21st Century Boy (part 6)


“Mega Poonambi’s and Cbeebies”

So he arrived, our own 21st Century Boy, and life for a mid fifties Dad changed immediately….for the better I must say. 

When a new baby comes home, family and friends seem to state the obvious….”sleepless nights ahead” being one of the favourites. I’ll admit that I was expecting this but fortunately for myself I didn’t really experience very many, most mornings I woke up as usual, to be confronted by a tired and usually emotionally drained wife who hadn’t slept all night…..it turned out though that it wasn’t the new addition that was demanding her attention during the night but a certain 50 something male who kept her awake with his snoring! I was confused as my snoring was never a problem for myself as I always slept through it….in fact I slept like a baby but rarely wet the bed. So I banished myself from the bedroom and hoped this would help. It didn’t.

Now regular readers may recall that I successfully deterred any of my wife’s family from coming over from Turkey for the birth. I couldn’t stall them anymore and after a month her sister arrived for an extended stay. The first car trip we did was stressful…not because the little one was crying a lot but because wife and sister were insisting we should stop every time he cried. I did point out that he was crying  when we were in traffic jam and once we started moving quicker he would settle, my previous experience of this proved correct but still a 1 hour journey took over 2 hours. It didn’t take me long though to realise that agreement with the two sisters was probably my best course of action, especially if I ever wanted to wake up from a deep snore filled sleep again!

One thing that changes overnight when you have a child in the house is the choice of daytime viewing on the TV…..I used to enjoy, when no work commitments were available, watching the History Channel and other educational and fact based programmes that were on. Not anymore….now its Cbeebies….Disney Junior…..Nickelodeon and constant replays of “Little Baby Bum” and “Its Baby Big Mouth” on YouTube (worth looking these up Dad’s to be as minutes of entertainment can mean you’ll have a break for whatever you can do in a few minutes). Now this constant intake of TeleTubbies, Mr Tumble (I’m sure Operation Yewtree must have him on file) and the brain numbing confusion to an adult of In the Night Garden. The latter I had never seen before as it came into existence after my previous children had graduated to Power Rangers and Saved by the Bell.  Whoever came up with the In the Night Garden concept must have been on some type of medication. To me it seems like one of the main characters, Igglepiggle, is always trying to get into Upsy Daisy’s bed even though it is stated that only Upsy Daisy is allowed in her bed. What this is teaching our young generation I dread to think but as we are due to see a “live” version of the show in the next few weeks and I paid extra for the little one to meet Igglepiggle after the show, I fully intend to confront him and hopefully sell the story to the highest bidder, or get Jeremy Kyle involved.

I hadn’t realised how having childrens TV on, albeit in the background, had effected me until I was working one evening and sometimes I need to get the names of people I had photographed. I asked this lady for her name and she said Michelle, it was a bit noisy and I wasn’t sure what she said so asked her to spell it for me and she obliged “M..I…C…” and before she could continue I apparently said out loud “K…E…Y…M…O…U…S…E”

Whenever I was with little Jon I worked on his “first word” constantly saying “Dad Dad” or “Daddy” to imprint on his developing brain this important word, his Mother would try “Mum Mum” or “Ma” or “Anne” (pronounced annay and is Turkish for Mum), apparently the ma ma or  da da sounds are most commonly the first “words”…..Jon’s first word was “car”. Everything was “car”….I was “car” his Mum was “car” and when he actually saw a car he got even more excited “Carrrrrhhhh!!” Its been two years now and his word count is increasing, mum…..ball….cat….carc carc (for anything from eggs to chocolate) but still no “dad”, in fact I’m sure he’s doing it on purpose just to annoy me as when I say “daddy” or “da da” to him he seems to smirk and says “mum”.

I have, I hope, managed to be a good parent so far, sharing the responsibilities where I can, I have changed my fair share of nappies, including many that were filled with a mega poonami and his first undigested piece of sweetcorn!

My wife returned to work four months after his birth and I have been at home looking after him  the majority of the time when work allowed. This is my final blog about Jon and the IVF journey that brought him into our lives. He makes me and many more smile every day and is a joy to both his parents and we look forward to watching him grow and develop over the coming years. I hope I will be there for him, as I have tried to be for my older children, to be “Dads Taxi” when required….I’m even looking forward to “school runs” again.

Thank you for reading and hope my 21st Century Boy has entertained and in places educated you on the IVF process and how difficult it can be for many couples. As I said before we were and are very lucky many couples are not so please spare them a thought.

My next series of blogs will be on my trip to Pakistan last year, I hope you will enjoy them.

Now another image from my past for your viewing pleasure….this was taken during a sailing regatta off Eastbourne and I was in the rescue boat (we had to be rescued later as engine broke down) and this shot was pure luck and I was and still am pleased with it.

Flying Dutchman off Eastbourne

 

 

 

 

 

 

21st Century Boy (part 6) was last modified: May 7th, 2016 by Andy Huntley

One thought on “21st Century Boy (part 6)

  1. You are brilliant Andy, the story is incredible and they way you write is wonderful. Thankyou so much for all of this x

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