as we needed to sterilize bottles and we had our own washer/dryer for the little guys clothes.

We managed to get a lot into our 2 ½ weeks considering the restraints of having such a small baby. We got out for dinner every night. We got to sunbath numerous days, we got to shop. I got to play golf. My personal highlight was when Gray met a talking Mickey Mouse in the Magic Kingdom. However just as we got outside Gray’s Nanny produced a massive Mickey Mouse teddy bear and said “this is from me and Grandad “. Needless to say, there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as C and myself were a mess. I really found the Magic Kingdom to be very emotional as the Big Dog had brought C there when she was just 5 years old and all he wanted to do was take his Grandson there. Every time I heard that famous Disney music I would literally get goose bumps. Even now when I hear it, it kinda throws me.

People told us we were absolutely crazy taking such a young baby away on holidays but I can honestly say it was pretty easy. Gray was in a routine where he fed every 4 hours and he slept in between. We didn’t have to worry about jetlag or entertaining him anywhere near as much as we do now.

My advice to anybody taking a baby away in the first 6 months – go for it and don’t look back. We had an amazing time celebrating Gray’s first holiday, just how his Grandad intended.

Grays next holiday came 6 weeks later but this time daddy stayed at home to work, this was way tougher than one would think.