On that note, I was mildly amused (and at the same time mildly annoyed) by a couple of friends giving a running commentary on Twitter as the most recent England match was being played.  I wondered who exactly those tweets were for the benefit of.  If I had actually been interested in the football, I would have been watching, and wouldn’t have needed the commentary.  As it is, I chose not to watch the football, because I’m not interested.  So you give me a running commentary anyway.  Is there no escape??

As it happens, my natural tendency to shun all popular sports stems from years of denial, conscious and sub-conscious decisions not to follow the crowd, and embarrassment.

To explain, let me share with you a particularly memorable incident at primary school.  I think it was year 5, or thereabouts. Back then the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles were in full swing, and everyone had the action figures.  Everyone except me.  I pestered my mum endlessly to get me one, and eventually she relented and bought me the orange one, whatever he was called.  Actually, she bought two, one for me and one for my younger brother, so that we didn’t fight over them (I think he got the red one).  It was such am amazing feeling of justification and self-worth, and I proudly took my Turtle into school the next day.

That day, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles went out of fashion.  No one had them but me.  No one was interested in my new toy.  After all that fuss, it was essentially worthless, both in monetary terms and also (arguably more importantly) in terms of what would then have been called “street cred”.  I wasn’t cool for having a Turtle.  I was “gay” for having such a childish toy that everyone else had grown out of.  I must stress that it wasn’t as if months or years had passed – the day before they had been all the rage.

My pride deflated, I resolved never again to be a sheep, never again to follow the crowd, never again to do or have anything at all that was ‘popular’.  If it was truly special, it would last long enough for me to be able to get one the following year when the hype had died down.  In all honesty I still have that opinion when it comes to technology, but that’s another story.

So, back to sport.  You see, I wasn’t actually particularly terrible at football.  True, I wasn’t the best, because I didn’t really have a passion for it as a sport, but I was small and light and nimble and could very easily weave in and out of other people to get to the ball.  I played at Boys’ Brigade quite frequently, in fact.  But I made a point of hating it, out of principle.  If it was something everyone else enjoyed, I’d enjoy something else.  The other boys liked to play football, but I liked unihoc.  Just to spite them.

In secondary school, I got in with a crowd of other misfits (apologies to any of those friends of mine who are reading this and never saw themselves as a misfit).  We were clever without being outstanding boffins.  We were mildly naughty at times without being out-right rebels.  We were immature without getting into trouble.  We were a team of friends without actually being popular.  And when it came to P.E. and games, on the whole we were totally unsuited for physical activity.  If we could have got out of playing rugby in the freezing cold, we would have done.  If we could stand by the sides of the pitch and avoid the football completely, it was a good day.  In cricket, fielding was much more favourable than batting because you got to stand around and not run.  As a group, we were all like-minded in our resistance to popular culture.

And then, one day when we were running our weekly cross country route, a revelation hit me.  I had become a sheep again, this time for the other side.  All my friends expected me to be just as unenthused by sport as they were.  They expected me to be rubbish at football.  They expected me to stay with them at the back of the cross country pack, walking wherever we could get away with it, claiming to be critically unfit.  The trouble was, I cycled to school every day, I had good strong leg muscles and a fair dose of stamina.  So I left my friends behind, ran a bit faster, a bit harder.  I ran until I was out of breath, and then carried on some more.  I ran until my legs shouted for mercy, and then ran some more.  I ran until my throat was dry, until my breathing was painful and wheezy, until the sweat poured from my face, until my vision was blurred by dehydration, and then ran some more.  I got a personal best that week.  And the following week I did even better, because I ran like that right from the start.  It was my act of defiance, spitting in the face of the new popular culture I had become a part of, rejecting the expectation of lethargy, and stepping out on my own for once.  Turns out I was pretty good at physical exertion after all.

So when it comes to the World Cup, or the tennis for that matter, part of me refuses to take any interest solely because everyone else is.  It’s not so much that I don’t like football, it’s more that I don’t like that everyone likes it.  If it fell from popularity, I might be more inclined to take an interest.  I think that’s unlikely, somehow.  I would much rather watch the World Rally Championship than the Formula One.  I would much rather watch a short documentary on opera singers than watch The X-Factor.  I would much rather watch videos of people doing clever stuff on YouTube than watch Britain’s Got Talent.  I would much rather sit and look out the window at the beautiful countryside than watch the World Cup.

But here’s the rub – am I falling into the same trap as when I was at secondary school?  Am I following a different crowd now, of people who don’t like football out of principle, without considering whether I do actually like it?  And can I be true to myself and recognise my own genuine interests without then putting myself into another box with another bunch of people?  It is a pickle.

Maybe I should just take up knitting.

The week before Easter we went to Torquay to visit my family.  My little brother was in the annual school musical – an adaptation of Guys And Dolls – and it was superb.  That was on the Friday evening.  We left Samuel with my parents while we went to the theatre, figuring that neither audience nor cast would appreciate the addition of his vocals to the performance.  It was only the second time we’d left him with someone else while we went out, so it was at the same time exciting and worrisome.  Thankfully my Mum has had plenty of experience of looking after children, with three of her own children and a career in childcare, so all was well!  And all of that is by way of introduction really, because I didn’t take any photos that whole day.  That started the next day.

Saturday was beautiful and sunny, so I requested a trip out to Cockington, a picturesque little village just off the coast with a manor house and gardens.  Many a happy Sunday afternoon had been spent their in my youth, and it was wonderful to be able to revisit the place as a family.  The sun shone, and I took lots of photos, some of which you can take a gander at if you happen to be a friend of mine on Facebook.  The photos I’m most pleased with include a couple taken on my phone of Ellie and Peter in a tree, a gnarled old tree next to a little church (which curiously didn’t make it into my Facebook album), some daffodils, and four people pushing a pram up a hill.  That day also saw my first experience of The Drum Inn, where we all had a scrummy late lunch.  It was also the day Samuel held a bottle all by himself.  Okay, so it was a little staged and it didn’t last long, but he held it long enough for me to grab my camera and capture the moment.

