Linkage: Sunday, August 30

via mummysfavourite.com.au

They go backwards, forwards, sideways, and round and round. Children don’t get stuck against obstacles like some other ride on toys. Wheely Bugs help promote gross motor skills and balance like no other toy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but look how awesome they are. The boy is going to get one of these for sure!

Posted via web from Peter's posterous

Parenting & Blogging, Hmmm...

After having experienced the first week of The Boy Wonder's life AND started a new job this week, it has become apparent that it is going to a little more difficult than first thought to keep this blog up to date. Geeze post six and already I'm saying it's too hard. Not too hard, really, but need to reconsider how often I am actually going to be able to post.

At the moment the boy is in Special care nursery and probably will be for at least another week. We're coping with this although we are wearing a trail back and forth to the hospital. We have just moved to four hour feeds at 6:00am, 10:00am, 2:00pm and 6:00pm etc. This has meant The good lady wife can get some much needed sleep but the hours are a little unforgiving. I'm getting in the 6:00am feed and then heading in to work and then getting in the 10:00pm feed in the evening. So you can see how the time is evaporating.

Long and the short of it. Less posts until we get sorted, possibly more links in the interim though.

Surprise!

Jackson, our son was born on August 22, 2009. four and a half weeks early by the dating from the scans but about two weeks early according to the pediatrician. He and the Good lady wife are doing well, I am so proud of both of them! I however am shattered. I'm going to try and get my thoughts together and post about it tomorrow. For now, here's a pic, check him out. He's awesome!

An unexacting science.

Yesterday, The good lady wife and I went for a routine check up at the maternity clinic. TGLW has been crazy tired this past couple of weeks and we suspected that the bub was going through a growth spurt. It certainly seems that this was the case. On measuring it appears that she has grown four centimetres in two weeks. Ouch!

Right, so what this means is, the boy is the size of a 38 week foetus instead of the 35 we were expecting. Now this just means he's a big bub and we have to book in for additional ultra sound scans leading up to the birth to make sure everything will be OK for the birth. But I'm not sure if this is entirely the case.

Getting back to the title of this post. The boy has been big from the beginning. We had a scan at 6 weeks in the UK, we thought it was early days but they did one anyway. The due date was set from this original scan. When we went back for the 12 week scan, the ultrasound technician said that if this was the first scan, she would have brought the date forward by a week. Edit: We have since worked out that based on the window of opportunity around the 12 week scan, the dating would be fairly well correct.

Every scan we have had since has come back big. We explain the above but the people at the hospital are always reluctant to bring the date forward. Now, I'm not a doctor so I'm going to have to trust them but we are getting to the business end of the pregnancy now and I'm starting to feel drastically unprepared, what if he is going to arrive early? I'm not ready! Turns out I was.

So today is all about ticking boxes, getting everything ready to go and tying up any loose ends so if by chance it all kicks off tomorrow, we're on it! Will report back tomorrow with what was achieved.

The eighth month

Yesterday at the great southland (A monster shopping centre in Melbourne) The good lady wife I got a bit jacked off with each other over a parking the car incident, we got over it quickly enough but I still felt a bit hard done by. Later that night I read the list below in What to Expect When You're Expecting and it kinda put the whole parking thing into perspective.

Fortunately for TGLW, she's not rocking all of these symptoms but the following is a list of how she might be feeling. Guys take note, she is probably rocking at least half of these symptoms, so seriously, let her tell you where to park the car!

Physically:

• Strong kicking
• Vaginal discharge
• Constipation
• Heartburn etc.
• Headaches, dizziness or feintness
• Nasal congestion, occasional nosebleeds and earaches
• Sensitive gums
• Cramps and backache
• Pelvic pain
• Swollen ankles / feet
• Varicose veins
• Haemorrhoids
• Itchy belly
• Popped out belly button
• Stretch marks
• Shortness of breath because all of her insides are crowded with the bub
• Crappy sleep
• Braxton Hicks
• Clumsiness
• Enlarged boobs (Yay!)
• Pre milk leaking from the nipples.

And on top of all that the emotional stuff:

• Hanging out for the pregnancy to be over
• Scared about the delivery and being a mum
• Absentmindedness
• And generally just more emotional

So yeah, you might say the whole parking the car thing, not such a big deal after all!

The Radness!

OK. So this is probably more of a design post than a fatherhood post but hear me out.

Now that I'm becoming a dad, my t-shirt collection is going to have to be put on hold, clearly, there are more important things coming my way than a fresh new shirt from alife or some such. I need to concern myself with looking after my wife and feeding and clothing a bub. What's that you say? Clothing a Bub?!

Now thanks to Tiny Mammoth, I can live vicariously through my child whilst providing an essential part of fatherhood. Designer Beci Orpin has created a range of kinda bent, super rad, kids clothes to combat the bland and boring, over priced or straight up inappropriate stuff that seems to dominate the stores.

Thank you Beci, I'm loving your work!

An introduction

The Good lady wife and I moved back to Australia from London eight weeks ago today. We moved in to our house and set about getting ready for the arrival of the bub. Everything is somehow now becoming real and the last four and a half years have all lead to this. (Moving home and starting a family, not starting a new blog).

Anyway... This blog is something I wanted to write as a bit of a diary of how things progress for my own record but also to hopefully be useful to someone else at some point. So along with the diary side of things, I'll post links and the what not relating to being a new dad, that I either find interesting, informative, relevant or funny.

So we're getting to the business end of the pregnancy and I'm still feeling pretty confident that everything is going to work out. Maybe you'll come back and see how we go or maybe not but either way, I'm going to do my best to put it down here. Hope to see you soon.