Diary of the Dad

Jobs for the boy

2012-03-06T13:31:00.000Z

I've recently been trying to think of ways in which Dylan can earn his keep and lighten the load once his little brother arrives. I'm talking in terms of conning him into believing that loading the washing machine and tidying up are the epitome of home entertainment rather than sending him up the chimney but, if some of his recent new 'things' are anything to go by, he may already be thinking about his future vocation.

"Put this in the machine? Sod off, Dad!"

For example, when he is on his changing mat, he has discovered that he can use his legs to slide away from me and underneath the airing rack. Once there, he'll happily rearrange the socks and pants while I fret about the possibility of him peeing both all over himself and the clean washing. So maybe a career as a mechanic awaits – for the avoidance of doubt, I'm basing that on the sliding around bit; I would never suggest that mechanics go to work with nothing on below the waist and piss everywhere. That would be rude.

If he's anything like me though which, given his recent obsessive behaviour, is entirely possible, he may not fancy the prospect of getting his hands dirty. Plus there's the fact that he likes organising things to such a degree that he makes In the Night Garden's resident OCD sufferer, Makka Pakka, look like a scruffy student. Maybe, in that case, he could earn his living in a sorting office. There's a sort of family history to this too – my Grandad was a Postmaster and I worked on the Post Office counter – so you never know.

How about a career as a referee instead?

My favourite option, however, emerged this week. We were at my parents' house and, having had a bowl of pre-dinner olives moved away from his reach as he'd been stuffing his face with them, Dylan proceeded to lean his top half on the coffee table and stretch towards them – in a perfect snooker player pose. I'm so proud! Maybe a wasted youth is calling but if it helps us pay off the mortgage early, I'm totally okay with that!

Around the world in 80 words: Marrakech

2012-02-28T13:40:00.000Z

I like this new travel micro blogging thing started by the one and only SAHDandproud so here we go with my second report. This time, I recall my trip to Morocco...

For a bloke who strokes snakes, he isn't half giving me a suspicious look...

Marrakech is the most insane place I've ever been. I loved it. The main square was complete chaos that left me amused and awestruck. The locals were friendly, even though most of them incessantly quoted Only Fools and Horses and called me 'Fish and Chips'. In fact, the whole holiday was a bit weird; I was in a taxi that got crashed into by a bus, saw goats up trees and had my swimming trunks nicked from my hotel balcony.

Going with the grain

2012-02-26T21:29:00.000Z

Dylan doesn't look like me [insert your chosen joke involving dairy product delivery staff of the male persuasion here]. He definitely takes after Kate in the looks department [insert your favourite witty remark pointing out that he got lucky and could have got my looks here] so, on what is perhaps a selfish, narcissistic level, I was looking forward to seeing something of me in him. Well now I have!

Yes, the lucky lad seems to have developed my obsessive tendencies. Oh dear... the post I just linked to was written a year ago today, as if to immediately prove my point. Anyway... as a child, I used to line up all my building blocks in a strange kind of order; what kind of order, I'm not entirely sure as they were all the same size and colour. Actually, scratch that; they didn't have a colour as such. They were wood colour. They were offcuts of some timber or other – I'd say they were beech, if pushed – that a carpenter friend of my parents had cut into cubes on the bandsaw, sanded through the grades and carefully finished for me in his workshop – can you tell I once earned a living on some woodwork magazines? They had their natural colour intact. I can only assume, therefore, that I sorted them in terms of the grain patterns on some of their edges, but maintain that this is an achievement.

Dylan has taken to doing something remarkably similar with some wooden skittles he has. Each one is a different animal and he likes to line them up in order of the shape of their heads. He seems to start with the spherical ones like the cat and monkey and works towards those with elongated profiles like the crocodile and dog. It's almost impossible to break his concentration when he's doing this; the only sure-fire way is if we try to eat some nice biscuits behind his back. Then he's all over us like a cheap suit. Needless to say, the assumption that all nice food is for him is one of my traits too. That's my boy! He also sometimes slaps me in the face, so it looks like he may have the angry streak I used to have before I became a dad. Ahhhh!

Meantime, he has also cultivated a particularly creepy habit of late. He lowers his head as if to look at the floor, but picks someone or something to focus his eyes upon and looks intently at them. He then starts to turn his head, but keeps his gaze fixed permanently on the subject as he moves. 'Shark eye' we call it. Neither Kate nor I are claiming any credit for that one...

Take action for ActionAid

2012-02-24T13:14:00.000Z

We often convince ourselves that we have real concerns that are, in the grand scheme of things, minor irritations at worst. In my case, these include the persistent mould that has taken up residence on the bathroom ceiling, how Tottenham are going to fare when Harry Redknapp inevitably takes the England job and even what I'm going to write about on here. First world problems, I call them. I was lucky enough to be invited along to an ActionAid blogger event last month. It was a great opportunity to meet some other bloggers and, more importantly, it gave me some much-needed perspective that booted my daft preoccupations well and truly into touch.

I have to confess that, although I've been aware of ActionAid for years, I didn't really know what they do. And what they do is a very worthy cause indeed. In short, their ultimate goal is a world without poverty and they seek to achieve this by working with the communities affected by it to fight hunger, seek justice for women and promote education for children. They also aim to help with emergencies.

ActionAid was founded in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity and that side of their work is still prominent today. By supporting them in this way, of course, donors are not just sponsoring an individual child, but their community as a whole. At the event, I met a wonderful couple who had sponsored a child in Lesotho and visited him to see how they had contributed to making a difference. The comedian Mark Watson was also in attendance and gave a talk about his experience of sponsoring and visiting a community in Senegal.

It was clear from both talks that seeing poverty – and, more positively, what is being done to combat it – first hand has a profound effect on all concerned. By the same token, given our fortunate position of knowing that we are never likely to be directly affected by it means that we will probably never truly understand it. But that is no excuse to do nothing.

If child sponsorship is not possible for you at the moment, there's still plenty that you can do to help ActionAid. Whether it's a one-off donation, getting involved in a fundraising event or even spreading the word of the essential work that ActionAid carries out via a blog of all things, you'll be contributing to making a difference and I'm sure it would be welcomed with open arms by the charity and the communities it serves.

Around the world in 80 words: Treviso

2012-02-21T13:25:00.000Z

This post has been inspired by the irritatingly funny SAHDandproud. He's come up with the brilliant idea of creating an alternative, online, user-generated travel book thingy – holiday guide 2.0 if you will – and, since he started it a few weeks ago, I've been meaning to join in. So here's my first foray into the world of citizen travel journalism; I give you my 80-word report on Treviso...

This lion statue looks pissed off. You would too if you lived in Treviso...

Described by various guide books as a 'little Venice', Treviso is no such thing. It's a bit turd really and there's hardly any chuffing water either. I wouldn't normally condone such things, but the graffiti on the insides of the pillars of the town hall provided the only interesting talking point of this ridiculously shit excursion. That and a bewildered looking statue of a lion. Thankfully, we went on a wine tasting trip on the way back and got pissed.

Potty mouth training

2012-02-19T22:03:00.000Z

Dylan is getting closer and closer to forming his first words and, while I'm really excited that he's getting so close to the milestone that will, I imagine, ultimately see us wishing he would cease asking existential questions and be quiet for just five minutes, I'm equally worried that the odd bit of Anglo Saxon will creep into his lingo worryingly early.

I know this is largely unfounded, but all parents worry about this kind of thing. Kate and I are both pretty good at the whole self-censorship thing and have toned down our potty-mouthed tendencies a lot since the little man arrived, but, now and then, the odd expletive does find its way into our dialogue. Take earlier today, for example. Having tired himself out shrieking at Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, Dylan was having a nap in his room and, although he was nice and warm, the room wasn't. We also have a baby monitor that beeps in, it has to be said, a really quite affronting fashion if the temperature drops below a certain level.

So there we were, having a rare bit of sane time when the monitor dutifully informed us that the room had dropped to 14 degrees. To my shame, my instant response was a really rather irate: "Shut the fuck up!" Two minutes later, and having warmed up a degree and dropped back again in the interim, it beeped at us again. "Oh, for fuck's sake!" sighed Kate. In our defence, we've had a frustrating weekend in which various utilities in our house have been doing their best to push us over the edge and Dylan was asleep and heard none of this, but I'm not exactly proud of mouthing of like that either.

The answer that we've come up with is a simple one. We've introduced a swear box and a vague grading system. We've decided that we'll pay the money into Dylan's bank account as a guilty form of compensation for any foul-mouthed tendencies he may pick up. The mighty C bomb costs a pound, as does its almost-as-offensive chum the F word. At the lower end of the scale, things like arse and bugger cost 20p. That sounds wrong on so many levels. Swearing like troopers in the evening and at work, however, is okay.

I've just checked his swear box – it's a Tottenham Hotspur money box that I got in the secret Santa at work – and, after a month or so of being strict with ourselves and it, I'm pleased to report that Dylan only has four quid in it. Maybe the fact that Spurs are doing so well this season is the reason the box is relatively empty...

Getting a handle on it

2012-02-12T20:38:00.000Z

It struck me recently that we have probably over indulged Dylan in certain respects. Not in terms of buying him too many toys or giving him too many treats, you understand. No, just with letting him be a little lazy with things he could be doing for himself. I don't think of this as a major parenting fail at all though – he's our first child so we're learning as much as he is and the only thing we're guilty of is enjoying looking after him. With his little brother now due in just seven weeks, however, the reality of the imminent arrival has spurred us on to spur him on so things will be a bit easier for all concerned when we're once again up to our sleep-deprived eyeballs in meconium and, I'm delighted to report, a couple of major battles have been won!

Until last week, he still wouldn't hold his bottles or cups and feed himself with them. We knew he was more than capable of doing so but, whenever we had tried pushing the issue, he was having none of it and we just gave in – a lazy Dylan seemed infinitely preferable to a furious Dylan. Somehow or other, however, we have made a breakthrough and he has now been feeding himself his milk with no fuss for a couple of days. We had bought some handles that fit on the bottle a few weeks previously but, until now, he still seemed to be apathetic about the whole thing.

We still don't know what the decisive factor was – maybe we caught him in the right mood, maybe he'd seen something on telly about it being what the cool kids do these days or maybe it was something to do with planetary alignment. Whatever it was, I don't really give a monkey's as long as he keeps it up. Thinking about it, maybe the new addition was the key difference and that, beforehand, Dylan wouldn't work 'cause the vandals took the handles. Maybe...

Anyway, this got me thinking about whether we could capitalise while he was on a roll and, only this morning, I tried broaching the subject of him feeding himself with a spoon. It was a gamble; last time I tried, his reaction would be best described as all the worst things in the bible. Thankfully, after a little initial reluctance, he took to it. I had to load up the spoon for him each time, but he quite happily lifted it and ate from it with minimal mess and did so again at lunchtime with an audience. I'll take that!

The baby books would have it that he should have been doing such things ages ago, but bollocks to them! I'm a believer that kids will learn things at their own pace and it seems that a couple of proverbial pennies have dropped. He knows he's achieved something good too – we can see it on his face – it's just below where the solitary bit of yoghurt that did miss his mouth was. We couldn't be prouder of him right now. Good lad!

Stay 'appy' this Valentine's Day with Next

2012-02-07T17:32:00.008Z

Ah, Valentine's Day. That one day in the calendar that, more than most, strikes fear into the hearts of usually confident couples up and down the country! It's strange that people worry so much about getting their other half the right thing when they know them so well, but it's something we all seem to panic about as soon as we venture into our nearest shopping centre.

Contrary to what people say about it being the thought that counts, it is possible to buy the wrong thing. I know, because I was once on the receiving end. One Valentine's Day many years ago, I was given a battery-powered Lara Croft Tomb Raider toothbrush by my then girlfriend. Nothing says "you have bad breath, play too many video games and ogle impossibly-proportioned women behind my back" quite like that, I'm sure you'll agree.

Well thanks to the nice people at Next and their brand new Valentine's Gift and Outfit Selector app, that need not be a problem this year. Simply answer a few easy questions and the app will come up with some handy suggestions for what to get your loved one. Job done.

It's also on hand to help you pick what to wear on your night out in case you're not sure what to go for. Nifty eh? And, all being well, the app should appear at the bottom of this post. You have seven days, my friends. Happy shopping!

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These boots were made for walking

2012-02-05T14:24:00.000Z

Since I started writing this blog, I've compared Dylan to a lot of different animals, people and fictional characters. In this post, I'm going a step further and likening him to a mentalist who somehow became Roman Emperor. Yes folks, we have a mini Caligula on our hands.

Dylan couldn't believe it when I compared him to Caligula...

For those of you who know little about Caligula – I, for one, knew bugger all about him until Kate and I wrote a couple of chapters of this book – his name means 'Little Boots'. As a child he spent a lot of time with the Roman army and had his own small pair of military boots and the nickname stuck. It's probably fair to say that Caligula got a bit big for his boots, given some of the stuff that he got up to and the same can be said of Dylan when he's donning his new pair of wellingtons.

Kate tried them on him the other day and, I'm reliably informed, he was soon swaggering around the house with a huge grin on his chops. Three hours later when I got home from work, he was still sporting both the boots and the smile. Kate had tried taking his boots off, but he wasn't having any of it. He was very pleased with himself in his footwear, thank you very much and, as far as he was concerned, these boots were most definitely made for walking.

Going back to the Roman nutjob, he also had his soldiers march towards Britain with every intention of invading, but changed his mind at the last minute and had them collect sea shells instead. This is very much in keeping with Dylan's penchant for collecting things and putting them in piles. He hasn't rounded up other kids his age and advanced on France yet though. That's where the similarities to Caligula abruptly end though. The tyrant did some awful things with and to his sister – this being a family blog, we won't go into those here – and was ultimately assassinated by a group of men, one of whom cited Caligula's persistent mickey-taking of his voice as his motivation. Thankfully I can't see Dylan ever being involved in such things.

The fact that our little man seems to like his boots so much is, of course, a good thing. Kids can be particular about things like this, so it's one less battle for the future. Plus, of course, there are many benefits to having your feet in your wellies...