Whizzing forward a week, and we get the next instalment of family fun.  After the Good Friday service at church we loaded up the car and drove to Gloucester to see Ellie’s family and friends.  It was great to see people again, and everyone was enthralled to see how quickly Samuel is growing and developing.  In fact, at one point we went for a walk round Highnam to get Samuel to sleep (which he usually does in the pram), but that plan failed when Ellie’s Dad started knocking on doors to show off his grandson.  Later in the day some of Ellie’s school friends came to visit, and they all had a cuddle.  And yes, photos were taken there too.

Then, on Sunday, we hopped in the car again and drove down to Torquay to see my parents again.  Well, actually it was more to see my little brother Peter, who is not very little at all any more, but who was being baptised that evening.  It was such a joyous occasion, and I’m so proud of Peter.  It was wonderful to hear his testimony and learn about his journey of faith to this point, and it was such a special evening.  Photos, both dry and soggy, are now on Facebook.

Monday, being a bank holiday, found us all still in Torquay, surrounded by great grandchildren, grandchildren, children, siblings, other halves, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents (depending on your perspective and family relationship).  And what better way to enjoy being together than to pile into a couple of cars and head off to Dartmoor.  My Dad led the way to Hound Tor, where we wrapped up against the wind (thankfully it wasn’t raining or particularly cold) and climbed to the peak.  The more energetic of us, and me, even did some rock clambering.  Peter and his friend were the first to the very top I think, while the old folks wusses wiser generations stayed on firmer ground and enjoyed the view.  I took a rather nice series of photos from one elevation which I later turned into a stunning panorama (courtesy of Photoshop), and that’s viewable in full resolution on Flickr if you’re interested.  Back at the bottom of the tor we enjoyed some cups of tea and an assortment of cakes before heading back home for another cup of tea and a sit down.

And if that wasn’t enough excitement, our friends Phill and Phil came to visit us Thursday to Saturday of this week.  It was lovely to see them and catch up on news and suchlike.  On Friday, it being such a beautifully sunny day again, we took the opportunity to see the great outdoors, and found ourselves at King Alfred’s Tower.  It’s a ‘folly’, which basically means the guy who commissioned it did it for a laugh.  It’s a tower in the middle of a wood.  It serves no purpose whatsoever.  It’s not a lookout, it has no rooms, just a spiral staircase up to the top.  A status symbol of the rich of yesteryear, if you will.  But besides its being utterly unnecessary, and triangular, and being a tiresome 205 steps to the top, the view is incredible.  On a good day – and that it was on Friday – you can see three counties from the top.  Admittedly, this being the middle of the Somerset countryside, there isn’t much variety in the view, most of it being farmland and woodland, but it was stunning nonetheless.  Again, photos were taken, and the resulting panoramas are also on Flickr.

I have spent some time today going through this sudden influx of photographic memories, uploading the good stuff to the web.  If you’re lucky enough to be a friend of mine on Facebook, you may already have seen the albums.  If not, you’ll find a few in my Flickr photostream.  My camera may be a few years old now, but I’m pleased with the results of my happy-snapping.

In other news, I took advantage of the continued good weather and did a little gardening.  The first job was to try to remove the tree that fell over in high(ish) winds a few weeks ago.  Technically the landlord should be getting someone to deal with it, but we’ve not heard anything so far, so I set about it with a saw myself.  I chopped three small branches off, before realising the whole tree could be just lifted out of the ground.  As far as I can tell, there are no roots.  No wonder it fell over.  So today I plucked a whole tree out of the ground and put it on the patio.  I took a photo on my phone, and that’s now on Flickr too.

I’m also reminded of a line or two in a song from the musical Into The Woods which says “Oh, if life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one! But if life were only moments, then you’d never know you had one.”  I like that too.

And with those two notions at the forefront of my mind, I thought it would be good to write a quick summary of how Samuel has progressed since his birth, charting some of the highlights and milestones of the past 12 weeks.  I guess this is for posterity.  Or reference.  Or guidance.  Or amusement.  Or indeed just to pass the time.

Our son is now twelve and a half weeks old, which equates to almost three months.  He sports a head full of hair, big blue eyes, weighs in at 10lbs 9oz, and is solely breast-fed so far.  And we love him to bits.

Size

Samuel was a relatively big baby when he was born, coming in at a healthy 8lbs 7oz.  He was long, too.  The first week he lost a fair amount of weight though, on account of Ellie’s milk not coming in very well, but after causing a little concern he started putting on the ounces again.  We had him weighed today, as it happens, at the antenatal class we’ve been going to each Tuesday lunchtime.  10lbs 9oz puts him on the 2nd percentile, which is a significant drop from the 25th which is where he started.  Some might be worried by that.  But looking at his progression he’s clearly charting his own line through the statistics rather than following a particular trend.  He’s certainly happy enough, and while he does look a little skinny sometimes he more than makes up for that with length – he grew out of the newborn size clothes fairly early on and moved on to 0-3 months sizes instead, for the length rather than the girth.  We’ll keep an eye on it, but he seems content so far and none the worse for his apparent lack of bulk.  I put it down to him using the energy for growing and development rather than letting it all collect as fat.

Ellie has already noticed him being longer than he used to be.  When he’s laid across her lap to feed, his legs now have to be wrapper around her otherwise he pushes against the side of the sofa and gets himself in the wrong position to feed.  And he’s nearly too big for the pram crib too – it’s a basket type attachment that fits onto the pram frame, and while at first it was used solely as his bed it’s now been demoted to a temporary travel cot.  He’s now sleeping in a large wicker basket, which is around 40 years old and still going strong, and which is significantly longer than most cribs on the market today.  He should be able to stay in that for a good 6 months before we need to move him out into his cot.  Still, we’ve certainly noticed that while he seemed lost in the wicker basket when he was born, he now seems quite at home there.

Feeding

Those first few days were a nightmare.  He wasn’t getting enough milk, and was quite insistent on letting us know all about it.  As a result, very little sleep was had by any of us.  We did try giving him some formula in a bottle, one night when we were almost at the end of our tether, but he wasn’t interested.  Once Ellie’s milk started flowing more freely he lapped it up, and hasn’t needed supplementary bottle feeding at all.  Ellie has been expressing some here and there, so that we can get Samuel used to drinking from a bottle, if only so that we can leave him with someone else for a few hours and know that he won’t go hungry.  I’ve fed him with a bottle once, and it was indescribably satisfying; it’s not something that felt at all natural, and so the privilege to be able to fulfil this role was incredible.

