Been a while since I wrote about the parenting thing. I should write more though as these moments aren’t really going to come round again. In my parent’s time (sorry Ma! I’m making you sound old!) they at least had the benefit of well trained cognitive functions to help them remember things. Nowadays as more and more of us (myself included) can’t seem to remember anything without needing online calendars, tasks lists or blogs perhaps storing some of my thoughts as well as photos in the great Internet cloud is a good thing. Besides one day when my son is an old man and living on Europa during the summer holidays perhaps he will do some research on what his old man had to say a while ago.
I suppose what I want to try and get down tonight (despite the rambling intro) is just some thoughts about how even the ‘down moments’ can sometimes be the most profound of a parents experience. Tonight my boy hasn’t been well – nothing too concerning. Just standard baby stuff he is working through so the bed routine was filled with a little bit more than your usual quotient of yelling and fussing. However when I had him propped up and ready for his evening bottle his demeanour changed and after his usual squawks of happiness/frustration at finally seeing his bottle he settled down into his usual routine of sucking down 210ml of formula at the fastest possible pace. Both he and I could finally just stop and have a look at each other. He has had an on/off day but a moment like that makes it an on day for me.
Last December he had a bit of a fright with a respiratory thing and ended up being checked over in hospital late at night. To see your pretty healthy baby boy being poked with needles and sensors attached to him isn’t the best of experiences at all (and my heart goes out to any parent who has to go through even longer stays of their children in hospital for whatever reason). But at about 2 in the morning after going home to get some stuff for my wife I had one of those moments which says a lot about being a dad and a parent.
I came back into A and E and my wife had just finished feeding him. She carefully laid him onto the bed ( making sure the cables were in the right place) and as his head was laid down in his drowsy state he saw me, smiled for a few seconds and then closed his eyes and went to sleep. That to me is what being a Dad is all about.
Cheers
Brian