Now you see me, now you don't

2012-01-29T17:12:00.000Z

Something strangely unnerving but nonetheless intriguing struck me recently; it's quite possible that this blog I've quite happily been chuntering on about being a dad on is really quite blinkered. Not blinkered in terms of bias, you understand; Dylan is, naturally, the epitome of awesomeness. No, blinkered in terms of the fact that there's probably quite a lot that I don't actually know about him. The fact that there may be what is essentially a hidden side to someone I think the world of is strange to say the least. This isn't a woe is me, crisis of confidence post, however. Allow me to explain...

I've spent a fair bit of time at home lately, partly due to sometimes working from there, partly due to later starts when I get to go to cool social media things with my new job and partly due to the bout of zombie eye I had to get 2012 off to a belter. The upshot of this is that I've had much more time with Kate and Dylan which, of course, is fantastic. Exciting too, as Dylan has been doing all kinds of new things. Again, this is brilliant, but it's made me realise that there have probably been numerous subtle little nuances that I've missed over the last 18 months. For example, every day I discover that he understands more words. Even though he's not actually speaking yet, his vocabulary is quite large – how long has he known some of them? The answer may be ages!

I have to commute to and from work; I leave the house at 7.30am and don't get back until getting on for 6.30pm so, all said, I probably see him for a little over an hour every day. Even less if he decides to have a lie in. That leaves him a pretty big window of opportunity to do new things! Kate, of course, keeps me informed of the main things he gets up to but, with no disrespect to her, seeing something for yourself and hearing about it are two different beasts. I imagine this is the same situation facing most parents who have to spend the majority of the week at work. The frustrating thing being a working parent is that there is no solution to the lost time – other than a lottery win, which isn't very likely. As my esteemed boss would so eloquently put it, we've all got more chance of pissing in the Queen's handbag.

So with no sudden windfall or, indeed, unsavoury abuse of our monarch's accessories in the offing, the only thing to do is embrace the time we do get with our families, accept the fact that we may miss the odd thing and generally live for the weekend! What do other parents think? How much do you think we see – or don't see – of our little ones' personalities?

I'm in the club... apparently

2012-01-18T22:09:00.000Z

With baby number two on the way, I decided to join the parenting club of a well-known high street chemist recently. Big news, I know; hold the front page and all that. Signing up was a no-brainer; the loyalty points system is easily one of the most generous – especially once you're in the club, so to speak – stuff is easy to find in their stores and, most importantly, I didn't want to be the only parent in England without one of the free changing bags. So it's all good, right? Well not quite. Maybe I'm being too touchy about it, but the email newsletters I have received to date are a little dismissive of dads.

On the face of it – and I speak as an experienced communications professional as well as a punter here – their emails are friendly, well targeted and informative. They are to the expectant mums of this world anyway. Take last week's effort, for example. After the salutation, it said. "Your partner is 28 weeks pregnant" – fine so far. In fact, I was impressed that it had actually acknowledged my part in the relationship. But that's where it stopped making an effort. Evidently, the first rule of parenting club is that you don't talk about... well, the role of dads, actually.

It then went on to tell me that I should be in 'full bloom' but that I may experience some Braxton Hicks contractions and need to urinate more often. I'm also apparently supposed to cut back on tea and coffee after 8pm. Still, the update that serendipitously happened to arrive shortly before Christmas and told me not to worry about a rapid spurt of weight gain at this stage was, I confess, comforting.

I'm under no illusions that men represent anything more than a small fraction of the club's membership or, indeed, that the poor attention to detail is an intentional snub to dads, but this really isn't good enough. In adding the line telling me how pregnant Kate is, they are acknowledging the existence of us men, so why has the remaining copy not been treated to two minutes of basic editing to finish the job? Whether it's intentional or not, it suggests that dads don't matter. In fact, if it is unintentional and we have therefore reached the point where fathers didn't even spring to mind when these updates were composed, I think it only makes matters worse.

People I've whinged to about this have agreed with me, but most have said something to the effect of "well yes, but you accept it as a poor job and get on with it." But why should we? It enrages me. Despite the fact that attitudes towards parenting have changed considerably over the last two or three decades, the fallacy that dads are second-class parents seems to be alive and well. This retailer is not on its own in neglecting to consider us, however. I have encountered numerous adverts and email communications which are apparently aimed at all parents, but that have literally referred to mums and mums only.

Being a parent is a wonderful thing and I always tell people who haven't had children yet that it's the best thing they'll ever do. I strongly believe that. Clubs like this are great for making expectant mums feel special about their imminent arrivals, it's just sad that so little has been done to make dads feel special about them too.

Look who's (nearly) talking

2012-01-15T17:20:00.000Z

Like most parents, Kate and I both worry about when Dylan is going to reach the various important developmental stages that will eventually see him complete his transformation from baby to little boy. It's probably irrational to do so, but it has to be said that most baby books have a lot to answer for with what are basically sweeping generalisations.

I remember how much we fretted about when he was going to take his first steps. We seemed to take it in turns at being the worrier, saying something to the effect of "But the book says he should have been walking over a month ago!" only for the other to jump in with the sound point that children develop at their own pace. And develop he did. In fact, he's gone a fair bit further and developed quite a fast pace; it can be tricky keeping up with him now! But even with the reassurance of knowing that kids learn stuff in their own time, nothing beats seeing the signs that a monumental achievement may well be on the horizon. Yes, it looks like Dylan is getting closer and closer to speaking.

We already know that he understands a lot of different words and phrases and that he can differentiate between similar sounding ones – he's been able to for quite a while, in fact. For example, 'goodbye' and 'good boy' can sound pretty much the same to anyone. We know he can hear the difference between them though - the former earns you a wave, while he'll applaud himself for the latter. And why not eh?! He seems to have a good grasp of sound too and has, on occasion, started repeating what we say in noise form. I know he is doing this as the number of sylables are always spot on, as is the intonation. Clever boy!

He also seems to be starting to embrace the parrot-fashion way of learning – and not just with words either... I'm asthmatic and have to take an inhaler as and when I need it. Dylan, the cheeky little scamp, has started imitating my breathing while putting his hand to his mouth as if using one of his own! Another endearing little habit he has acquired of late is reacting to pictures of animals with impressions of them. Obviously, making monkey noises comes as second nature to him, but he also does quite a passable frog and snake.

So although the books would have us believe that we ought to be tearing our hair out and looking for the number of a decent speech therapist, I'm pretty relaxed about it. He'll start talking our legs off soon enough and is showing plenty of signs that he's going to be as verbose as his old man. Time to enjoy the peace while it lasts, methinks!

Respect my authoritah!

2012-01-08T20:22:00.000Z

I had to tell Dylan off the other day. It felt weird. Until recently, I’ve only ever had to tell him not to do something pretty minor like hitting the television – although if Waybuloo is on at the time, I can’t really blame him – or to warn him against dropping things down the back of the sofa. This was completely different and disconcerting. We’d been playing on the floor and I was lying down when he walked up to me, raised both hands above his head and slammed them down onto my stomach. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a WWE match – or whatever it is the pumped-up actors in spandex call their show these days. I was surprised at the force of the blow, but more taken aback that it entered his mind to do it in the first place.

I knew I had to make him aware of the fact that he had been naughty, but was caught off guard and probably took the wrong course of action; I put him in his cot for all of two minutes and stood quietly in the corridor outside in case he got too upset. I’m sure he knew I was there as well. Rubbish! Even though my efforts at teaching him some discipline were fundamentally pathetic, I still felt awful about it. When I went to get him afterwards, he was all sad and clingy. Talk about guilt tripping!

Until now, he’s never done anything that can be properly classified as naughty and is generally a very good little boy, so this threw me. We’ve always rewarded good behaviour with hugs and applause, so he must have a notion of what’s right and wrong. And while it was always inevitable that he was eventually going to test his and our boundaries, the concept of bad cop in our house is an alien one. Both Kate and I are going to struggle with that role. When I took him to his room, I had a horrible feeling inside that I was being too severe, though I’m sure I wasn’t. It looks like we’re going to have to introduce a naughty corner for such occasions soon – not a naughty step mind, I wouldn’t leave him alone on the stairs anyway and he’d only climb them and empty all the drawers.

So it looks like I’m going to have to man up a bit and find an authoritative side. Looking to some famous fellas you wouldn’t mess with for inspiration, I don’t think channelling my inner Hulk would work – of the Incredible variety, you understand, not Hogan; Dylan would definitely think it was all an act if it that were the case. Nope, Bruce Banner’s alter-ego is too angry.

Instead, what about everybody’s favourite retired Italian referee Pierluigi Collina? Every player respected him and games were rarely punctuated by his whistle, but everyone knew who was boss. A good choice – especially as I’m actually a qualified referee myself – but not quite right. I would be terrifying with a bald head. Combining a vague recollection of something I saw years ago with the power of the internet, however, I have come up with a potential role model. Check this video out!

Job done. My inner Mr T it will be. Dylan would respect my authoritah – sorry, South Park has permanently altered the way I say that phrase – and still think I’m awesome. Unless, of course, he misbehaves on an aeroplane; then I’d be in trouble...

Zombie eye!

2012-01-05T18:38:00.000Z

Regular readers of Diary of the Dad may know that I have a bit of a morbid fascination with all things zombie related and, in the best traditions of undead hordes, references to them creep into my posts here and there. In my first ever one, for example, I wrote about how I had finally emulated my silver screen heroes due to the way I was lumbering around the house in a sleep-deprived state during the first few weeks after Dylan was born. Well now I’m starting to look the part too!

It's looking at you!

Thanks to a bout of conjunctivitis of indeterminate origin – as well as the fact that I already had bad teeth – I am cultivating a look that is more than a wee bit reminiscent of some of the extras in George A Romero and Lucio Fulci’s finest splatterfests. Woot. If you add to this the fact that I live near Eastbourne where everybody seems to walk really slowly due to the rather large population of senior citizens who call the town home, I have an almost perfect opportunity to pop down to the Arndale Centre to act out my Dawn of the Dead fantasies.

I’ll be honest with you though; looking like a flesh-devouring fiend isn’t all it cracked up to be. It stings a lot and has given me the same aversion to light that most sane vampires have – not including the half-arsed ones in the Twilight series who shimmer in sunlight of course, but that’s a vitriolic rant for another time – and looking at a computer screen has been a nightmare, which is a bit of a pain seeing as my new job is in social media. Indeed, this post took me several two-minute bursts to complete – I kid you not.

Worried that I may have the highly contagious variety of ‘zombie eye’, my boss quite sensibly sent me home until I had the nod from the good doctor that all was well. Fair enough. But take a look at this picture of my brilliant ‘thank you for your work in 2011’ present from said esteemed boss. Did he know about my impending transformation? Spooky!

One word: awesome

Do you remember the first time?

2012-01-01T18:12:00.000Z

It struck me the other day that I haven't written much about the fact that Kate and I are expecting our second child this year. I guess that's because the last few months of 2011 were insanely busy for us and, by the time we had the second scan, all eyes were on the commercial/binge drinking festival we affectionately call Christmas.

The truth is that I, for one, haven't really had it at the top of my list of worries – after all, we've done it all once before and that was with the added stress of moving house just a month before Dylan was born. While I'm sure there are plenty of parenting things that we could have done better, he is an absolute delight, so there's nothing to fret about, right? Well that was certainly the case until midnight struck on the idiot box last night, anyway. As we watched tax payers' money literally going up in smoke over London, to the sound of some peculiar musical mashups, the realisation that Dylan's little brother is due in just over three months hit me with considerable force. Shiiiiiiiit!

In terms of all the actual stuff we'll need, we're pretty much there, it's just a question of being mentally prepared. And I'm not. Not yet anyway. That's not to say I'm not looking forward to it – far from it, this was planned and I can't wait to meet laddo's new partner in crime. I just have so many nagging questions in my head. Like, for example, how is Dylan going to react? How are we going to manage two little monsters when they both kick off at the same time? And when, pray tell, am I going to have the chance to play Max Payne 3?! I'm sure all of this will be fine and we'll happily wing it like we did last time – even the Max Payne bit; I somehow managed to play most of Red Dead Redemption with Dylan fast asleep on me and the volume right down – but there's still one slight concern... I literally cannot remember what to do with a new baby!

It was great to see my sister and her family at Christmas and when I was asked if I wanted to bottle feed my three-month-old niece I jumped at the chance, but it felt like I'd never held a child of that age before; I seem to have forgotten absolutely everything about the early days. I'm not sure how this has happened; I've always had a very good memory. I recall speaking to a friend about the first few weeks of being a dad shortly after Dylan was born and asking him about his experiences, only to be baffled as to how he couldn't remember much about them. Now I'm exactly the same. Was I that sleep deprived that stuff just didn't stick in the memory? Maybe the first month was so traumatic that I have erased it from my mind? Who knows?!

One thing that I do remember, however, is the Community Midwife telling us on her first visit to our house that, although Dylan was then only three days old, we knew him better than anyone else. I think this was meant to inspire us, but it only served to scare the crap out of me and that's kind of how I feel now. Still, we managed and think we've done a good job so far; let's hope it all comes back to me... quickly!

You lucky b*stard!

2011-12-21T13:28:00.002Z

"You lucky bastard! You lucky, lucky bastard!" That's what one of Michael Palin's plethora of characters in Monty Python's Life of Brian would be saying to me right now. I've had a good year. A really bloody good year, in fact. So, in the best traditions of TV shows that take the lazy way out for their last episode of a series by stringing together a bunch of highlights with the occasional out-of-usual-character links between clips, here are a few of the things that contributed to me defining myself as a lucky bastard this year.

A lucky bastard complete with Movember effort

Dylan has achieved all manner of exciting milestones in 2011 and it's not possible to pick a favourite. My younger but infinitely wiser sister – who has two kids – says that every stage is allowed to be your favourite and that makes sense to me. That said, Dylan turning one and then learning to walk and subsequently kick a ball have to be up there!

Step one: walking. Step two: kicking a ball. Marvellous!

Moving on to something that has definitely opened up some fantastic new opportunities for me, I won my category in the MAD Blog Awards. I still find it hard to believe, so thanks again to all you lovely people who voted for me.

Dylan gets his grubby mitts on the MADs trophy

Starting this blog got me interested in using Twitter more and I've since made a lot of friends as a result. It also got me more into social media, which resulted in me getting a fantastic new job at work. I've been doing the web 2.0 stuff on top of my day job for the charity I work for for a few years now, but now it's my full-time occupation. It's going to be a lot of fun too. See? I'm jammy, but I'm keeping my feet on the ground.