Something I’ve found interesting is noting how naturally and skilfully Samuel feeds.  It wasn’t something we had to teach him to do, and he even has techniques for encouraging more milk to be produced which, again, are not techniques we’ve told him about.  Aside from the natural perfect seal his mouth makes, his jaw quivers every now and then, which apparently helps too, and his hand rubs the top of the breast to encourage the milk to come down.  How does he know to do that?  It’s certainly not something I remember doing, so it’s not something conscious that we’ve taught him or passed on to him.  I’m blown away by just how clever he is, if only because I would never have thought to try those techniques myself, but clearly every baby does!

Ellie feeds on demand, and at the moment that’s around 6-7 times a day for about half an hour each time.  It’s not an exact science, of course, and sometimes he’ll feed more or less depending on what else is going on in the day and how tired he is.  And somehow we know which cry means he’s hungry and which means he’s tired.  I’d never have thought I’d be able to tell the difference.

Sleeping

Samuel got the hang of sleeping fairly early on, thanks to a good awareness of the difference between night and day.  During the day he gets attention, at night he doesn’t.  Sure, we get up to feed him and walk him off to sleep (see my previous post about how I get our baby to sleep), but we don’t talk to him or play with him, and by having that approach right from the start I think that’s helped him learn to sleep differently at night.  From the second or third week he was already sleeping happily with just two feeds in the night, even if he was up and wanting attention by 6am in the morning.  We got used to that routine, and then a few weeks ago he dropped himself down to just one feed in the night, sleeping for longer into the morning, and giving us far more satisfying nights of rest.

The last week hasn’t been quite as good as that, unfortunately, but we don’t think that’s his fault exactly.  He got himself a cold, which made him quite snuffly and coughed a bit, and despite raising his head with blankets and propping the cot up with a couple of big music books (ssh, don’t tell the health visitor), he reverted back to having two feeds in the night, and didn’t like going off to sleep.  I did a lot more walking around the nursery as a consequence of his restlessness, though I am yet to see my muscle tone develop.  Then, when he was just about over the cold, he started another growth spurt, so he slept less and fed more, and generally drained us both (Ellie in particular, in more ways than one) for several nights.  Thankfully he appears to be over that now, and our usual blissful night time routine is being restored.

Playing

When Samuel was born, he didn’t seem quite like a newborn baby.  He wasn’t like we had expected.  He wasn’t like newborn babies are shown on the television.  He was fascinated by everything, and his eyes were wide and focused right from the start, and was intent on looking at us both for a good three hours before he finally relented and went to sleep.  That trend has continued as he’s grown.  Every midwife, health visitor and old lady has commented on how alert he is, how he notices what’s going on, how clearly he sees and recognises people, how much interest he takes in his surroundings.  He’s a clever little boy, our Samuel.

This inquisitiveness is reflected in his play time.  He sits for some considerable time in his bouncy chair, or laid on his play mat, looking at the hanging toys, hitting them, trying to grab hold of them.  Just recently he’s started putting a lot of effort into his hand-eye co-ordination, an effort which is clearly visible in his face.  His eyes are fixed and wide, his mouth pursed and pouted, and you can see his little mind working it all out.  His large sweeping movements are being refined into smaller corrections, lining his hand up with the target object and bringing them just a little closer with each movement until he can touch it.  He hasn’t quite got the hang of the timing yet so that his hand closes around the object at the same time as the moment of impact, but he’s getting there, and he clearly knows what he’s trying to achieve.

He also has a bit of a fascination with lights, whether they’re on or off.  He’s a bit like a fly in that respect.  Now, I personally wouldn’t advise looking directly at a lightbulb, on account of the discomfort it could cause and the resulting spots before the eyes, but apparently none of that bothers him.

Smiling is another of Samuel’s more recent achievements, which he’s now thoroughly enjoying the use of.  At first he smiled more with his eyes than his mouth, which made it quite hard to notice, but soon his mouth followed suit and started twitching in a grin-like fashion.  Then came the wide open mouth version, which lasted for a second or so at most and was therefore almost impossible to capture on camera.  Now, though, he’s mastered the technique a little better, and seems to crave any excuse for a beaming smile.  Quite often his whole body joins in, with his whole face lighting up and even his arms and legs wiggling with delight.  Quite often these smiles come when he’s looking at us.  He’ll usually give us a lovely smile first thing in the morning, as if to say “oooh, it’s you!  I haven’t seen you since last night!”  Then there are other times when he seems to be laughing at us, like when we sing to him or pull funny faces; funny faces less so, admittedly, but he loves being sung to, which fills me with much joy to know that my son is already developing a good sense of musicality.  And what is now very slowly being added to the smile is the beginnings of a laugh.  So far they’ve been pretty much silent, but he’s started to experiment with coupling the smile with a cute little noise, and we fully expect that to develop into a proper laugh in the next few weeks, and we’ll be sure to have the camcorder ready for that.

Pooing

Yes, this needs writing down too, I’m afraid.  Nappy changing was one of the few aspects of childcare that I wasn’t looking forward to, partly I suppose because I had little experience of it.  Yes I have two younger brothers, and yes my Mum used to be a childminder, but I never once changed a nappy.  During the first week I watched Ellie change Samuel (which she did very naturally, on account of having done it before when she used to work at a nursery).  And only after having watched the process several times did I tentatively offer to have a go.  With supervision.  And actually it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought, and before too long I was happy to change Samuel unsupervised, confident in my own ability.

There have been a couple of notable highlights, of course.  A few times the nappies have been extraordinarily smelly, to the extent that I was on the verge of throwing up on account of it.  That’s not a reaction I’ve ever had to a smell before, so it came as a bit of a surprise.  Then there are the times when all the poo finds its way to the front of the nappy instead of the back, or even worse works its way out the side and soils the clothes as well.  The challenge now is keeping Samuel’s limbs out of the line of fire; without the restriction of the nappy, his legs flail wildly about in the ecstasy of freedom, so I have to hold on tightly to both his feet to stop them getting messy.  And just recently he’s discovered that he can reach his hands down there too, at which point I sacrifice my hold on his feet to take control of his hands instead, so although his feet do get a bit messy it tends to be the lesser of two evils.

