It's Fnordday, right? Yeah, I think that's it.
My sense of time is slipping, sucked away by a baby’s obliviousness to such things. Being self-employed is great. If I was still a corporate type, I'd be back at work by now, not spending time with my daughter, while getting work done at home. But it has its issues. Like my daughter and my wife, I no longer have a clear idea of what day of the week it is. For example, yesterday I decided I really needed a haircut, and made my first baby-free expedition out of the house this week. I strolled across the footbridge, stopped off at the patisserie for a treat, and arrived at my barber.
Oh. Wednesday. They're shut on Wednesday. Still. Can't waste the trip.
Coffee in Hector's Shed. They do a mean Americano in there. And the walk was good for me, right?
First dispatch from the nappy trenches
I’m a Dad. Here’s my first report from two weeks of nappies, feeds and broken sleep…
So, I'm a Dad. While the rest of the world was glued to the Olympics opening ceremony, I was glued to the sight of my wife going throught quite unnerving amounts of pain, as my baby daughter entered the world. Two weeks later, I'm finally beginning to take stock. And I've discoverd two things:
- Babies are quite extraordinarily boring
- They're also the most fascinating little creatures on the face of the planet.
There's an awful lot of just sitting/standing/walking around holding the little one. My Kindle's seeing action as I sit on the bed holding her while she settles down to sleep - my, uh, broad chest and lack of a milky smell seem more condusive to settling her down than Mum's - but sometimes, while I'm walking and patting waiting for a burp to come, it's pretty dull. I have a feeling I'll be using this time for podcast and audiobook listening in a few weeks' time.
And then, out of the blue, she'll fix her eyes on mine, and just stare at me. And I'm utterly rapt. The whole world falls away and its just me and my baby, and that's awesome. I lose chunks of time just watching her sleep, too. It's like a wierd fugue state where you just stare at her, losing all sense of time or place, and just revelling in parenthood.
She has her hooks in my brain - and she's not letting go.
"I prefer Fred"
I wrote a thing about the sad death of 1970s Doctor Who companion, Mary Tamm - the first Romana.