For a while, said feet were cold due to a frustrating quest for the perfect pair of slippers. Thankfully, however, egged on by my blogging chum SAHDandProud I found them. We then hijacked somebody else's blog with our footwear purchases. She thought it was funny though – thanks Transatlantic Blonde!

Yes! I got them, I bloody got them!

Of course, as I've been so lucky, it's nice to give something back and I hope that's what I've done with this here book. Dad bloggers are in the minority, so I thought it would be a good idea to showcase a few of them in an anthology. My good pal Tim Atkinson helped make this possible and even let me edit it. Thanks Tim!

It's full of excellent bloggers. You should buy a copy...

Saving the best for last, though, Kate and I found out that we are expecting our second child next year. We're delighted and terrified in equal measure!

So there you go. I've been very fortunate indeed this year and I'm truly grateful for all of it. I hope that this time next year – or, of course, right now – I can call you a bunch of lucky bastards too.

Merry Christmas!

The cheek of it!

2011-12-18T12:07:00.000Z

Dylan is becoming cheekier by the day and, let's not tiptoe around the subject, has become a right little piss taker! He is a very good boy for the most part and we're really lucky on that score. That said, he does seem to relish the opportunity to take the Mickey on a regular basis.

For example, he knows what 'no' means, but views that monosyllabic uttering of caution as a gauntlet that he willingly picks up and runs with, sporting a huge grin at the same time. He still hasn't grown out of his favourite game of smacking me in the mouth and also has a new hobby of jumping up and down on the sofa if we turn our backs for more than a couple of seconds. He also knows that Kate keeps a supply of emergency rice cakes in her handbag for when we're out and about. What he does with this is even cheekier; he doesn't just help himself, he brings them to us and offers us the chance to offer him one. Naughty boy!

It's not just with breaking the rules, however, oh no! The other day I got hiccups. Did he look concerned that his poor Daddy didn't seem to be breathing properly? Fat chance! He just imitated me, waiting for each hiccup so that he could copy it and then chortle with a mischievous look in his eye. Kate has been on the receiving end of his new-found boldness too. Yesterday he kept walking up to her and pinching her arm then running away and laughing his arse off. I offered him my arm instead to check if it was just Kate he was targeting – he just shoved me out of the way and pinched her again. Evidently it was; cheeky little monkey!

The real problem is that we find his boundary testing funny and can't help but laugh sometimes, which I know will only serve to reinforce his naughty antics. In a way, it's like being back at primary school and getting 'assembly laugh', but how can you fail to giggle at a 17-month-old child who has recently started doing a victory dance every time he thinks he's got away with an act of cheek? So I suppose we're both asking for it a little, me in particular for being the parent he has inherited this trait from and also for writing posts that compare him to Hellboy.

His little brother/partner in crime is due in April; I fear the two of them are going to be quite a double act...

Red right hand

2011-12-15T14:35:00.000Z

The funny little foibles that all young children have intrigue me and Dylan has developed a new one which, although I'm sure is not at all unusual in kids his age, I find hilarious. While a lot of toddlers have a teddy, blanket or something basically soft that they use as a comforter, our little man has become inseparable from his plastic stacking cups!

He won't let go of them and they go wherever he does – be it bed, the bath or even when he's eating. He usually holds them in such a way that makes one hand more than a tad reminiscent of Hellboy's meaty right fist. Thankfully, that's pretty much where the similarities to the superhero end; we know for a fact that he wasn't made by occult-dabbling Nazis and we don't live in a multi-cat household. Phew.

I digress. This, of course, can be more than a little inconvenient. The other day, for example, he was a little sad about something – maybe someone told him that Rasputin could have him in a fight – and Kate picked him up to give him a cuddle, only to get socked in the chops by Dylan's plastic Right Hand of Doom as he tried to fling his arms around her neck. Putting him down for his nap can be a tricky manoeuvre too – if we accidentally knock the cups out of his hands or try to prise them from his grip once he's asleep, we get to witness first-hand the only other thing he does have in common with Hellboy: his temper!

We do, however, always have every parent's favourite secret weapon of distraction up our sleeves and, on occassion, Dylan can be persuaded to put them down for a short while. This strategy isn't foolproof though – he goes and gets something else that he won't be parted from. Other objects he has been known to wander around with of late include the plastic casing from one of my empty inhalers, a nappy – a clean one, thankfully – and his toothpaste.

I write this as Dylan is upstairs having a nap – with one of his empty bottles, naturally. He's probably dreaming of defeating a former member of Bros and one day having a pyrokinetic girlfriend...

Exclusive: Who Let the Dads Out? Out now!

2011-12-09T16:50:00.000Z

Remember how I had the daft idea that I could pull a book together in a fortnight and my blogging pal Tim Atkinson had the equally silly notion that he could get it published in time for Christmas? Well we've only bloody well gone and done it! Yes, dear reader, Who Let the Dads Out? is out now and available to order. I think that's worthy of celebration: whoop! Ahem. Anyway, here it is:

Some 20 odd dad bloggers have chosen their favourite posts to go in this anthology which has been published by the Dotterel Press. It was hard work, but we're really pleased with it and are confident that you'll like it too.

You can order your copy here for a little over a fiver. With so much fantastic writing talent between its covers, we reckon that's a bargain price!

Big thanks to everyone who contributed, we hope that it'll get the dad bloggers of the world a little more recognition and hopefully inspire a few other dads to try their hands at blogging.

We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear your feedback!

Dynamo Dylan the wing wizard?

2011-12-04T20:27:00.000Z

I’m writing this post shortly after getting back from my weekly game of five-a-side football and am absolutely delighted to report that Dylan has recently been showing some signs of being interested in the beautiful game himself. Aside from his prowess when it comes to picking a semi-decent fantasy football team, he has started to demonstrate some of the key attributes of a top Premier League player – not that I’m getting carried away with this at all.

He’s only really been walking confidently for a couple of months, but he can already kick a ball and sort of dribble it too. Admittedly, when I pass his oversized foam ball to him, his normal reaction is to pick it up and throw it back at me, but when the mood takes him, he can keep it at his feet for a few kicks. Not bad eh? Better still, he always seems to kick with his left foot. Plus, he often walks on the balls of his feet and can get to an impressive pace. While this prancing is more than a tad reminiscent of the gait of the marionettes in Team America, it also suggests he’s going to be a good sprinter.

Kate and I were both good sprinters too, so I don’t think I’m clutching at straws here: he’s going to be a top-class winger! Could he be the answer to England’s much-lamented left-side problem? An English Gareth Bale, perhaps? I can only hope so. Of course, to be a handy wide player, you need stamina and Dylan’s got bucket loads of that too – I’ve lost count of the number of times that he has been at the point of dropping off for his daily nap and suddenly found a second wind.

There are plenty of other signs too – whenever Jeff Stelling appears on the television, Dylan smiles at him. He hasn’t laughed at any of his puns mind. He also joins in when I celebrate Tottenham scoring. Good lad! Best of all, the football we play with seems to have become his favourite toy and he has been known to pick it up as a comforter. He even falls asleep with his arm round it – something that he hasn’t yet done with any of his teddies. Judging by this picture, maybe he’ll choose to play between the sticks instead...

The reflexes of a cat... and the ability to sleep like one too!

What's in a name?

2011-11-27T09:38:00.000Z

Did you know that Mark Twain gave his cats deliberately odd names to help children develop their linguistic skills? The things you learn working for a feline-specific animal welfare charity! I love little facts like that and, as I have a mild fascination with language too, think that any little tricks like that should be copied.

And so it is that, in lieu of any pets – we love cats but, sadly, they play havoc with my asthma – all of Dylan's toys have names. We hope that, as he begins to talk, it'll help him with different sounds. That said, we have given them rather silly names – while Twain's moggies were given monikers that encouraged verbal aerobics, our little man's toys are altogether more daft. He has one of those musical seahorse things that helps soothe him to sleep when all else fails. This is called Gavin. He also has a zebra called Jennifer, a leopard called Jurgen, a caterpillar called Eric and a penguin known as Owen. There's no rhyme nor reason to them; it all started off for our own amusement.

I blame my dad for this. He gave my toys strange names – probably for the same reason as he's a linguist by trade. My favourite one when I was little was a collectable Andrex puppy that my grandparents went through numerous toilet rolls to acquire. It's strange that I loved that toy so much; I've never liked dogs – we just don't get on – but we were inseparable. Dad being Dad decided to call it 'Bog Dog'. I know. It raised eyebrows on the numerous times I lost him and was subsequently heard bawling his name out – particularly when I had to go into hospital for an operation to fix my terrible hearing. When we eventually got him back from Eastbourne DGH, he had one of those ID wristbands they normally reserve exclusively for newborn babies. 'Bog Dog Briggs' it said. Oh dear.

Speaking of dogs, Dylan recently got given a cuddly toy dog by Kate's aunt. For whatever reason, we hadn't given it a name. Until the following video – which needs sound, just in case you've not seen it yet – went viral last week...

Having resisted the overwhelming urge to call it Jesus Christ, we went with Benton – and then corrected that to Fenton when we realised that, like most of the internet, we had misheard it. I've got a hearing test at work tomorrow – it seems well timed, but I won't be taking Bog Dog...

Movember update: one week to go!

2011-11-23T13:27:00.000Z

Okay, so I meant to write a Movember update every week and, due to a combination of tiredness, laziness and work rudely getting in the way, missed out last time, oops. Anyway, there is one week left of me sporting this strange face furniture and I have to say I'm pleased with how it's going. Here's the latest mugshot...

Apart from getting some strange looks from a few people on the train as well as the silent treatment from the dustmen who, it has to be pointed out, always used to say good morning back to me when our paths crossed in the mornings, I think I've got away with looking like a complete fool for the last three weeks.

I've also made over £80 myself, while my team, Cats Motection, has raised well over £600. A big thank you to everyone who has kindly donated to me and my Mo Bros so far. Good results all round although, on a personal achievement level, I'd love to take my fundraising total to over £100. If you can spare a quid or two, I'd be most grateful for your support. Movember is a fantastic way of raising funds for an important cause, so please give what you can and feel free to ridicule me in the comments section below.

You can donate via my Movember page here

Thank you.

Today, the Recycle Bin, tomorrow the world...

2011-11-20T11:51:00.000Z

Dylan has been doing lots of new things lately and there are no two ways about it, the little monkey is getting cheekier by the day. It seems as though he had it all stored in reserve for once he’d cracked walking, because since we took him out for his first stroll in real, big boy shoes, he has been a right little scamp!

Look at the mischief on that face. Monkey.

The other day, for example, he got into the kitchen because I was fixing the safety gate which had become stuck, and had left it open. There was no problem with this, I was in there so he couldn’t get up to anything to put himself in any danger, but this didn’t stop him making a beeline for the cupboard under the sink replete with its collection of chemical nasties. “Dylan, no!” I said to him in a firm, authoritative tone. “Ner, ner, ner!” was his reply, a huge grin across his little face. He knew he was taking the Mickey and also that I was telling him off. To his credit, he left the cupboard alone, but the look he gave me said something like “Now listen here, old boy, you know that I’m in charge here and could open it if I so desired. I shall humour you on this occasion, however.”

The next day, he decided he was going to have a go at computer hacking. I had left my laptop on the sofa for all of a minute. Kate got there in time to see Dylan confirming that, yes, he did want to delete the thing he had elected to. “What was it?” I hear you ask. The book I’m working on? Thankfully no. Our wedding pictures? Again, I’m relieved to report it wasn’t those either. No, Dylan somehow managed to delete the Recycle Bin. Not just any old word document or picture file, oh no, he managed to delete the facility for deleting things. We have a criminal mastermind on our hands! We still haven’t managed to work out how he did it or, indeed, how to fix it properly. Did we learn from this? Of course not. I caught him playing with it again a few days later. I uttered the same ticking off and his response was to simply cover his eyes and laugh. Apparently that meant I couldn’t see or hear him while he tried hacking into the Pentagon.

We went for our second scan on Monday and, once we’d established that everything was well, we were offered to find out the gender of Baby Briggs #2. The news is that we’re expecting another boy. We’re delighted, but also all too aware of the fact that Dylan will quickly turn his little brother into a sidekick en route to his megalomaniac plans. Today, the Recycle Bin, tomorrow the world!

Calling all dad bloggers!

2011-11-12T11:19:00.000Z

This is going to be a brief post and possibly my shortest yet; I've committed myself to an exciting project with a rather tight deadline and time, as they say, is of the essence. To cut a long story short, I had an idea for a book ages and ages ago and promptly forgot about it until I bumped into Tim Atkinson at the MAD Blog Awards. Talking to him about his excellent book, the idea popped back into my head and I found myself blurting it out.

To my amazement, Tim thought the idea was a good one and we are now working on it. To get it available in time for Christmas. I kid you not. The book in question is about dad bloggers. There are plenty of us about, but we are very much in the minority in the parent blogging community. I thought it would be nice, therefore, to use and abuse Tim's experience and connections to release an anthology of already-blogged posts by us dads to get us all a bit more attention. He agreed. Top man.

So I guess what I'm asking in a roundabout sort of way is for dad bloggers to submit their favourite posts – and, ideally, they need to be about being a dad/what your kids get up to rather than something like one of my random posts about slippers – for inclusion in the book. All I need are the links to the specific post and your Twitter name so I can contact you when questions inevitably spring to mind. I'm afraid that there is no payment involved, just the smug satisfaction of seeing your words in print. Trust me though, that's a wonderful feeling that you can't put a price on!

You can either post your links and Twitter names in the comments section below or tweet them to me.

Interested? Then fire away! You've got until Saturday 19 November to allow me time to put everything together in time for going to print the following week. Go!

Movember update: one week down!

2011-11-09T11:28:00.000Z

We're already nine days into the month that used to be known as 'November' and, for those of you have humoured me with encouraging comments, this is my first Movember update. I'll let you judge how I'm doing from the photo below, but I'm happy with how it's looking so far. The idea was to look as daft as possible and I'm confident that I'm on course to look ridiculous before the month is out.

