Joshua (18/11/17)
Joshua was born on 18th November weighing a chunky 8lb. 10oz. This was, of course, brilliant. The 50 hours before he arrived, not so brilliant. We watched Dunkirk over Christmas and Louise said the dread of waiting for the next airstrike reminded her of how she felt in between contractions. In trying to be a helpful husband I made the error of flying in with the motivational mantras — “You can do this! I’m so proud! I love you!” — roughly 28 hours too early and, as I ran out of steam, Louise had to settle for a silent, increasingly feeble back rub and forehead dab as she approached the business end of proceedings. I won’t go into detail about the other stuff but what you see in films (water breaks > baby in arms of the beaming mother) misses out a significant amount. I can see why. It would be an awful film.
Louise was incredible throughout the whole thing and obviously, we are over the moon to be parents. Joshua is a great little guy and I’m happy to report that I’m a big fan. I’m pleased with his name too, although a Romanian guy at work wasn’t so impressed.
“Hmm. Joshua? That’s okay, I guess. You should have called him a stronger name like Otto or Helmut.”
I’m not calling my son Helmut.
When Joshua was a week old, I thought he and I were sharing a special moment. I was holding him in front of me, grinning and talking the absolute nonsense that you do to babies (this comes worryingly naturally) when he stared into my eyes and his tiny mouth curled into a grin.
His tiny mouth then fully opened and he projectile vomited all over my new t-shirt.
For the first time since a 2–4–1 night at Liquid in Lancaster, I ran up to Louise screaming and covered in sick.
“Oh my god!” she said, dashing across the room to pick up a muslin (a muslin is a large flannel, which it is acceptable to carry in public even if it’s covered in vomit. I’m learning new words every day). I thought it kind that my wife was rushing to my aid. Alas, she was not. She scowled at me, grabbed Joshua and dabbed a small speck of vomit away from his clothes with the muslin.
“Don’t just stand there, Andy. Get him a new t-shirt!”
Get him a new t-shirt?
This moment confirmed that I am now the third most important person in my house. If I came third in my Fantasy Football league, I’d be delighted. There are thirty people in my Fantasy Football league. There are three people in my house. I’m happy to take on this new role though and enjoying most aspects of my new life. Although I’ve been referring to myself as a walking zombie in a cheap bid to get sympathy and lower people’s expectations of me, the sleep deprivation hasn’t been as bad as I feared. Joshua tends to sleep in his box by the bed (a proper baby thing by the way — not just a cardboard box) in 2–3 hour bursts before needing to be changed, fed or calmed down. Calming him down typically involves picking him up, bouncing around and trying to recreate the sound of a hairdryer. So long as I get straight back to sleep after each wake-up, it’s fine.
It’s not just Joshua that’s disrupting my sleep. Three times now, Louise has woken up startled, shouting wild accusations.
“Where is he? Where have you put him?”
“I haven’t put him anywhere? He’s still in his box.”
Where does she think I’d put him?
This new sleep pattern has, though, caused me to have extremely vivid dreams, one of which led to mourning my former life. I dreamt I was out with some friends in a bar in Leeds (vivid, not necessarily imaginative). One of my pals had just bought a tray of brightly-coloured drinks. It was going to be a great night.
Joshua then started crying and, within thirty seconds, I was hunched over a too-low changing table, bleary-eyed while he pissed in an arc so high that it splashed on his own forehead. After I’d finally got him cleaned and changed into another new t-shirt (his fifth outfit change of the day — diva) he stopped crying and I picked him up. I looked deep into my son’s eyes and thought.
Was there a Jägerbomb on that tray of drinks?
Will I ever set foot in a bar again?
Baby stuff has taken over our entire house. You can’t see our living room floor for cots, boxes, toys, jungle gyms and various things that sing. A hypnotic jungle jingle sung by a plastic elephant has been etched in my brain for three days now. When I was playing football the other night, the jingle was playing repeatedly in my head throughout the first half. I had a poor game.
It’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve finally got to grips with remembering, and not losing, my phone, wallet and keys so the addition of also rounding up all of Joshua’s necessary and not so necessary (e.g., singing elephant) paraphernalia before leaving the house is a minefield. It now takes at least twenty minutes to get out of the door and sometimes, within seconds of leaving, Joshua will shit himself and the whole process begins again.
One morning over Christmas, we set off to take him for a walk around a pond. We parked the car and I contorted my long frame into the back and heaved out his car seat.
“Okay, now just get the adaptors and we can attach the car seat to the pram wheels,” Louise said.
“What adaptors?”
Unwilling to admit defeat and go home, I said I’d carry him around the lake in his car seat. He’s quite a chunky fella and I haven’t been to a gym for over a year. Within minutes my arm felt like lead and I was sweating. Louise saw I was struggling and despite my protestations suggested she hold one side of the handle and I hold the other, leaving Joshua swinging in his car seat in the middle. We got some choice looks from pedestrians by the pond.
It looked like we’d stolen a baby.
Given Joshua’s recent propensity to cry unless he is being held by an adult who is stood up and bouncing their knees, I’ve found it hard to do any writing recently. To be honest, doing anything at all is tricky; concentrating on any TV shows more intellectually challenging than Celebrity Big Brother is impossible, I fear I’ll never read a book again, taking a shower has become a luxury and we are living off oven food, which we have to eat separately — the non-eater looks after Joshua and resents the eater, who is riddled with guilt. NCT classes didn’t fully prepare me for all of this. However, for all the challenges that lay ahead, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Right, he’s just started crying. I’d better go and see what’s up…