Bathing

We have a little plastic beige baby bath in which to wash our son, a task that has become a mainstay of his bedtime routine.  Every evening after dinner we give him a bath, get him into his PJs, and then Ellie feeds him off to sleep before putting him down in the basket.  Bath time is a game of two halves, and can be somewhat unpredictable in its success.

First of all we strip him down to his nappy, and then Ellie holds him over the bath while I wipe his face with a flannel and wash the front of his hair.  He doesn’t often like that bit, I think it’s an uncomfortable or insecure position, and he usually complains a bit.  Then Ellie takes his nappy off and he sits in the bath properly.  He isn’t sitting up on his own yet, so Ellie supports him while I do the washing.  First I wash his back with the flannel, which tends to calm him down nicely, and then I wash the hair on the back of his head.  Sometimes we use Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, but usually it’s just water.  Then I get out the Johnson’s Baby Bedtime Wash, which I rub onto his back until it lathers up into bubbles, and rinse.  Then Ellie leans him backwards so I can do his tummy in the same way.  He’s not quite so comfortable with that position either, so we don’t leave him like that for too long.  Once that’s done, he’s free to play until he either gets bored or the water gets cold.  We usually have three or four toys in the bath, and at the moment he spends most of his time trying to either kick them or catch them between his feet.  Apparently that’s easier than trying to grab them with his hands.  Go figure.

So far so good

I’m sure there must be loads I’ve missed, but that’s a good chunk of documented progress.  Suffice to say, he’s come on in leaps and bounds, surprised us with how quickly he’s changed and developed, and brought us immeasurable mountains of joy.  We love him lots and lots and jellytots.

I must point out, of course, that this is not a magic solution.  Every baby is different, and what works for us may not work for you.  But feel free to try it, and see if it helps.

Introduction

First, let me explain how I came by this revelation.  When Samuel was born, getting him to sleep was a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes he would seem dead to the world, but if we moved him even slightly he would wake up and start crying again.  We’d read about the ‘limp limb test’, where you raise one of his arms a couple of inches and drop it, and if he doesn’t stir then it’s safe to move him.  That didn’t work.  Samuel wouldn’t bat an eyelid at having his arm moved, but change his position and he’d complain.

And then it hit me – he goes to sleep like I do.  Amazingly, I knew exactly how he felt, and why it seemed such hard work, because I take forever to get to sleep (unlike my wife, who’s out like a light in minutes); on a good night, if I’m really tired, it may only take me 15-20 minutes to get to sleep, whereas if I’ve got a lot on my mind then it could be a couple of hours.  And, according to my parents, I’ve always been like that, and drove them mad too.  But armed with that revelation we found ourselves better able to gauge how asleep Samuel was.

I’ve therefore developed a scale, like a speedometer, to gauge the amount of sleepiness, and a set of 5 milestones that have to be achieved if Samuel (or I) is successfully to be put to bed.  And here it is:

On the far right hand side is the maximum level of awakeness, which is what Samuel is at during the day when he’s playing and looking and stuff.  On the far left is where sleep begins, with the scientifically-proven stages of sleep, like REM and non-REM and suchlike.  In between is what I go through, and apparently Samuel too, to get from one state to the other.  Most people go from one to the other without difficulty, but for me and my son it’s a complex 5 stage process, which has to be understood to be effectively put into practice.

Stage 1 – Feeling sleepy

The first stage is when Samuel starts to feel tired.  He’ll get grumpy, he’ll whine for no apparent reason, he’ll rub his eyes and fidget, and don’t even think about getting a smile.  I include this as stage 1 because it’s important to note the beginning of the transition from awake to asleep.  Once this first stage has been established it’s a good idea to try to get to stage 2 quickly, otherwise he just gets more and more agitated at being awake.

Stage 2 – Body begins to relax

At this stage Samuel’s eyes will begin to droop, he’ll stop fidgeting, and he’ll become more relaxed.  Most people who don’t know him will often say at this point “oh, he’s nearly asleep”.  If only.  My wife and I know there is still a lot of work to do yet before we get to that!  This stage is about gradually allowing the body to relax and un-tense from the agitation of Stage 1.

If we put Samuel down at this point he’ll bounce back to Stage 1 and become even more upset at being awake still.  That said, it is possible to deliberately wake him up from this stage if we need him to be awake for something.

Stage 3 – Body is relaxed

Now Samuel’s eyes are closed, his limbs are limp, and to look at you’d say he was asleep.  But inside his mind is still whirring and working away, still fully aware of what’s going on around him.  The ‘limp limb test’ might indicate full sleep here, or it might stir him enough to bounce him back to Stage 2.  If we put him down, he’ll notice, and bounce back to Stage 2, possibly Stage 1.  Because the mind is still very much active, it doesn’t take much to re-engage the body and wake up again.  In fact, if he isn’t entirely comfortable he’ll be able to wake himself up in an instant, eyes wide open, as if he’d never felt sleepy at all.

Stage 4 – Mind begins to relax

From here on in it becomes a little more like guesswork, because there are few outwards signs of what stage he’s in.  One key sign though is the breathing rate – in Stage 3 Samuel will still be breathing fairly quickly, but as he makes the transition through Stage 4 his breathing slows and becomes less noticeable.

For an active mind, this is the hardest part of getting to sleep, because it means voluntarily letting go of reality and surrendering to the unknown world of unconsciousness.  While the first three stages can be crossed in a matter of 10 minutes, Stage 4 often takes much longer.  If you’ve ever consciously tried to think of nothing, you’ll know that it’s not at all easy.

Putting Samuel down at this point is a bit hit and miss, because in all likelihood he’ll notice what’s happening.  If he’s really tired, he might be able to get to the final stage on his own, but most of the time, especially in the early days, he needed help getting there.  Moving him might bounce him back to Stage 2, and we’d have to go through it all again.

Stage 5 – Mind is relaxed

This is the doorway to slumberland.  By the time we reach this stage, Samuel has finally let go of consciousness and allowed his conscious mind and allowed his subconscious to run free.  This is sleep.  And now, after maybe 30-45 minutes, we can put him in his cot and leave him.  There’s a possibility that moving him might bounce him back to Stage 4, but if he’s already surrendered his mind once then doing it again won’t be difficult, and he’ll settle into sleep just fine.