As you can see, I've opted for a Mexican bandit/Redneck trucker/Village People effort. It mostly joins together, but there's one slight bald patch and one 'chin strap' is slightly longer than the other, but it fits in with my overall aim of looking silly, so I'm almost happy.

I say 'almost' because, while the tache is doing well, I feel I could raise a lot more for a brilliant cause. Now here's the guilt trip bit: today is my birthday. I have reached that oh-so-significant milestone of 32 and, having everything I actually need in life, all I want is to raise a few more quid for charitable causes hell bent on kicking cancer's arse. Well, that and the new Batman game, which I am quietly confident someone has got for me anyway.

So if you can spare a couple of pounds – and that's all it needs to be – it would be gratefully appreciated by me and my Mo Bros in Team Cats Motection. If you can, please donate on my Movember page and I promise not to make my next update such a begging one.

Thanks everyone!

Your shout, Dylan

2011-11-06T10:27:00.000Z

We took Dylan to a Christening last weekend. It was the first event of its sort that we've taken him to, mainly because it's the first thing that we've been invited to as a family – indeed, the bump that is laddo's little brother or sister was also included on the invitation, a nice touch – but we may have been hesitant beforehand due to his rather vocal nature. Like his old man, he enjoys the sound of his own voice. He also has a penchant for rooms that echo. Put these two together and there's an apparently irresistible urge to holler heartily.

Thankfully, our friends Darren, Maria and their little lad Jack didn't have their afternoon interrupted by Dylan's incredible lung power as he was a good boy. I have to confess that we considered leaving him with my parents as we were worried he wouldn't be quite so well behaved. Kate and I had to escort him from a parent and baby group once when his 'singing' earned us a few dirty looks from the established regulars. To be fair on him, he was joining in with Old Macdonald in the only way he knew how without the benefit of being able to talk yet.

I also had to take him out of the Early Learning Centre when he was clearly excited about what we were getting for his older cousin's birthday. A move that backfired when the part of the Arndale Centre I took him into proved even better for echoes. He was yelling his head off with a huge 'I know I'm making people look at you, Dad' grin on his face. Monkey! It's now his favourite part of the mall – just wait until he discovers that it's also the bit with the pick and mix stand! I understand what it is to have a favourite part of a shopping centre – the bit I like has HMV, Next, a sports shop that has a closing down sale every week yet has never ceased trading and, until recently, Game. Boom.

So anyway, I've been thinking of suitable forums for Dylan's shouting and there are a couple where he could be of great use. Now he can walk, I just need to modify the front door so he can open it – but not get outside, oh no, he's a keeper – so that he can shout at Jehovah's Witnesses – All Along the Watchtower eh Dylan?! – window salespeople and local Tory candidates when they don't get the message that we're not interested. By the same token, he will prove invaluable with cold callers on the phone. Here's how I envisage a typical exchange panning out:

Me: Hello?
Voice: Hello, am I talking to Mrs Hooker?
Me: What do you think?
Voice: Is that Mrs Hooker?
Me: No. I'm a man and there's nobody of that surname at this number.
Voice: Mrs Hooker please.
Me: No... there's no Mrs Hooker here. Have a nice day...
Voice: Are you the homeowner?
Me: Yes, but I'm not interested in anything you may wish to sell me, promote to me or otherwise extol the virtues of with the ultimate hope of me giving you my credit card details...
Voice: No, I'm not advertising anything. I'm just calling about insurance, do you have...
Me: Can you hang on a minute? I'll put our expert on...
Voice: No problem, Mrs Hooker.
Dylan: AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Phone: Click, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Remember, remember, don't shave in Movember!

2011-10-30T10:30:00.000Z

Despite the fact that I work for a charity, it struck me recently that I haven't really done much for good causes until now. Working and volunteering are two entirely different things. With that in mind and the apathy I seem to have developed towards shaving at sociably acceptable intervals since becoming a dad, I have decided to join forces with three mates at work and participate in Movember next month.

For those who have never heard of it before, Movember encourages men to grow a 'mo' to raise money for male cancer charities. I've always found it amusing that the main fundraising event that women take part in – Race for Life – entails getting fit and running around, while this event is nowhere near as strenuous: it's all about us men making less of an effort than we usually would with our appearance. The idea is that I start the month with a face as smooth as a baby's proverbial and end up with a hairy upper lip, hopefully raising both funds and awareness in the process.

I don't have any qualms about the fact that I am going to look ridiculous. Embarrassment is something that really used to bother me until I actually had a scare a few years ago. Being a mostly sensible sort, I gritted my teeth and got it checked out. I had to have an ultrasound you know where. It was quite undignified and the bloke who carried it out had no sense of humour, so my ill-advised attempts at lightening the mood were shot down and I felt even more anxious. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing to worry about, but for a week or two I was absolutely terrified. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but I'm glad I did it. I suppose, in hindsight, the dialogue between me and the radiographer was kind of amusing. It went something like this.

Him: Mr Briggs?
Me: Yes, that's me.
Him (to entire waiting room): My name is Sergei. I will examine your testicles.
Me: But we've just met!
Him: (silence)
Me: (Now in scan room) I'm a bit nervous about this...
Him: (Prolonged silence) Take off your trousers and pants and hold your penis under this paper towel.
Me: Okay (Lying back and thinking of England)
Him: There's one, there's the second...
Me: Ha ha! It's like the supermarket – buy one get one free! (twat)
Him: (Yet another prolonged silence) Phone your doctor for the results next Monday.

Conclusive proof that a poor bedside manner and English buffoonery don't mix well.

Anyway, that is my story and if you would like to sponsor me and my even dafter than usual face, you can do so by visiting my Movember page.

Thank you.

Mother's little helper

2011-10-23T21:06:00.000+01:00

I never used to like the word ‘cute’. I always reacted to its use in the same way that people much politer than myself react to a certain other C word being casually dropped into conversation, but things have changed since Dylan came along and this week he did something undeniably cute. ‘Endearing’ doesn’t describe it, nor does ‘adorable’. ‘Sweet’ is definitely out of the question – and I still think of that as an S word. No, Dylan has started doing something very cute. He’s taken to fetching Kate’s glasses for her when she’s finished in the shower.

Until recently his fetching and giving habits were random at best and we have become used to feigning delight at receiving such items as pegs, junk mail and crumbs from the toast he has previously swiped from us. Now, however, it seems a lot more targeted – he’s seen that Kate goes for her glasses after the shower and has learned to save her the trouble. He also fetches her watch. Good lad!

In fact, he’s become quite useful around the house. The other day, he discovered the Perspex box that we keep his toys in, prised the lid off and proceeded to tidy his toys away before bedtime. I’ll skate over the fact that he took them all out again and threw them everywhere – it's good practice for later years. We’re lucky he’s such a good boy – most of the time. He eats pretty much everything he is given, drinks water with no fuss and likes having his teeth cleaned. All in all he’s doing quite a lot to earn his keep – not that he needs to, of course, but the help is always welcome.

He’s even helpful when it comes to us making changes to our fantasy football teams. Kate was recently deliberating over which defender to put in her first eleven. “Agger” said Dylan, briefly looking up from his copy of That's not my Train. The following week, we were both trying to choose a striker. “Ba” he said, emphatically. He was right too, Ba got on the scoresheet that weekend. With this in mind, I wondered who would make up Dylan’s full team. Well, dear reader, I’ve studied his sounds and he seems to have selected the following. He’s favoured a 3-4-3 attacking formation...

Dylan’s Baby Babble XI

DIDA

Daniel AGGER, Souleman BAMBA, Kazayuki TODA

YAYA Toure, ABOU Diaby, KAKA, PAPA BOUBA Diop

Demba BA, MAMAdy Sidibe, Roman PAVLYUCHENKO

Yes, one of the strikers is something of a surprise inclusion... but despite his dodgy knee, Demba Ba has a good goalscoring record.

What I Wore Wednesday

2011-10-19T19:34:00.000+01:00

Ok, I'm not to blame for the small act of mischief that is to follow. Well, not entirely anyway. Regular readers of Diary of the Dad will know all about my long-running quest to find the perfect pair of slippers. I am not alone in this apparently sad obsession, however, oh no. My esteemed fellow dad blogger and Twitter chum @SAHDandproud – whose excellent blog can be enjoyed here – joined me on an arduous journey through numerous slipper retailers. Happily, we both found the ideal sole mates – see what I did there? – this very week.

Naturally, we shared pictures of our proud purchases online, as you do, and embarked on a new campaign to encourage others like us to invest in slippers, especially now the weather has turned. You can join us by tweeting the hashtag #SlipperQuest. We'll be on hand to provide encouragement on what can be a tough and sometimes emotional mission. Meanwhile, my mischievous slipper-wearing pal came up with the genius idea of sharing our pictures on the What I Wore Wednesday page of the fantastic Transatlantic Blonde's blog.

So here are my new slippers again in all their glory. For the record, everything else I wore today was from Next, just in case any of their PR folk are reading this. Dylan was wearing a Next top when I got home too.

From stagger to swagger

2011-10-16T11:13:00.000+01:00

With all the crap there is in the world, it can be all too easy to get a bit gloomy now and then. I’m no exception and can actually give Morrissey a run for his money when I’m feeling sorry for myself, which is why I think it’s so important to embrace the good times. I’m happy to report, therefore, that it’s been a good week. A really bloody good week, in fact.

Starting with the best bit, Dylan’s upright movement has graduated from stagger to swagger – and that's a statement that sums up the week, actually. He can now get to his feet without the aid of a sofa or our legs, walk some impressive distances considering he’s still new to it all and even pause on his way to one of his daily missions – such as emptying cupboards or throwing things down the back of the radiator – without having to get down to a crawling position. He can change direction too. Oh yeah! Of course, his movement isn’t completely there yet; I would describe it as ‘cheerful zombie’ for now. He happily ambles along at a good pace, waving both hands and sporting a huge grin. Good lad!

There has been one thing stymieing his progress, however. We’ve been having work done on our kitchen this week, which means the baby gate that separates the kitchen from the dining room has been permanently closed. Dylan doesn’t approve of this and swaps cheerful zombie for imprisoned King Kong while one of us is in his promised land that is our food preparation area. Oh well, you can’t have it all and he soon forgets about it. And the kitchen is looking like a real kitchen now so that’s good.

Diary of the Dad has also had a good week. Since my win at the MAD Blog Awards – which I will probably shut up about soon – I’ve been getting attention from the local media, which is nice. In the last seven days, this blog has been featured in two papers and one radio station. If you insist, one can be read here and another listened to here. Sigh. Oh, and an absolute gentleman I’ve never met wrote some really kind things about Diary of the Dad. Thank you, Shane!

The other result this week has been my first ever attempt at video editing. As I work for a charity, we rely on them as a good, cheap way of getting attention and all was going well on this front until my esteemed friend and colleague Amy the video editing genius got another job. I’ve always been interested in film making, so put myself forward and was promptly sent on a course. A few of us filmed the footage for our new campaign video – and had a good laugh doing so – and it was then time for me to have a go at cutting it all together. And the result? Well, it’s had a pleasing number of hits for starters – we only launched it on Thursday and at the time of writing, we’ve had over 1,700 views. I’ll take that! What’s that you’re saying? You’d like to see it? Oh, okay then. Here it is.

There has been one other massive achievement that, Dylan’s walking aside, has beaten all the others into submission. Remember how I was on a frustrating quest to find the perfect pair of slippers? I only went and found them yesterday. Warm, not too ‘old man’, with backs and even a nifty toggle-and-elastic fitting on each to ensure the perfect fit. Boom!

I think that provides the perfect footnote to this post, don’t you?

Here we go again...

2011-10-09T09:45:00.000+01:00

So as I revealed last week at the MAD Blog Awards, on here and, well, everywhere to be honest, Kate and I are expecting our second child in April next year. As was the case when we learned that Dylan was on his way, we are delighted and terrified in equal measure. While we've now been there, seen it and done it, there are new neuroses to overcome as well as the return of some of the standard ones that I'm sure all expectant parents experience.

We don't mind what we have as long as he/she is healthy and grows up to support the right team. We are also concerned – as we were with Dylan – that the new baby will inherit one – or more – of the medical complaints we suffered during our early years. Kate had to undergo an operation on one of her eyes and I was born with terrible hearing and also had to go under the knife. As a result of my temporary 'almost-deafness', my speech was so bad that, on recordings that my parents still have, I sounded like the Soup Dragon out of Clangers. Weirdly, my sister – who is two years younger – seemed to understand what I was burbling on about and sort of translated for me. I say 'sort of' because she did have a tendency to use the word 'radiator' quite liberally when telling our folks what her babbling big brother was banging on about and I definitely didn't have a strange fascination with central heating. I digress. Thankfully, my operation was a success as was Kate's. Anyway, thinking about it, that makes us two of the three wise monkeys – if we shove a dummy in Dylan's mouth we could have the full set!

The next concern is about how Dylan is going to feel about it all. It's enough for the poor little man that, when he eventually finds out I've been writing about him, he's probably going to need a whole lot of therapy, so how will he react to having a younger sibling? The signs, thankfully, are good. He loves other kids and always tries to make friends with them. My sister recently gave birth to her second child, Ella, and when Dylan saw Kate holding her, he wasn't too fussed to give him his due. The only nagging doubt I have on this front is that he'll react in the same way I did when I was introduced to my sister. "Say hello to Gemma, Tom," said my Mum. "Put it down, Mummy," was my evil response. Oh dear.

Still, there's plenty of time to get our heads round the changes that are afoot as well as one certain little monkey whose antics will distract us from worrying too much about what's awaiting us.

MAD for it!

2011-10-02T11:24:00.000+01:00

Well where to start? Thanks to the kind people who read Diary of the Dad, I was lucky enough to make it to the final of the MAD Blog Awards which took place in London on Friday evening. If I’m honest, I thought that was as far as I was going to get; I was up against four excellent other bloggers and had contented myself with the fact that I’d got as far as I had. I was going to go to the event, meet some interesting new people and applaud the winners. I really didn’t expect to be bringing home the trophy for Best Baby Blog but, amazingly, that’s just what happened!

Arriving at the Talk Talk Customer Experience Centre where the awards took place felt a little like my first day at secondary school; I didn’t really know anyone and I was terrified! To add to my rather silly anxieties, I was one of the select few with a Y chromosome in attendance. My plan was to find the other geeks and everything would be fine. As it happened, I didn’t find anybody obviously as dorky as me, but that didn’t matter a bit. I found my inner ‘brave Tom’ shortly after locating the drinks table and was soon chatting to the other finalists and sponsors. And what a lovely bunch they were; I was going to be ok. After an hour of quaffing wine and chattering away with my new friends my heart rate had slowed down a tad and the ceremony was underway. My category was up first. Argh! The palpitations returned. The golden envelope was opened and when the words ‘Diary of the Dad’ were announced, I was completely stunned. I was so convinced that somebody else was going to win that I hadn’t even written an acceptance speech.

So up I went, probably looking like I’d just had some kind of nasty shock rather than some surprising good news and swearing under my breath in disbelief – I hope the cameras missed the latter. I was presented with my new favourite thing and incoherently babbled my way through an improvised speech in which I thanked those who had voted, the amazing Sally Whittle and her team for creating such a fantastic event, Dylan for being a silly monkey and, of course, Kate. Oh, and I might have mentioned that she’s carrying our second child at the moment too. The rest of the evening flew by as the other awards were handed out and I met more lovely people. At risk of sounding somewhat saccharine, it really impressed on me what a sense of community there is in the world of parent blogging and I’m delighted to be part of it. Everybody seemed to have a great night out and – schmaltz alert again here, I’m afraid – they are all winners.

All that remains for me to write for now – before I make myself vomit on my keyboard – is to thank you for reading my blog and for voting for it in the MAD Blog Awards. It means a lot and I’m thrilled to bits.

Cheers everyone!

Hit me baby one more time

2011-09-25T08:46:00.000+01:00

Dylan has a new favourite thing: guess what it is! A new food flavour? Nope. A new educational cartoon? Wrong again. How about a new sound that he's experimenting with? Not even close. No, his new pastime of choice is slapping me in the face.

The first time he did it was on Monday when I got home from a slightly worse than usual day at work. I walked into the room and he looked up at me, emitted his excitable 'Daddy's home' chuckle and, with the aid of the sofa, staggered towards me. Thinking I was going to be the happy recipient of a cuddle, I crouched to his height. With a huge grin on his chops, he lurched towards me and slapped my forehead before proceeding to laugh his arse off. Little monkey! Since then, it's become a bit of a lottery as to what I'll get once he has teetered his way towards me. Sometimes it's a nice hug and others it ends with a thwacking sound created by a union of his palm and my cheek. The trouble is, I always believe it's going to be the former so a slap in the face is, well, a slap in the face.

It's all part of growing up, of course, and by showing off his new-found boisterous side, he seems to be becoming more like a little boy and less like a generic baby every day. He enjoys a bit of rough and tumble now and also likes shouting. A lot. Watching Soccer Saturday has become something of a family game now. When Spurs score, it's inevitable that I will shout and Dylan now joins in. This encourages me to celebrate again by shouting and jumping around and little man follows suit. I'm so proud. The pundits and their glorious leader Jeff Stelling sporadically shouting "GOOOAAAL!" only serves to add to the effect.

Dylan has also added ballistics to his repertoire of early laddishness. One of his favourite places at the moment is a mini ball pit he has in his bedroom. Here he has cultivated an impressive throwing action and enjoys hurling the balls not just out of the pit but at me. To be fair though, he's a good sport when I throw them back at him. Looking back over this list of his energetic antics, I'm actually quite happy to be his punchbag and target of verbal abuse. If that's how he's going to show his affection for me now and then, bring it on!

Sign away meningitis – Counting the Cost

2011-09-21T13:52:00.000+01:00

This is going to be a post of few words. I've been asked to share the following video with my lovely readers and who am I to stand in the way of common sense?

As part of Meningitis Awareness Week – which is happening right now – the Meningitis Research Foundation is trying to get 10,000 signatures on its petition to, and I quote, "call on the UK government to pursue the widest and earliest implementation of vaccines against meningitis and septicaemia to prevent the disease."

Anyway, the video says it much better than I can, so please watch it and then sign the petition via the link below it. Thank you.

http://www.meningitis.org/sign-petition

Of Dark Knights and sleepless nights

2011-09-18T10:15:00.000+01:00

I recently completed an Xbox game that, it’s fair to say, I became a little obsessed with. The title in question was the excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum and as well as enjoying every last minute of it, I realised that there are a few at-best tenuous parallels that I thought I could draw between it and being a parent.

First of all, it is quite literally set in a madhouse – speaking on behalf all parents everywhere, I don’t feel I need to elaborate on that particular point. Next up are the hidden secrets, the like of which you find in a number of video games. In this one, the Dark Knight’s tricky old foe, The Riddler, has hidden little question mark trophies all over the island that is home to the asylum. Cheeky little scamp. Some of them are in hard-to-reach places which reminds me of the way in which Dylan does the same thing with his dummies. I’ll often be on some mission or other in the house when, out of the corner of my eye, I will spot one of them in a random place. I then immediately abandon said quest to get the precious prize and return it to the steriliser, naturally forgetting my original aim in the process.

There are also unlockable upgrades as rewards for achieving experience points that you can apply to Batman to improve his chances. This is very much like real life! For example, as a parent you eventually get a full night’s sleep power-up in return for those numerous challenging nights early on. And you also get to a point where your child can eat more of the things that you can, making family dinnertime easier for all concerned.

No game or, indeed, flight of fancy blog post comparing it to parenthood, would be complete without a few boss battles thrown in and both deliver. Batman has to take on a number of these including Poison Ivy and his old nemesis The Joker while Kate and I have some altogether more fiendish challenges to overcome. Nappy changing time is an easily tougher proposition than either of these enemies. Give me comic book violence with the odds stacked ridiculously against the central protagonist anytime – getting Dylan and his flailing limbs into a clean nappy without getting covered in proverbial or him wandering down the corridor and weeing on the carpet is much harder. Dinnertime and bedtime can also, on occasion, be trickier than a far-fetched fracas involving numerous henchmen – indeed, I think there have been times in which I’ve been more bruised and battered than Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego.

The game’s heartily-anticipated sequel Batman: Arkham City is out next month. Is it any coincidence that the Boy Wonder, Robin, has a prominent role in it? Ha! I think not...

Happy blogday

2011-09-11T10:42:00.000+01:00

A year ago today I wrote my first ever post on this blog. I remember being sat on the sofa with the laptop to my right and Dylan asleep on my right arm. I had to reach across him with my left – my weaker one – to type it. It was a very short, half-arsed effort that was more about my penchant for zombie films than about being a new parent, but it’s still one of my favourites. In my defence, he was only two months old back then so I was very sleep deprived, but that’s why I like that particular post – it reminds me of what the early days felt like. I suppose that’s why I started the blog in the first place. It’s become a great way of tracking the various developmental milestones that little man has giggled, crawled, burbled and climbed his way to.

And while I’ve managed to shoehorn zombies in here and there since that first bewildered post, I’ve pretty much managed to stick to my intended topic and it’s been pretty easy to do so really because Dylan has proved to be such a rich source of material and, indeed, amusement. I wasn’t expecting my random musings about parenthood to be as well received as they have been, however. In its first year, Diary of the Dad has had thousands of hits from all over the world. It has even been shortlisted for a national award, the result of which I’ll find out in a few weeks’ time.

Who’d have thought that basically writing about what a baby gets up to would be of interest to so many people? I suppose it prompts the question of why I blog. The answer is that I really enjoy doing it. I’ve been writing for a living for seven years and this is, without doubt, my proudest work. Primarily it’s for me, Kate and, of course, the blissfully oblivious Dylan. And, yes, there is a small amount of ego about the whole thing, but I’m genuinely chuffed that people seem to like reading it.

Thank you very much everyone; I hope you keep coming back after this borderline schmaltzy post.

Moccasins of the father

2011-09-06T17:03:00.000+01:00

The quest for the Holy Grail, the search for the meaning of life and even getting Dylan to eat what we give him are all nothing compared to the apparently impossible pursuit I have been stuck on for almost a year. The mission in question is that of finding the perfect pair of slippers. I say 'perfect', but something that vaguely resembles a compromise would be fine. Allow me to explain...

You wouldn't have thought that this seemingly simple task could cause so much rage, but believe me it has. It all started towards the end of last year when my lovely warm novelty football slippers quite literally turned up their toes. They were shedding foam everywhere and, with Dylan trying to eat the detritus of my once awesome footwear, they had to go. "No bother," I thought, "I'll buy a similar pair." Silly, naive Tom! You see, my slippers' sad demise seemed to coincide with the world's retail gurus deciding that the kind of home-exclusive footwear I favour had had its day.

That's not to say I'm asking too much, however. My main criterion is that they have soft soles. I don't like the way hard-soled slippers feel. For me, slippers should make you feel at home, if they could talk – which, admittedly, would be a bit scary – they should say something like "Welcome home, friend, your working day is over. You have no need to venture outside again today," yet everything I found in the shops would have said something more like "Well you may be at home, but I've got plans for you that involve walking down to the bins." It's as if they aspire to be shoes and it's driving me round the bend.

I'm also reluctant to get mules. I don't want to have slippers that slap around like flip flops; their purpose is to keep your feet cosy, not to abandon you for half of every step, losing vital warmth with each one. I've already shared my gripes about the distinct lack of proper slippers with the wonderful world of Twitter and have received plenty of sympathy and suggestions of help from some kind, supportive people. Sadly, however, I am still looking for the right answer. Some suggested Crocs; not my bag I'm afraid – they're much more like gardening shoes in my humblest of opinions.

Others have proffered shops to try; again, these have proved fruitless – well, soft-soled, non-mule slipperless anyway. It seems that my only remaining ally is the internet. Or is it? I have found the same array of footwear there, plus moccasins and the odd pair of novelty Yeti feet. Fail. I guess it'll have to be moccasins then – I suppose they’re a very ‘dad’ kind of slipper. You have to wonder, meanwhile, whether there's some really odd conspiracy going on here and that leads me to my final and, indeed, most far-fetched notion of this rant.

I've been playing the brilliant Batman Arkham Asylum game recently and one of the nice, geeky touches is that you can unlock character biographies by achieving various things. What has struck me about some of the villains is that they have been driven insane by some pretty benign things. If I don't find some soft-soled slippers soon, I could end up being the Dark Knight's new nemesis. Think about it, Moccasin Man could be quite a fiend.

Three small steps for little man

2011-08-29T08:46:00.000+01:00

Dylan took another big step this week, quite literally. In fact, he took three in succession. We’d been sat on the sofa watching In the Night Garden together and, apparently bored of where Mr Pontipine’s errant moustache was going to whizz off to next, he started doing the usual “I want to get down now, Daddy” routine – kicking me a couple of times before trying to dive feet first off the edge of the sofa.

Getting his subtle hint, I lifted him up, put him on the floor with his back leaning against my legs and, being the attentive parent I am, grabbed my phone to read a text that had alerted me to its presence half an hour previously. I had just opened said message when I heard Kate shriek in excitement. I looked up just in time to see steps two and three as our little man casually sauntered across the right angle that is formed by our sofas. Very exciting!

That I nearly missed it is, I’m sure, not at all unusual. Babies decide to do things at the strangest of times and there must be numerous parents out there who have just happened to have been looking the wrong way at the wrong time. I remember when he first rolled over we both missed it as we had heard a car door outside and were speculating as to whether it was somebody bringing him a surprise gift – well, it was just after Christmas. We’re not that presumptuous normally. Thankfully, he condescended to give us a real-life action replay so we didn’t really miss out.

Since those first three strides, he’s taken the odd step or two every day and I don’t think it’ll be long now until he’s confidently swaggering along, undoubtedly on a mission to hide his dummies in some new fiendishly hard-to-find places and to grab and throw things he couldn’t previously reach during his ‘floor days’. My mum predicted that he would do so at 13 months and it looks like she’s going to be right – it was an educated guess though; I first walked at that age, as did my sister and, much more recently, her son, Jack. Dylan clearly doesn’t want to deviate from this pattern. Only this morning he decided to show off that he can now use his walker with only one hand. Soon it’ll be a case of “Look! No hands!”

Book review: 25 Foods Kids Hate

2011-08-25T13:56:00.000+01:00

Time to tackle a thorny issue for many a parent here: kids can be notoriously fussy eaters. To make matters worse, it's often the good stuff that they refuse to eat. I've lost track of the number of times that Kate and I have lovingly prepared something that looks and smells great only for Dylan to turn his nose up at it and start bawling until we give in and resort to opening an 'emergency' jar of baby food. It's a demoralising feeling that I'm sure plenty of you have experienced. Thank goodness then for this newly-published title by Fiona Faulkner aka the 'Toddler Chef'.

The particular strength of the book as far as I'm concerned is the tone in which it's written. While it's undoubtedly authoritative, it is also friendly and down to earth. Better still for those of us who aren't 100% confident in the kitchen, Fiona doesn't hail from a professional culinary background; she is a parent who has been through the trials and tribulations of dinner time like the rest of us. Having won the battle to get her children eating and enjoying healthy food, she has now shared her tried-and-trusted techniques in 25 Foods Kids Hate ...and how to get them eating 24, to give the book its full title.

As you would expect, the usual suspects including broccoli, meat and carrots are among the 25-strong menu of children's nightmares, but help is at hand with Fiona's raft of nifty tips and tricks. Essentially, it's all about making food fun and 'marketing' it to your little ones. The dishes that she suggests will be enjoyed by all the family and each recipe includes tweaks that can be made to parents' portions.

There is also a set of 25 rules that should be followed before offering the incentive of chocolate, including top tips such as being realistic in your approach to portion sizes and harnessing the power of peer pressure. This title now has pride of place on our kitchen worktop and I would heartily recommend it to parents everywhere.

You can order your copy of 25 Foods Kids Hate here.

The postman cometh

2011-08-21T11:17:00.000+01:00

Having previously taken inspiration for his antics from a number of big- and small-screen characters including monkeys, Gollum and Taz, Dylan has finally chosen to emulate a human. Well, a stop-motion representation of a human with a missing finger on each hand and what has to be the world's oldest living pet cat, anyway. Yes, his new hero would appear to be Postman Pat.