During sleep Samuel will dream, and go through the peaks and troughs of semi-consciousness that will be documented in any good scientific explanation.  At the peaks, Samuel will make occasional noises, move his limbs around, breathe in suddenly, and may even stir himself to the point of returning to Stage 4.  Thankfully, this is usually short-lived, and he returns to sleep seconds later.  It is only if he has stirred himself too much, or if we happen to make noise as he’s slipping into Stage 4, or if he’s hungry, that he’ll wake more fully and start crying for attention.

How that works out in practice

That’s the theory, now for a quick run-down of what my wife and I do to help our son through that process.

Ellie often feeds Samuel to sleep.  Curled up against her, he gets himself comfortable and feeds until he falls asleep.  Feeding, it seems, is a very relaxing and soothing activity!  Once feeding has established, he’ll very easily slip into Stage 2, almost bypassing Stage 1 completely, and once he’s full he’ll happily move on to Stage 3.  As he goes through Stage 4, there may be occasional sucks, if milk happens to be readily available there, but he’s not sucking for any reason other than comfort by this point.  In fact, feeding is so relaxing that Ellie can often take him upstairs and put him in the cot when he’s still in Stage 4, and he’ll take himself off the rest of the way without complaining.

I don’t have the benefit of being able to feed Samuel, so I employ different tactics.  If he doesn’t settle at night, I’ll take him into the nursery and walk around with him cradled in my arms.  He usually cries a lot initially, because he wants to be asleep and he’s frustrated at still being awake.  Stage 2 sometimes lasts 20 minutes.  Walking gently around the room seems to help though; the regular rhythm is soothing, and I find accentuating each step ever so slightly by pushing my stomach out a little often speeds things along a bit.  As Samuel makes the transition from Stage 2 to Stage 3, I often change from walking around the room to walking on the spot.  I use a triangular step pattern: right foot back, left foot forward, right foot forward, left foot back, right foot forward, left foot forward, repeat.  It’s not quite as jolting as walking properly, but maintains the regular rhythm, and is a natural progression from walking to laying still.  I’ll keep doing that until Samuel is well into Stage 4, at which point I’ll switch to gentle swaying instead.  Once Stage 5 has been reached, I’m safe to walk back across the landing to our bedroom and put him in his cradle.

We’ve experimented with music and light levels, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to him.  The music does more for my sanity than it does for Samuel.  And he doesn’t seem bothered whether there is light in the room or not.  Gentle patting on the back, either with the whole hand or just a finger, sometimes helped when I was walking him around the room, but only if he was really agitated and walking alone wasn’t comfort enough.  We also try not to talk to him or make too much eye contact at night, so that he knows the difference between night and day, and that waking in the night won’t get him much in the way of attention; hopefully if we drill that into him early he’ll take that into his toddler years!

He’s much better now (10 weeks) than he was in those early weeks.  Back then, putting Samuel in the cradle was like a delicate operation, as we slowly and carefully tried to reposition him without waking him so that we could put him down.  We’d do it in stages: a minute or so just stood in the room, so he became acclimatised to the smell and temperature of the room; then we’d gently reposition our hands so that he was being held in such a way that we could put him down, but still holding him close to us for warmth and the familiar smell; then we’d move him away from ourselves a few inches, and hold for a few seconds; then gently lower him into the cradle, keeping our hands in place for consistency and to act as a buffer between his head and the cold sheets; then we’d gently slide out hands out from underneath him, but keeping them in the cot for the comfort of radiated warmth; and then, if he was still settled, we’d be able to back off a little, but still stay close for a minute or so to make sure he stayed asleep.  And only when all of that had been done could we leave the room.  Now, thankfully, it’s a much quicker process, because he’s more able to settle himself, so even if we do make him stir as we put him down he’s likely to take himself back off on his own.

So there you have it.  That’s how I get our son to sleep.  It might not work for your baby, but it might be of some help to someone.  You may find some useful tips here.  If nothing else, it should be an interesting insight into the mechanisms of sleep, even if it only applies to me and my son!

And it’s high time for an update, I’m sure you’ll agree.  A certain person has been on my case for days, if not weeks, asking for a photo of a smiling baby that I’d promised her.  I had intended on putting it on my blog, but that wasn’t working, so I emailed it to her in the end.  But, for those of you who are not Sarah, a photo of my darling son is in this post – the first I managed to capture of him smiling.

Samuel is doing really well at the moment.  Some of you may remember that the first week or two were really difficult, with him not sleeping well at all, and Ellie and I didn’t get much sleep either.  Thankfully things are almost infinitely better now, far better than I’m sure they’re supposed to be by now.  The last week has been bliss.  Last night, to take an example, Samuel went down at 8pm and slept for 7 hours, woke up (quietly too, I didn’t wake up at all) for an hour’s feed, and then went back to sleep for another 3 hours.  That’s 10 hours of sleep.  At 9 weeks.  Someone pinch me.

Of course, that may all change tonight.  You see, this morning Samuel had the first of his jabs.  We took him down to the surgery in the village, sat in the waiting room for a bit trying to keep him entertained, before finally taking him through to see the nurse for two injections, one in each thigh.  He was happy enough when he went in, curious as always and on the verge of smiling at anyone and anything, and then something sharp and painful happened.  Naturally, he wasn’t impressed.  Ellie and I both tried to be as positive and cheery as possible, not wanting to pass on any hint of worry or stress that the baby could pick up on, but it still wrenched my insides to hear him scream in pain.  The result, so I’m told, is that he’ll probably have sore legs for a couple of days, probably be a bit grumpy, might get a temperature, and might sleep a lot more than usual.  But every baby is different, hence all those ‘might’s and ‘probably’s.

What’s really struck me today is how strong the parental instinct is, and how overwhelming the bond of love is.  I have reasons for loving my wife.  It was a conscious decision.  My love for Samuel is entirely different; it’s beyond reason, completely without logic, and limitless.  And I don’t understand how it got there.  Today I had to take my son, whom I love, to have two painful injections.  And I’m almost sure it hurt me as much as it hurt him.