It's not because of the way he ambles around – although his nearly-walk is more than a tad reminiscent of Greendale's finest – or the way he manages to distract himself from the task in hand with some other mild-peril mission, but more about the job everyone's favourite animated postie ought to be up to, were the show massively dull. Alongside showing more interest in his shape-sorting toys, his new thing this week has been to start 'posting' things in strange places. It's mostly his dummies that are treated to this strange special delivery service, although anything he can get his hands on seems to be fair game. Even as I type this, he is 'delivering' some pegs to Kate's handbag.

Maybe it's in his blood. My grandfather was a Deputy Postmaster and I worked as a Post Office counter clerk for a couple of years too, so there's a vague family history. It has to be said that Dylan would be a fine acquisition for Royal Mail – he's fantastic at losing things and his ability to wake us at an inhumane hour on Saturdays – very much a case of "early in the morning, just as day is dawning" – would also be described as 'an advantage' on the job description. That said, a little bit of snow wouldn't stop him going on his rounds, so that may hinder his chances.

We've already found a couple of our little postman's favourite 'addresses' – including our shoes, the washing basket and a small drink holder on the front of his trike – but I'm sure there are plenty more little stashes yet to be discovered. Thank goodness we now have a lock on the toilet seat and don't own a VCR anymore...

Ten things you don’t know about me

2011-08-18T13:16:00.001+01:00

"What the...?" "Why?" You may ask. See fact number 6...

I was kindly tagged by Blending Time the other day in one of those Twitter/blog trends that I believe are known as 'memes'. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to divulge ten things you never knew about me. So, being the kind to pick up this kind of gauntlet with relatively hasty abandon, here are are said factoids.

Disclaimer: if you already know me, you probably already know some of these. Sorry.

1) I can speak semi-fluent French and German although I once managed to take the wrong train near the border between the two countries and, in my panic, completely forgot how to speak both.

2) I got into TFI Friday for free once as a guest of a band. Nobody I have spoken to about it since, however, has heard of them. Did I imagine the whole thing?

3) I fell off my chair during a meeting with my whole department at work yesterday. I felt a little foolish.

4) I had a wisdom tooth taken out in hospital on 09/09/09 – surely a date destined for all things medical.

5) I like to Chase Dylan around the house while waving a towel at him. He likes this too.

6) My friend Eat, Sleep, Sniff – who designed the fantastic header of this blog, by the way – recently drew a picture of me as a bacteria for some reason. Thanks mate!

7) I have an unusual middle name that I shan't share here, lest someone naughty tries to steal my identitiy.

8) I have never been interested in cars and haven't even had a driving lesson.

9) Kate and I are among the contributing authors of a book about some of history's most evil people.

10) I've had two separate white van men – one in London, one in York – shout the same obscenity at me while I was on work trips and doing nothing to provoke such verbal attacks. Gits.

So, now for my victims who, hopefully, haven't been tagged already. I would like to see 10 facts each from:

1) @tipster28 – http://mutteringsofafool.wordpress.com/

2) @DaddyNatal – http://www.daddynatal.co.uk/blog.php

3) @_firsttimedaddy – http://first-time-daddy.blogspot.com/

4) @davidinglis – http://itsadadslife.co.uk/

5) @eatsleepsniff – http://www.eatsleepsniff.com/ Ha! Revenge is mine!

The icemen cometh

2011-08-14T11:07:00.000+01:00

It’s good to get out of your comfort zone now and then and that is exactly what I did last week by going ice climbing and again this week by writing about it rather than my favoured topic.

To say that climbing the interior of what is essentially a massive freezer – that is in severe need of defrosting – with only a couple of axes and crampons to support my ever-increasing weight constitutes a departure from my comfort zone would be something of an understatement. I spend the majority of my days sat at a desk. That’s not to say I’m a stranger to exercise though. I play football every week and run for the train every morning – dithering is an important part of my pre-work routine – so I’m used to it and, even though I’m asthmatic, I don’t really get out of breath. This, to use a tired old cliché, was a completely different kettle of fish, however.

Me, my bloody chin and my sporty friend, Rob, in the obligatory pose...

I went along with my best mate, Rob – who is very much and ‘outdoorsy’ person who runs and cycles great distances for fun – to the 30-foot ice climbing wall in a mountain sports shop in Covent Garden. This wasn’t the first time we’d been climbing together; we actually went rock climbing and abseiling at a campsite when we were kids. One of my enduring memories of that holiday was of Rob somehow ending up suspended upside down on the abseiling tower and, rather than fretting about it, waving at everyone with a huge grin on his face.

Yep, that's me. I did it!

I think our first mistake was not to wait for the lift at Covent Garden tube station and, instead, haul ourselves up its 195 steps. Once we arrived, got kitted up had been shown what to do – several times over in my case – it was time to start climbing. Rob shot up the wall like Spider-man while I was still being shouted at for being rubbish at swinging my axes on the practice wall. Then came my turn. Gulp.

And here's Rob. Not only can he climb, he can also pose at the same time. Git

After I’d got a couple of feet off the ground, I was already thinking of making up some ailment or other to get out of it – I was bloody terrified! Telling myself to man up though, I soon got into the swing of it – until I chipped a lump of ice off the wall, quite literally taking it on the chin. Although this knocked my confidence, I somehow got up to the top, rang the bell and was helped down on my rope. The second time, after Rob had completely aced it again, I did a lot better and was starting to enjoy it. I got up to the top without too many problems and was very pleased with myself. For the third and final go, Rob tried a really nasty overhang – and despite a bit of a struggle with it, emerged victorious. I decided that this one was not for me and went for the same route I’d done before; I got half way up, lost my footing and fell off. I was left dangling in mid air with one of my axes left stuck in the wall. Oh well.

It was a fun, if knackering, experience and I’d definitely do it again – hopefully without the bleeding chin next time though. How about getting out of your comfort zone sometime soon? Go on, I dare you!

A creature of habits

2011-08-07T10:28:00.000+01:00

I’m sure all babies have their unusual little foibles, but Dylan doesn’t half have some strange habits. To start with, there are the ones that I imagine are familiar to many parents – such as his penchants for trying to rip my face off and marauding away in a state of semi-undress while we’re changing his nappy. But there are a couple of others that he indulges in that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while.

The most unbabylike – is that a word? It is now! – is when he stretches his legs out in front of him with his feet crossed. He does this everywhere – when he’s sat on the floor playing, while he’s in his high chair and even when he’s fast asleep. We’re not sure whether he’s got this via the old ‘monkey see, monkey do’ principle, as both Kate and I sit like that at times, or if he just feels comfortable like that. It’s funniest when he’s holding a book at the same time – it makes him look very intellectual! On a similar note, he often gives us the same dismissive look that Jeremy Paxman may give someone if they asked him who he wanted to win Britain’s Got Talent.

Then there’s bedtime. For the most part, he’s a good lad and will usually settle down fairly quickly, but not without a dummy. Well, two dummies, to be specific. We were reluctant to use them at first but after weighing up the pros and cons and seeing a vitriolic, Daily Mail-style anti-dummy poster on display at the local children’s centre, we decided they would be a good idea. And, as far as Dylan is concerned, they have proved to be just that. ‘Dummy’ therefore strikes me as something of a misnomer. ‘Pacifier’ as they’re known in America seems much more apt, albeit a little clinical.

So anyway, Dylan won’t go to sleep without one in his mouth and another in his hand. We started by putting a spare in his cot for when he inevitably dropped one doing the classic infant’s impression of a prisoner running a cup along the bars – an effect that was only added to when he had a striped sleep suit – but he soon cottoned on to this and it’s now part of his routine. After his milk, he is given the dummies; the first one he takes goes straight in his mouth, only to be immediately replaced by the second. He then swaps them over another three or four times before he’ll allow me to put him down for the night. This is followed by him crawling around in a circle in the same way a cat does before finally curling up for the night. Funny baby!

Over to you good people now – what strange habits do your little ones have?

Niche work if you can get it

2011-08-03T21:26:00.000+01:00

I've been a journalist for seven years now. I got into it for the same reason as most others do; writing is something I've always enjoyed doing and I'm a little bit nosey too. Back when I earned my qualification, I had what I now think of as the slightly gauche notion that I would soon be on the staff of something like Empire or Four Four Two – I also remember saying that I would never get married or have kids; stupid boy. These daft ideas aside, however, I could be forgiven for thinking I wouldn't end up with a quirky claim to fame either. Yet that is exactly what has happened. Last week, I discovered that I have worked on not one but two of the niche publications to have ended up on the guest slot on Have I Got News For You?

The first one catered for a very particular audience and was called The Router. For anyone who isn't quite sure what a router is – and I'm confident in saying that there are those who don't, as one high street newsagent hilariously always had it in its computing section – it's a machine that you can use to complete woodwork projects. To be honest, I didn't really understand the technical side of things – I was hired for the spelling, grammar and news writing – but, fortunately, there were experts at hand. As well as being on the editorial team, I was also actually on the cover of one issue, oh yeah. And if you don't believe me, check this out...

I've still got the T-shirt too...

Strangely enough, the issue I was on probably became a collectable to the real enthusiasts out there as it was the last ever one before it was rebranded as Router & Power Woodworking. Now there's another slightly odd claim to fame. Four years ago, I bade farewell to said magazine and its sister publication, Woodturning, to go to work on guest publication number two.

This one is not quite as niche but certainly an object of amusement to my friends:The Cat magazine, the official publication of the charity Cats Protection. While cats are great pets, you could be forgiven for thinking this title could be a bit dull. You'd be wrong, however. In my time as one of the team on The Cat, I've interviewed some really interesting people including a real-life pet detective, an adjudicator from the Guinness Book of Records and a whole host of genuinely nice celebrities. I've also been to a few award ceremonies, been shouted at by Brian Blessed and been in some viral videos. What? You want to see one of them too? Oh, alright then...

So do I regret working on magazines that others would deem unfashionable? Hell no. You can find creativity in the strangest of places and the titles they happily mock on Have I Got News For You are no exception. In fact, I consider my unusual achievement of working on two of them as something of a medal of honour. Best of all though, Cats Protection is where I met Kate and ultimately became her husband and Dylan's Daddy. See? You can find your niche where you're least expecting it.

Dylan's demolition derby

2011-07-31T10:59:00.000+01:00

Dylan had three jabs last week – well, four if you count the one he landed on my eyeball – and we were told that one of the side effects we should expect while he got used to them was some subdued behaviour. Au contraire! For the most part, he's been the complete opposite and seems to think he's participating in a one-baby demolition derby.

I suppose we should have seen the signs that he is fast becoming a destructive force of nature coming a while back when he invented the apparently hilarious playtime activity 'take all of the Xbox and Wii games out of the TV unit and chuck them anywhere'. He's now into – and, of course, emptying – absolutely everything; drawers, cupboards, the boxes we still haven't unpacked since moving in over a year ago, you name it. Naturally, the kitchen bin and the toilet are also areas of particular fascination; fortunately he can’t empty the latter, small mercy.

Dylan was here

His new favourite place, however, is the CD cabinet – presumably because it's perspex-windowed doors have a vaguely reflective surface in which he can admire himself while getting up to mischief. He likes to stand against it, slapping it repeatedly and yelling at the same time. He has also sussed out how to open it so that he can delight in his twin hobby of taking the CDs out of it and throwing them over his shoulder in a dismissive fashion. Rather spookily the other day, he only picked out one: Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. A mark of respect, I hope.

Meanwhile, getting him changed for bed has become a knackering experience. No sooner have Kate or I put him down on the changing mat and removed his old nappy than he's up and off again, lumbering out of the bathroom and ominously towards our bedroom without anything on his bottom half and emitting a maniacal laugh that seems to say "Nice carpet. Want me to shampoo it?" On the rare occasions in which he condescends to stay put, he does his best at emulating the cast of Riverdance, making the task a gift that keeps on giving. Joy. It actually took me 20 minutes to get a clean nappy on him the other day, no word of a lie. Then there's the wrestling match that is getting him into a sleepsuit. This process is not dissimilar to that of dressing an octopus – come on now, don't pretend you've never done that. We've all been there.

Thankfully, this last scene of carnage normally tires him out for the day and he's soon fast asleep, looking as though butter wouldn't melt. Then all that remains is for us to clear up the trail of destruction that is evidence of the daily dose of Dylan's demolition derby.

You know you’re a parent when...

2011-07-24T10:38:00.000+01:00

I have found more and more lately that I am becoming what I previously thought of as a typical parent. This particular edition of my random musings begins with an injury that may make you wince in a similar way that I did. Dylan decided that it would be fun to poke me in the eye the other night. When I say 'poke', what I actually mean is 'jab really hard, fingernail first'. The pain was immense, but fortunately everything seems back to normal as I write this a couple of days later. I couldn't open my eye properly at first and when I did I had the same aversion to light as a vampire - not the pathetic wimpy type that shimmers in sunshine, you understand, but a proper angry one that bites people.

A similar attack caught on camera

Kate looked up my symptoms online and concluded that I had what clever types call a corneal abrasion and was amused to observe that, under the named causes, inquisitive small children were top of the list. Ha bloody ha! Anyway, I should be thankful that it's taken laddo over a year to inflict the first really painful injury I have suffered at his hands. Of course, there have been numerous scratches and kicks in the unmentionables along the way and these are just some of the tell-tale signs to those who don't know you that you are the parent of a young child.

I've also found that the majority of my points of reference in life now come from children's television. The other morning, for example, a colleague caught me pulling up my trousers – I've not lost weight, they've just got too stretched. My immediate response was "I'm just like the Tombliboos when they're on the Ninky Nonk." Sad eh? And speaking of television, I literally just found myself telling Dylan not to get so close to it with the immortal line "It's bad for your eyes." Oh dear. I've also caught myself using the phrases "It's not a toy" and "Come on, you've had your fun" quite often.

This was taken in May; he gets even closer now...

I think that most mums and dads would agree that the biggest indicator of being a parent, however, is tiredness. I often used to stay up until gone midnight playing Xbox games, but these days, even on the occasions in which I haven't nodded off in front of the television, I shun the console for some lovely sleep – and disturbed dreams of being beaten up by a cute one year old.

Basic SEO for bloggers

2011-07-20T21:30:00.000+01:00

The SEO course I mentioned in my last post has got me thinking: while those of us who blog do so because we want to, I feel fairly confident in saying that the majority of us also keep one eye on our readership statistics. After all, if you've written something and enjoyed writing it, it follows logic that you hope that others may actually read it. Right?

Still reading? Phew, it seems there are people who agree with the previous statement. That being the case, I thought I'd share a few of the tips that I picked up in case they help fellow bloggers get higher up in the search engine rankings – well, it’s all about sharing after all. Leaving aside the technical stuff – and if you're using a service like Blogger, a number of these things will probably already be covered in the HTML of the template you are using – there are a few simple things that you can do with your copy to boost your chances of it being read.

By means of a disclaimer, I am no expert on this subject – this is simply my take on how we can use SEO without interfering with the tone and style of our blogs and losing sight of why we started them in the first place. I hope some of the following is of use…

Content is king
It sounds pretty obvious, but search engines love what they deem to be good quality, authoritative and trustworthy content. Therefore, you should make sure that you are giving your readers some value. Whether it is informative, amusing or just a pleasant distraction from the day, you need to make sure that it's something that people will relate to or benefit from reading and, hopefully, want to share with others.

Keywords are key
There are a few things that search engines' bots look for when crawling your copy and keywords are, well, key. Take my last post for example – I decided that 'geek' was my keyword. Once you've chosen said word or phrase, ensure that it appears within your post title then once early on in the first paragraph, once in the last and once more somewhere else within the post. Beware of using your keyword too much, however, doing so could see the search engines penalise your page.

Going back to the post title for a moment, it's best to keep it relatively short – below 72 characters is ideal – to make sure the whole thing appears in people's search results. That said, it should have at least four words. It also helps to have some of your keywords as part of your blog's URL, so if you've been looking for the excuse to invest in one, now is the time!

Grammar knows best
Back to the main content of your post – which, by the way, should be at least 300 words – it's also important to note that, since recent updates have been applied to Google, spelling and grammar are more important than ever. Again, it sounds obvious, but typos are even more likely to hinder your chances of a higher place in the search results than they used to, so make sure you give your posts a second read before you click the publish button. It's also important to break up your copy into bite size chunks, so don't skimp on those paragraph breaks!

The links effect
Search engines also like content that links to other pages so if your posts call for it, adding a link or two will do you no harm – if they're relevant to your copy, of course. Ideally, you should link to your own content too – as I have done in the first paragraph – but links to some further reading or useful resources will make your post interesting to Google's bots. That being the case, a good point to leave on is Google’s starter guide to SEO – technical stuff included!

The geek will inherit the earth

2011-07-17T09:57:00.000+01:00

Kate and I often talk about what we think Dylan will be like when he reaches that horrible phase that is being a teenager. Well if my influence this week is anything to go by, there's a good chance he'll be a bit of a geek. I started the week by getting more excited than the average sane person would about getting on Google+. So far it has lived up to my dorky expectations; at long last I have a web 2.0 platform that allows me to organise friends, family and contacts into groups or 'circles' as they are known. Oh yes, I now have the option of classifying people as ‘Folks I don’t know as such or indeed talk to, but like the funny things they say on Twitter’. I’m happy with that.

Then, on Thursday, I was lucky enough to visit Facebook's London HQ. This sounds like pretty cushy work and I suppose it is; part of my job is using social media sites to promote the charity I work for, so a couple of us went along to meet its charity representative. My colleague, Amy, and I were both very smug when we were told that we were doing a great job and were using Facebook effectively. Boom! As if this wasn’t already enough for the week, I then spent Friday on an SEO course where I learned lots of nifty little tricks to improve my chances of getting the charity – ok, ok and Diary of the Dad – higher in the Google rankings. In short, I’ve had a delightfully nerdy week and have been like a pig in proverbial.

If you also consider the fact that I found buying the new URL for Diary of the Dad – oh yes, we're now at www.diaryofthedad.co.uk don't you know? – an enjoyable and educational experience, there's some pretty damning evidence that I'm a closet geek. I've even got a Pac-Man T-shirt and one particular friend with whom I always end up talking nostalgically about crap video games of yesteryear. I've got form from the past too; I got called a boff at secondary school – if that's what you call an average student who doesn't swear at teachers then I'm guilty as charged.

So what of Dylan? The odd sign certainly makes itself apparent. He's got to a stage where he's happy to play by himself now and then, for example. And when he does, he ignores all his noisy toys and happily sits down with his books! Well you know what? I'll be happy if he takes after our nerdy tendencies – Kate is a self-confessed dork too – be it getting lost in books, video games or complicated web jargon. After all, they say the geek will inherit the earth...

Game Boy

2011-07-10T11:54:00.000+01:00

As he continues to edge ever closer to walking and talking, Dylan has shown signs recently of interest in another activity that I’m also very excited about – video games. Yes, he seems to have worked out how to switch on the Xbox. I’m so proud! Whether or not this has anything to do with shiny bit on the controller in which he can see his face looking back at him is open to debate, but he’s definitely cottoned on to the fact that pressing it switches on the console. Clever boy! Once it has powered up, my avatar is there on the screen to greet him and – yes, this isn’t a very blokey thing to say, but how cute is this? – he waves at it! While it will be a little while before he’s inevitably trouncing me at FIFA, I simply wouldn’t be being true to myself if I didn’t compare him to a few of gaming’s finest, so here they come.

Starting with one that is still quite new, there are some definite parallels with Detective Phelps in L.A. Noire. For the benefit of anyone who doesn’t know about this game, you play the part of said Detective in post-war L.A. When you’re investigating crime scenes, you can pick up objects and examine them by using the controller to make Phelps’ move them around in his hand. This is exactly what Dylan does with anything he encounters on his numerous journeys across the carpet. If his first words turn out to be something along the line of “Hmm, circumstantial” I’ll know he’s somehow managed to progress beyond switching the machine on. The other similarity comes in the form of Dylan’s steering when he’s using his walker – great game though it is, controlling vehicles on L.A. Noire is a nightmare – and chaos ensues when he enthusiastically charges across the living room to his next ‘mission’, which is usually to get the peg basket off the table and examine each and every peg Phelps-style before discarding them on the floor.

The way he careers around the house is not dissimilar to that of a number of video game characters to be honest. He also does passable impressions of Mario Kart’s Diddy Kong – a little monkey, need I say more? – and Pac-Man; if either Kate or I drop crumbs on the carpet, he’ll follow the trail, devouring them all. He also thinks that he can climb anything and everything with ease, much like the main protagonists in the Assassin’s Creed franchise seem to be able to do. Anyone would think that games imitate life rather than the other way round – now there’s a daft notion!

Dylan got a little rocking horse for his birthday last week and also already owns some bibs that are distinctly like the cravats once sported by cowboys. I now have the difficult task of resisting the temptation to dress him up as something out of Red Dead Redemption. Now that’s got to be worth a few gamer points...

Of birthdays and blogging

2011-07-05T17:50:00.000+01:00

So I’m the father of a one-year-old boy. How did that happen and where did the last year go?! We’ve been celebrating Dylan’s first birthday for the last couple of days and, while he was blissfully oblivious as to the reason for all the fuss and sudden appearance of his grandparents, uncles, aunty and cousin at once, he seemed to enjoy the occasion. He was suitably intrigued by all of his gifts and very interested in the baby-friendly cake we had made, grabbing a chunk of it before we had a chance to cut him a modest slice – he must have known of our evil portion control plans.

For Kate and me, it was a really odd experience. We were, of course, happy that Dylan was enjoying his first birthday and he fully deserved all of it for being such a wonderful little lad, but there was also an element of sadness that the year had gone by so quickly. In some ways, I think we both want him to remain this age forever, but then again we’re really looking forward to him walking and talking among a great many other things and I suppose a lot has happened since our little man was born. Looking back at my blog posts over the last year, I have compared him to, among others: a Smurf, Mr Bean, an emo, Dr Evil, Looney Tunes’ Taz, the off-screen teacher in the Peanuts cartoons, Austin Powers, Stig of the Dump, Gollum, a cat, Billy Elliot, Spider-man, a narcissist and a wagon load of monkeys. Yes, not all of them – okay, okay, not many of them – come across as flattering, but even the reference to Gollum was written with love.

For my part, I’ve shared my inadequacies in the fields of DIY, gardening and reading classics, compared myself to a zombie and one of Harry Enfield’s Old Gits and confessed to a shocking act of violence against an outdoor ornament – so I think that redresses the balance somewhat. Going through the gargantuan amount of waffle I have written since I started blogging has brought back a lot of happy memories and I’m really glad I started. It’s also made me realise how much becoming a dad has changed me. I’ve become a lot more responsible, less self-indulgent and definitely more patient. I used to get irritated by things quite easily – the disparity between dialogue and sound effects in films was always a thorny issue, for example. So Dylan has taught me a lot. At the risk of sounding over-sentimental and/or pretentious, being a dad is a gift that keeps on giving and so is blogging, come to think of it. Cheers, Dylan!

Unfinished monkey business

2011-06-30T22:38:00.000+01:00

Clint Eastwood's right-turn-loving chum Clyde, Daktari's Judy and the piano-shifting stars of the old PG tips adverts. To these names must be added that of Dylan whose continuing development seems to witness me comparing him to something new every week. Yes, you’ve guessed it, this time I'm going to frivolously liken him to our primate cousins. I've been referring to him as a little monkey for the majority of the last year, but I feel that his latest efforts have made the topic worthy of a post of its own.

First of all is the ape-like way he ambles around the house; he's halfway between walking and crawling now, giving him an awkward gait highly reminiscent of that of a chimp as he searches his territory for things to climb. This effect is only enhanced by the excitable vocals he loudly emits as he lumbers towards Kate or me. Then there is the subsequent climbing. He has unwittingly recreated a couple of iconic scenes from King Kong recently. The way he rattles the bars of the safety gates while stood up against them remind me of Skull Island's finest while he's in captivity, while the scaling of the sofa, a fine surrogate Empire State Building I’m sure you’ll agree, with a helpless toy in his hand – which was a monkey, ironically enough; holy role reversal Batman! – were both fine acts of homage. It almost goes without saying that he possesses the same destructive force as Kong too.

He also, of course, likes bananas and still has relatively prehensile feet. Thankfully, though, he has yet to discover the joy of throwing his own faecal matter at others. It remains to be seen whether he’ll turn out like Curious George, Bubbles – let’s hope not though, eh? – or Gerald the talking gorilla of Not the Nine O’Clock News fame, but we definitely have a mischievous force of nature on our hands. We'll be celebrating his first birthday in a few days' time; I think I'll put money on it descending into a chimps' tea party...

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

2011-06-23T21:28:00.000+01:00

I've long had the feeling that Dylan is going to be a bit of a player when he grows up as he already has a keen eye for the ladies. You know how, in older films, the two main protagonists start by exchanging coquettish glances across a train carriage? Yes, looks like that – and it's often when we take him on the train too. He's a proper little flirt; they just need to catch his eye and, inevitably, smile at him and he'll keep trying to get their attention with a cheeky grin on his face for the duration of the journey. But there's a new rival for Dylan's attention in town now – the little man himself!

He has been becoming more and more self aware of late and I think he's reached Lacan's 'mirror stage' that I vaguely recall being taught about when I was at university. I'm still not entirely sure how I came to be doing an elective that included psychoanalysis as part of an English literature degree, but somehow I did and it was all very interesting. With the other stuff my course covered in mind, I only hope that the Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex is wrong, however. I like being alive and Kate is mine! I digress.

So, anyway, he seems to have started to understand that 'mirror baby' is not another cheeky little monkey who can be found exclusively on the bathroom wall and above the fireplace in the front room but, in fact, him. And he also seems to like what he sees. Until recently, he still hadn't quite mastered the arts of waving or clapping his hands. Well guess what? Ever since he recognised that the reflection looking back at him is, well, him the penny has dropped and he is quick to show his appreciation at looking at himself. I think we have a little narcissist on our hands!

He has now become mildly obsessed with his own image and can often be caught admiring himself in any vaguely reflective surface. It's not just his image that provokes these reactions either though; he applauds himself for achieving various things that are already second nature. Putting him in his sleep suit at bedtime has become a long-winded process for one. It's not entirely dissimilar to the Hokey Cokey actually: you put his left arm in, he applauds – or shakes it all about, one or the other. You put his right arm in, he applauds. You get the picture.

Oh well, he may be falling head over heels in love with himself but, as long as we're never too far from a mirror, at least we've got a good way of stopping his tantrums now...

Day of the Dad

2011-06-19T12:24:00.000+01:00

So here it is, my first Father's Day and I have to say I'm liking it so far. Dylan's first 'gift' to me today was a wake up call at quarter past five because he needed his nappy changing – funny that he picked today of all days; he hasn't woken up that early for a while – but he has since atoned by going back to sleep and allowing me the supreme luxury of a lie-in until 8am. That was previously unheard of in the Briggs household since his arrival almost a year ago, so it was very welcome indeed. Good boy! I then got my presents; he'd gone online and ordered me the latest Foo Fighters album that I've wanted for ages and a personalised mug with lots of pictures of him and me on it too. Amazing what 11-month-old babies can do these days. As I write this I'm swigging tea out of the mug while Dylan is dancing to the CD as if nobody's watching. Good times!

My Dad has never been particularly bothered about Father's Day and I still don't fully understand why. He's done a fantastic job and I'm not embarrassed to admit that he's one of my heroes. Despite being ridiculously talented – he's trilingual, has a degree from Oxford University, an award from the French Embassy for his services to the language and was offered a trial for Coventry City back when they were a top-flight club – there's absolutely no ego at all and he always puts everybody else first. I don't think I'd be able to claim as much if I'd achieved all that – my head has doubled in size from getting into the final of the MAD Blog Awards alone! He's also our handyman on call and still plays five-a-side twice a week at the age of 61. What a legend! I'll stop in a moment before I make him feel too awkward reading this but, before I do, I'm going to say something clichéd, stomach-turning and almost certainly egotistical on my part; if I end up only half the hero to Dylan that my Dad continues to be to me then I'll be doing well and I certainly hope that I will be. Okay, you can all go and vomit now.