I see parallels there with God’s love for us, which I thought I might share with you.  Now, some people find it hard to believe that there is a God, and if there is they find it difficult to believe that he loves them, as evidenced by all the pain and suffering and evil in the world.  Let me put it to you this way: I love my son very much, and yes I did have the power and authority to shelter Samuel from the pain of those injections, but I chose not to.  He won’t understand why it happened, and it would be pointless me trying to explain it to him.  And it pained me to watch him go through it, especially because I knew it was coming and he didn’t.  But I could see the bigger picture.  I knew it would all turn out well in the end.  And as much as it hurt (both of us), I still love him.  God does let bad things happen sometimes, and we are without hope of understanding why or how it could work out for the best, and we sometimes feel like blaming God and accusing him of hating us.  But God’s relationship with us is like a father – he cares for you, more than you’ll ever understand, and while he may not want you to hurt, sometimes it’s necessary.

Anyway, back on topic, Samuel has actually been very good today, despite his ordeal.  He hasn’t developed a temperature or any adverse side effects, and apart from being tired and having sore thighs he seems absolutely fine.  What an answer to prayer!  Let’s hope he sleeps well tonight.

Finally, a quick shout out to some uni friends who had a baby a couple of days ago – congratulations to Tim and Beth, and their little Caitlin!  They’ll have more details, I’m sure, so I won’t spoil the surprise, but many warm wishes and blessings to you three!

On Saturday we drove up to Bristol to see lots of people – Christopher’s fiancee’s parents were playing host to my parents for the day, with a view to providing an opportunity for Christopher and Sarah to show their respective parents around the wedding venues.  And it was a good excuse to all meet up and eat food.  There was no particular wedding-related reason for our presence, I think Sarah just wanted to see Samuel.

So, up to Bristol we drove.  And, to add to my excitement, I got to drive underneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which I have never had cause to do before (I’ve been over it a few times, but never under).  Little pleasures.  Samuel slept pretty much all the way, as he tends to do whenever we’re travelling at more than 30mph – he seems to be a human speedometer, letting us know quite noisily if we’re not going fast enough.

It was lovely to meet Sarah’s family.  She’s just like her Mum.  I hope she doesn’t mind me saying that.  Samuel, as was to be expected, was the centre of attention once more.  He was hungry though, initially, after a long hour+ stint without feeding (shock horror), but once he had been satisfied he happily did the rounds and said hello to everyone.  My Mum got a lovely beaming smile, which was so lovely to see – he’s been slowly playing with the idea of smiles in recent days, and that one was very clearly a smile of recognition.  It made me so proud.  Well and truly blog-worthy.

Eating for us took a little more patience, because the roast hadn’t gone in as soon as Sarah’s Mum had wanted, but we passed the time by watching some video footage of Christmas that my Dad had filmed and edited and put on a DVD to show people.  It was nice to see what we missed.  Looks like they had a lot of musical fun at our Exmouth Grandparents’ house, with several duets being played by various people, and even the legendary “Qui Vive” piano trio – that’s six hands, three people on one piano, all at the same time, reading the same piece of music.  I’ve played it before, with my Dad on one side and Grandpa on the other, and this Christmas it was Christopher’s turn in the middle.  It’s a hellish piece to play, with far too many flats and key changes to be at all sensible, and with all of us effectively sight-reading it’s never a polished performance.  Still, they muddled through, but the most entertaining part of the video was watching their faces as they played!

After lunch, where I ate beef for the first time in years and had half a glass of white wine (I don’t think Ellie was too pleased, she was worried it would all go to my head and I was driving home) and we had some absolutely scrumptious desserts, we headed off to the church.  There had been mention of us going by car, but it was a lovely day and we had the pram with us, so we all wrapped up and set off to burn off some calories.  It was nice and hilly, which I enjoyed, and it was a pleasant 20 minute stroll to the church, which is where the wedding is going to take place.  It’s actually a lovely little church, very thoughtfully decorated inside – beautiful without being over the top, reverent without being staid, traditional without being cold.  And then we walked back.  I particularly enjoyed the conversation I had with my Mum on the return journey.

And Samuel was a little darling the whole time.  He hadn’t slept well Thursday night, which has us a little worried; he kept stirring and not going back to sleep, and seemed far too intent on looking at things than going to sleep, which is fine during the day but not so great during the night.  He just didn’t seem comfortable, and kept Ellie awake more than usual.  His nappies had been quite green too, which we’re told is quite normal (ish) but can be a sign that he has an upset stomach.  We were very relieved to find that his dirty nappy in Bristol was a lovely mustard colour, which is a good sign!  It’s surprising how much of a relief a dirty nappy can be in the right context.

After all that walking we got straight back into the car and headed off to see my Grandparents, who also live in Bristol.  The journey took us from one side of Bristol to the other, and because we were driving at rush hour (even on a Saturday) it was pretty busy.  Samuel didn’t take to that well, and complained every time we stopped at a red light, of which there were many.  And also when we were stuck in traffic, which was frequent.  And also when we weren’t flying along at 30mph, which was most of the time.  In short, he cried almost all the way, and only went to sleep a few minutes from Grandma’s house, just in time for us to wake him up again.  Typical.

Grandma was thrilled to see us, as always, but her excitement at seeing her great-grandson overshadowed it all.  We arrived at the door, and almost before we’d had a chance to say hello she’d taken Samuel from us, car seat and all, and whisked him off to the lounge amidst a torrent of cooing and bubbliness.  It was fun to watch!  She eventually calmed down a little and returned to type, providing us all with cups of tea.  And then we sat round the TV and watched my DVD of Samuel, some of which was a duplication of Dad’s footage of Draisey Day, and some of which was just Samuel playing on his playmat.  Only 12 minutes of it, but it was nice to have something to show them.  I think Dad was quite pleased to be offered to keep the DVD too, for his records!

And so, after a long day of seeing people on various sides of family, past present and future, we headed home.  Samuel slept in the car pretty much all the way home, as did Ellie.  By the time we got back, Samuel was still very tired; he’d had a very long day and hardly slept at all, he’d been so interested in what was going on around him, and he was exhausted.  As soon as we got in we got his bath ready and started his bedtime routine.  He cried and complained though, and when we laid him on his back to wash his front he screamed blue murder, which had me scared.  Bathtime was short and not much fun, and we skipped straight onto the bedtime feed, which seemed much more up his street.  And then followed an unusually long night of peaceful sleep.  Seems he was just so tired that a bath wasn’t what he wanted.  So it’s all good after all.  Which is nice.

Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff, back to the story.

AM and Sarah came to visit on Thursday, having made the journey in Sarah’s little blue Fiesta all the way from Colchester (a good 4 hour drive, not including loo stops), and arrived on our doorstep laden with hugs and presents for Samuel.  Both their presence and their presents were very much appreciated (see what I did there?).

Of course, because our previously vacant spare room is now a fully occupied nursery, they had booked a few nights at a local B&B (Belfield House, in case you’re interested).  Not sure why that’s important, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

As a matter of fact, very little was ‘done’ during their visit.  We didn’t go and see the sights, we didn’t go to the cinema, we didn’t go for a long walk in the countryside.  We just sort of sat.  And chatted.  And that was just fine by us.  On the Friday I didn’t see a huge amount of them, in fact, because I was still working, so I left them to it downstairs to chat some more and marvel at the wonderous bundle of joy that is our son.  After all, this was the first time they’d actually seen him in the flesh – a Skype video call doesn’t quite mean the same thing as holding him in your arms for real.

AM came with two surprises up her sleeve.  First was a taggie blanket.  If you’ve not come across them before, you’ve clearly never lived.  They’re a simple blanket, except that all around the edge are as many tags as possible.  The idea sprung from some bright spark’s observation that little children always seem more interested in the silky label on soft toys than the toys themselves, and exploited the fascination by making something that was more label than toy.  Hence the taggie blanket.  Of course, Anne-Marie being Anne-Marie, this one was hand-made.  Every single tag is made of a different material.  Some are narrow, some are wide, some are frilly, some are lacy, some are stretchy, some are stringy, some are silky, some are furry, some are green.  Brilliant.

The second surprise we didn’t get until the Friday, because AM hadn’t finished it.  Or, rather, she’d almost finished it but hadn’t put it in the frame yet.  It’s a beautiful cross-stitched picture of Noah’s Ark, with Samuel’s name written underneath.  It’ll look lovely hung on the nursery wall.

We also went round Tesco on the Friday, which is something the four of us haven’t done in years.  Causing havoc in a supermarket: Check.

When it comes to local attractions, in all honesty there isn’t a lot to choose from.  I guess that’s one of the inevitable downsides to living in the middle of nowhere.  So when we took the girls to Wells, it wasn’t much of a surprise that they weren’t exactly bowled over.  It is, after all, a far cry from some other cities you could go to.  In fact, calling Wells a city is something of a gross over-exaggeration.  It’s a small town, but anyone else’s standards.  It just happens to be one of the most concentrated areas of civilisation in our rural corner of Somerset.  And it has a cathedral to boot.  It’s a nice cathedral, though; far bigger and more impressive than you’d expect from such an otherwise miniature town.

So we all hopped in the car and went to Wells.  We wandered through town, and I made a point of telling them to take in the sights, just in case they missed them.  Through town was just a short walk, and we found ourselves in the famous Wells marketplace, a bustling hive of stall-based commerce.  At least, that’s what the locals would have called it.  I don’t think AM or Sarah were convinced.  It didn’t take long to wander round, and there wasn’t much to hold their attention.  I saw some pretty clocks.  Sarah found some gaffer tape.  Anne-Marie bought a little 2010 diary.  And that pretty much exhausted Wells.  We did wander round the cathedral for a while though, not all together though because Samuel decided to choose that location as the best for a good scream (maybe he’s got an ear for acoustics).

And when we got back, I fixed Sarah’s car.  She’d been on the lookout in Wells for gaffer tape because she had decided she needed to tape up the glove box door to stop it falling open.  All the way down from Colchester it had been resting against AM’s shins, which apparently wasn’t all that comfortable.  Turns out the hinges were loose, and all they needed was for the screws to be tightened.  Gaffer tape may be the solution to all problems, but there are solutions and solutions.  We then turned out attention to the screen washers, which were apparently pathetic.  Sure enough, the washer tank was empty, so I helped her fill it.

We also checked the oil level, while the bonnet was open.  To my horror (which I tried to hide) the engine was empty.  Not just sitting on the minimum marker on the dip stick, oh no, this was barely wetting the very end.  Not good.  How the car survived the journey down, I really don’t know.  Then again, the same thing happened with Neddy when I bought him; I drove that Mini all the way from Kent to Essex with no oil in the engine, which isn’t supposed to be possible, and it lived to tell the tale.  Clearly, God works miracles even when we don’t realise we should be asking for them.  Anyway, we hopped into my car and went to the garage to get some supplies, and came back and filled the Fiesta’s dry engine with several litres of oil.  It was a hefty bottle, so there was still some left, which is good because she’ll have some for next time she needs to top up (which hopefully will only be a small amount next time).

And then we said our goodbyes.  It had been wonderful to have them to visit.  They’d kept us entertained with their banter, they’d all had cuddles with Samuel (despite a growth spurt kicking in as they arrived, which made him a little more grumpy than usual) and watched him having his bath.  And on Saturday evening we all exchanged yet more hugs and waved them off; they’d spend the night at the B&B again before heading off back to Colchester in the morning.

So thank you, dear friends and sisters, for keeping us company and making us laugh and sharing our joy and drinking our drinks.

I’ve been writing a diary.

Before you say anything, no I don’t mean this blog.  And no, I’ve not been daring enough to actually start scrawling on paper.  When Ellie and I found out that we were expecting a baby, we decided it would be a good idea to keep a pregnancy diary to log the whole experience for future reference.  While Ellie took the traditional route of writing it down in a book, I set up a private WordPress blog and wrote each day as an entry in that.  Well, not every day, but the important ones.  Actually, I rarely got time to write about each day on the day itself, which is why I’m still working on the project – I’m still filling in the gaps I’ve missed!

Many evenings now I have been sat at my computer writing, not on my blog but on my diary, recalling my emotions and feelings from months ago and trying to put it down in elegant prose.  The exercise may actually serve a dual purpose – have you ever come across a baby book written by both parents separately?  We haven’t, and it’s just possible that we’ll be able to take the concept to a publisher when both diaries are finished.  No guarantees, obviously, but it’s a thought.  We’ll see.  Mine starts from the day we got the positive test, and logs the journey up until a week after Samuel was born.  And it’s still not finished.

Of course, writing up to one week after birth is hardly the end of the story.  There is far more of the adventure yet to come, and that will undoubtedly be documented too in one form or another.  But those events will probably appear here on my blog rather than in my diary.

So, hopefully that explains the mysterious project I mentioned, and the notable absence of posts here lately.  I have posthumously added a couple of entries covering Samuel’s birth and Christmas, so feel free to have a read of those if you haven’t already (I’m mentioning it because they were written out of sync and anyone getting my blog via RSS may miss them).  Friends on Facebook will probably already have seen photos of our baby.  And I’ll continue to post developments here on my blog and on Twitter, so stay tuned!

When I awoke in the early hours of the morning (not deliberately, mind you, this was Samuel’s fault) I had a quick peek through the curtains to see the outside world, and was sleepily excited to discover that the BBC was right – it had snowed.  Lots.  Nowhere near the 15cm they had predicted, more like 3-4cm, but it was still plenty enough to cover everything in a blanket of white, albeit drenched in darkness at the time.

When I awoke a little later, it was still snowing, and fairly vigourously too.  In fact, it kept on snowing all morning, giving us a tasty 10cm of snowfall.  That’s more snow than I’ve ever seen, apart from one year when we went up to Dartmoor, but that’s sort of cheating.  Since I was up early, and there wasn’t much work to do today, I decided I could justify starting work late on account of the snow, and went out into the garden to play.  I did go out with the excuse of putting food out for the birds, as the RSPB had told us to, but then I built myself a snowman on the patio.

Now, when most people build a snowman, they give it a round body and a round head and hopefully some stick arms, and possibly even some facial features if there are suitable ornaments lying around.  And that’s exactly what I did.  And then I thought “I can do better than that”.  So I gave him legs, giving the impression that he was sat on the floor.  Then those stick arms looked horribly out of place, so they had to go, replaced by a couple of sculpted arms supporting him as he sat up.  Then came a nice nose, some eye sockets, some hair styling, and a mouth.  And a slight impression of a tummy sticking out.  There’s a photo on Flickr.  I don’t do things by half.

In the afternoon, with work still proving uninspiring compared to the outside world, I put Samuel in the pram and went for a wander.  Wrapped up against the cold, and with camera at the ready to snap up some wintry photos, we headed out into Evercreech.  Samuel fell asleep almost immediately, soothed as it were by the movement of the pram.  How he slept I still don’t know – a pram on snow isn’t exactly smooth, especially where the snow has been walked on and compacted unevenly.  Still, he seemed comfortable enough, and only complained when I stopped to take photos.  The main road was pretty clear of snow, but the side roads were white, the speed bumps completely hidden.  The playing field was beautifully white, ornamented by three enormous snowballs, each standing around 5 feet tall.  The Millennium Garden was pretty too.

I happened to get chatting to a man down the road from us, whom I have never seen before.  It seems it is only at times like this that you get to meet the local community now.  He’s been in the area some time, apparently, and was regaling me with tales of previous great snows.  He said that Evercreech hasn’t had snow like this since 1978, and before that it would have been the 60s.  Of course, the great snow in the 60s made this look like a pathetic, half-hearted attempt at snow.  Then it was 4-5 feet deep everywhere and they had to dig out the roads by hand.  Puts things into perspective a little, doesn’t it?

And now I’m back in the warm, enjoying a lovely mug of hot chocolate.  It doesn’t get much better than this.  Ellie thinks I’m an old romantic.  I’d have to agree on this occasion.

(P.S. I am aware that I haven’t been updating this blog as frequently as normal just recently.  There is a very good reason for this.  Firstly, I’m busy because I have a newborn baby to look after.  Secondly, I’ve been working on another writing project, which I’ll publicise later when it’s finished.)

Our family is not like other families.  Most children abhor the idea of spending time with their parents, let alone uncles and aunties they hardly ever see, and anything family-related at Christmas time is definitely out.  Not in our family.  Every year (if we can) we all meet up shortly after Christmas for “Draisey Day”.  We usually descent on my uncle and auntie’s house in Woking, spending the whole day eating, playing silly games, playing music, and generally catching up on the past year or so.  And it’s one of the highlights of my year.

This year was no exception, not least because we brought with us a portable people-magnet – a little baby boy.  More than that, Samuel is the first of the new generation, which makes him even more significant.  I’m pleased to report that he lived up to the hype, and thrilled everyone the whole time we were there.  He was passed from person to person, he fed when he had the opportunity, he slept very little, and he kept everyone amused without doing a single thing.  What a gift it is to be a baby.  Shame he’s too young to realise it.

We drove up to Woking in the morning and arrived around lunchtime, just in time to be fed, which is always a good bit of timing.  Uncle Mark brought out his traditional array of party games, all of which were cringe-worthy and unnecessary, but we did them anyway and thoroughly enjoyed it all.  By mid-afternoon I was lagging a bit, so I went and got some sleep for a couple of hours – that’s not something I would have been able to do before Samuel was born!  Sleep?  In the middle of the day?  When there are lots of things happening and lots of people making lots of noise?  In an unfamiliar bed?  In jeans?  But apparently I was tired enough to overcome all those obstacles.  That’s what a baby does to you.

Another part of the Draisey Day tradition is the music.  With a family of musicians, we’re not too dissimilar to the Von Trapp family.  Pretty much everyone plays something.  And if they can’t play, they can certainly sing along.  Most years we have a Christmas carol sing-along, where we take turns on the various instruments (because we’re all multi-talented) and muddle our way through whatever carol gets mentioned next.  This year it was a bit different, because our musical contribution took the form of a jazzed up jam session.  At first it was just Peter and I on the piano, but soon everyone else joined in too.  We had a minimum of two people on the piano, a keyboard providing a drum backing, a viola, an alto sax, a couple of guitars, and even a little hand drum.  And everyone else watched and danced and listened and recorded it on camcorders.  It’s possibly one of the most fun jam sessions I’ve ever been part of.

Overnight it was rather cold, on account of the heating system playing up.  Samuel took a little persuasion to get to sleep, but we managed.  And in the morning we headed back home to get some rest.  It’s not exactly been a quiet Christmas, and we’ve not been endowed with sleep and energy, but we wouldn’t have missed it for the world.