So here's to dads everywhere, I'm raising my favourite new mug to you all. Being someone's Daddy is one of the best things I've ever done and Dylan is a hilarious little monkey without whom this blog would not exist. I've had numerous jobs but being his Dad – and Kate's husband too, of course – is the best by a million miles. If you're a bloke who's not a father yet, I heartily recommend it. Get thee to it and a year from now you could be writing something as nauseating as this.

Forward thinking

2011-06-14T14:01:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of Diary of the Dad may remember that this here blog was very kindly given the Kreativ Blogger Award a couple of months ago.

Well guess what? We've been given another one of these 'memes' which, having swotted up on the subject – well, I am still something of a newbie – are a nice way of bloggers recognising the musings of others and discovering more blogs themselves. This one is aptly known as the Pay it Forward Award and was given by Kylie at Not Even a Bag of Sugar. Thanks Kylie!

So, without further ado, here are the five fellow bloggers and their blogs, of course, that I'm paying it forward to:

1) Lexie at http://motherporridge.wordpress.com/

2) Jamie at http://www.idads.co.uk/

3) Tania at http://www.largerfamilylife.blogspot.com/

4) Alex at http://www.daddacool.co.uk/

5) Emily at http://babyrambles.blogspot.com/

They are all excellent blogs which are well worth a read. Get thee to these and read them!

Baby books one, Wuthering Heights nil

2011-06-12T12:19:00.000+01:00

Seeing as I reviewed Tim Atkinson's new book, Fatherhood: The Essential Guide earlier this week and had to go to Reading with work yesterday – well, according to the lettering on the side of the Madejski Stadium where the conference I was attending was held, I was in fact in "eading" – I thought I'd write about books today.

I have to confess that I'd pretty much lost touch with reading for pleasure until recently. I spend most of my working day writing and proofreading, so burying my head in a book isn't usually my first thought when I get some precious free time. If I'm honest I've never been a prolific reader, which I suppose is kind of strange as I chose English Literature as a degree. That's not to say there haven't been things that I've enjoyed though. I loved Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series and the Lucifer Box novels by Mark Gatiss while what I've read of Jasper Fforde's stuff has left me wanting to carry on. It's just a question of finding that rarest of moments when I have both the time and the inclination.

It's logical that a traumatic experience can put you off something and I know exactly what it was that callously robbed me of my enthusiasm for books: Wuthering Heights. I had to read it at school and, as if once wasn't enough torment, I had to go through it again at university. My opinion didn't change. All the characters were wet apart from Heathcliff who was just a big git. I just couldn't see what all the fuss was about or why he was perceived as a romantic hero – he hangs his wife's dog for goodness sake! I've always liked wordplay, lyrics and good storylines, but this had none of those things. Why Kate Bush felt compelled to write a song inspired by this shameless waste of paper is beyond me.

All of this makes me sound like a complete philistine, but here comes the positive twist. Dylan's continuing development and subsequent fascination with books seem to have started to rub off on me. Since he started to show an interest in them, I have read several complete books. Yes, I know they're not particularly long, but I'll take that. One called That's not my bunny... and a similar offering entitled That's not my train... have been my favourites and we enjoy reading them together. Suddenly I'm looking forward to reading him all the wonderful titles I enjoyed so much as a child and am even reading more material for grown ups. I enjoyed Tim's book obviously and have a reading list composing itself in my head. I am also currently enjoying Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – now that's the way to get me interested in a classic!

Before I finish for today, I'm going to make one last plea regarding the MAD Blog Awards. The voting closes on Friday 17 June and I would be grateful for any votes. If you've liked what you've read here and don't think the same of it that I do of Wuthering Heights, you can vote for Diary of the Dad in the Best MAD Baby Blog category – right at the bottom of the page.

Okay, I'm finished. Thank you!

Book review. Fatherhood: The Essential Guide

2011-06-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

I've been contemplating branching out a bit on this here blog for a little while, but didn't think many of you would be particularly interested in my thoughts concerning rumoured football transfers, how poor the train service is around here and why I am so adamant about the fact that I am never going to learn to drive. Then the perfect opportunity presented itself when Tim Atkinson at Bringing up Charlie kindly offered to send me a copy of his new book, Fatherhood: The Essential Guide. "I know," I thought. "I'm going to return the favour by writing a review" so here it is, Diary of the Dad's first ever book review...

The publication of this new title will be a welcome one to many new and expectant dads because, let's be honest, there is a serious shortage of books for parents who also happen to be blokes. Sure, there are plenty of excellent general parenting books out there, but the questions that a lot of soon-to-be dads have about the highs and lows that are to follow are largely unaddressed in them. Step forward Tim who has been there, seen it and done it.

Starting at the very beginning – well, it's a very good place to start – Tim guides the reader from what to consider when planning a family right through to what to expect as your child approaches the age of three via, among a great many others of course, pregnancy, labour, childbirth and those exciting but frankly terrifying and knackering first few days. One of the things I particularly liked about the book is that all of the scary stuff is in there and is dealt with in a reassuring way – I, for one, would definitely have benefitted from the advice on its pages when we were expecting Dylan.

It's written in the same warm, friendly and witty tone of Tim's blog; making it accessible, informative and authoritative, something one or two of the books I consulted a year or so ago could learn from. All in all, this is a comprehensive, down-to-earth offering from a source I admire and respect. It has brought back plenty of fond memories of what has already passed for me and will be a valuable resource for the exciting years to come. I'll definitely be keeping it in easy reach and only wish it had been published about a year ago!

You can order your copy of Fatherhood: The Essential Guide here.

Born to be a dancer

2011-06-05T09:32:00.000+01:00

Last week I ended with the fact that Dylan was starting to climb things. Anything or anyone, in fact. Since then he seems to have upped it a couple of notches and is now capable of hauling himself into a standing position and, with only a little support, excitedly jumping up and down on the spot to celebrate the new heights he is quite literally reaching.
This is simultaneously exciting and petrifying. We're thrilled that he's progressing so well and it’s wonderful to see him so pleased with his new ability but, at the same time, we’re worried about the distinct lack of eyes to the rear of our craniums that my mum and dad once assured me that all parents have. Don't tell me they were telling porkies now... we could do with them. The trouble is that Dylan is completely fearless and, quick learner though he is, seems to forget that toppling over is a tad painful. Anything is fair game for scaling as far as he’s concerned. His new hobby, for example, is to climb the TV stand and show his approval for what's on the box by repeatedly slapping it. Monkey.

I used to cruelly mock the stirrup-like things you get in flat pack furniture, telling them in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to waste any further precious time using them to attach to the wall the shoddily machined and ill fitting MDF parts I had hastily put together with an Allen Key and the odd bit of dowel. How wrong I was. I think we are now going to become good friends in our collective aim of stopping our resident Spider-man wannabe from reaching the hi-fi on top of our DVD storage unit. And that leads me oh so nicely to Dylan’s other recently acquired skill.

Yes, it seems he likes dancing. While we’re not sure whether we’ve got another Billy Elliot on our hands – there’s a history of coal mining in my family, so you never know – it’s clear he enjoys moving around to the sound of an eclectic range of music. We started him off on things like Maxïmo Park – well their stuff inspires front man Paul Smith to leap around the stage – and, lately, he has also been known to throw some shapes in the church of dance to the likes of Kaiser Chiefs, Foo Fighters, Keane, Noisettes, T. Rex, Paloma Faith and Abba – the last two were not my doing, I hasten to add. There is a clear favourite, however. It’s not indie, rock, dance, pop or, in fact, any other genre you may come up with however. No, it’s the theme tune to Thomas the Tank Engine. As soon as the production company’s graphic appears on the screen he stops what he’s doing, sports a big grin, gets on all fours and starts rocking backwards and forwards at great speed as that famous little ditty plays over the montage of shots of an unrealistically well-run railway. Then, as soon as Ringo Starr starts talking, he’s right back in the telly’s face again. Maybe he’s trying to tell us he’d like to listen to The Beatles next...

Go baby, go baby go, don't upset the rhythm

2011-05-29T09:14:00.000+01:00

I know someone who has been at the centre of a media storm of late, he’s not a footballer... yet, but he does have a surname that may or may not rhyme with that of a Premier League player who, let’s say, may have cropped up in the odd news headline recently. Yes, I can exclusively reveal that it is Dylan. Thanks to Diary of the Dad getting shortlisted for the Best MAD Baby Blog award in the MAD Blog Awards – oh, have I mentioned that already? – laddo has been the subject of three appearances in the local media this week. Very exciting!

First came an interview on Sovereign FM in which I awkwardly stumbled through five minutes of simple questions – Dylan was unavailable for comment as he was having a nap. This was followed by newspaper articles in the Sussex Express...

and the Eastbourne Herald...

There have also been encouraging comments on Facebook, Twitter and from the nice chaps at Dadsnet too. Ok, so it’s not so much a media storm as a media drizzle, but we’re happy with it. I say ‘we’, but Dylan’s blissfully oblivious of his moderate local fame. Or is he? Ever since the stories were published he seems to have become a little bolder.

Take Friday, for example. We took him to the local Sure Start centre to join in a music and rhythm session for the first time. Everything was fine until the all-important musical element of the gathering started up. For those who have never been to one of these, the parents and babies sit in a circle in the middle of a room and a bag of props is passed around. Each child picks one and everyone sings the song that it represents.

A spirited round of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a strange one about aliens getting bored of orbiting earth were enjoyed by all, but then it was time for Old Macdonald. Dylan clearly thought he was too important for such things and proceeded to repeatedly and joyously shout everyone down. Kate and I were a little slow to intervene as we were both laughing so much! Oh well, he enjoyed himself and certainly made an impression. He has also decided that crawling is so last week and is climbing absolutely anything and anyone. More on that next time...

An age-old question

2011-05-22T08:43:00.001+01:00

The latest issue of FHM landed with a thud on the door mat couple of weeks ago and with it came the realisation that I'm getting to that fearful transitional stage of not necessarily feeling old, but certainly of not feeling young either. I don't know whether this is down to the lack of decent sleep over the last ten months or so and if, once Dylan stops yelling in the night, I'll feel sprightly again, but I've had my suspicions that I'm at the start of a strange journey for a while and this confirmed it.

You see, this issue included the annual 100 Sexiest Women supplement and I've got no idea who half of them are, including the winner! Oh dear. In my defence, I only subscribed to the magazine because it came with a free Xbox game so I don't read much of it at all aside from a quick leaf through it when it arrives. Annoyingly, I don't like the game much either – although it affords the player a wonderful virtual tour of Rome, but causing me to reminisce about places Kate and I visited on our honeymoon probably wasn't the intention of its programmers – so now I have a magazine I don't read and a game I don't play. Marvellous.

Maybe the above can be dismissed with the possibility that most of the top 100 I didn't know are from the likes of Big Brother, have got up to something naughty with a Premier League footballer or maybe even a combination of the two. Suffice it to say that I have no interest in reality TV – which is a misnomer, just saying – and am only interested in what happens on the football pitch. How about this other evidence though? For the last six months, I've been on a quest for the perfect pair of slippers while I've also developed a habit of dozing off in front of the telly. If that's not enough, I shout at people who cycle on the pavement and would also like to live in Eastbourne one day. Ha! See?!

There are benefits to all of this though; for example Dylan absolutely loves it when we do impressions of Harry Enfield's Old Gits. Apparently it's the funniest thing in the world at the moment – along with us pretending to cry when he's gone to town our faces with his tiny but powerful nails. Another is that, thanks to little man's new-found love of the theme tune, I'm getting back into Thomas the Tank Engine again. Fingers crossed that Lego, Subbuteo and a bit of classic jumpers for goalposts in the park will follow suit. So maybe I will soon emerge from this tiredness rejuvenated. Let's hope!

How about you? Being a parent is undoubtedly knackering, but how old or young does it make you feel?

The final countdown...

2011-05-17T20:53:00.002+01:00

Today was fairly mediocre to begin with; I grudgingly got up, made myself vaguely presentable, made Dylan's breakfast, had mine with Kate and trudged off to the station with my grumpy going-to-work face prominently on display. The train journey to work was uneventful, ditto the first couple of hours in the office. But then, from nowhere – well, Twitter, actually – came the news that has given me a permanent grin ever since; Diary of the Dad has been named among the finalists in the Best MAD Baby Blog category of the MAD Blog Awards.

I couldn't believe it and had to double check that there wasn't someone else with the same name and blog title as me. Improbable, I know, but I never thought I'd make the final cut when I entered and hassled you good people into voting for me. There is some terrific talent out there and I'm flattered at being named among the relative few in the final.

Thank you very much to everyone who has voted for the blog and helped it get so far. Tired old cliché though this may be, being shortlisted alone is a great achievement and I'm happy enough with that. That said, I'd be lying if I said winning held no appeal, so if you want to vote for us – after all, there wouldn't be a blog without Dylan and his antics – then you can either do so via the link below or the badge that I have proudly displayed to the right of this very post.

This link goes straight to my category – just saying

Thanks again everyone and, as before, normal Diary of the Dad blogging service will resume shortly.

In the Fright Garden

2011-05-14T10:31:00.000+01:00

We love In the Night Garden in our house; it has become the staple of Dylan's bedtime routine. I don't know what its creators were on when they came up with the idea, but it is stellar stuff that seems to hypnotise our little monkey, convincing him in the process that going to sleep would actually be quite nice. There are, however, a couple of concerns that I have about certain elements of the programme. I should point out that these only came about as a result of me being a typical bloke and deliberately over-analysing something completely innocent in a half-arsed attempt at being funny.

At the very start, we see Igglepiggle going to sleep in a rowing boat. And those waters are pretty choppy. I worry terribly that he'll capsize and miss his usual canoodling with Upsy Daisy. Then there are the Haahoos. They bloody terrify me! They are the kind of thing that Steven Moffat seems to embrace when writing the creepier episodes of Dr Who. Is it just me or is there something deeply insidious about them? They advance slowly on the other characters, much in the same way that zombies do. In my first ever post, I lauded zombies as my silver screen heroes, so why am I bringing them up in an apparently negative context? Well you know where you stand – or, indeed, leg it – with them. Via their demeanour, they are honest about their intentions towards you. They want to rip your face off and for you to then join them to do lunch. Not so with the Haahoos. Behind those smiles, I'm quite sure, is something menacing biding its time.

How about the Wottingers too? They live a parallel life with the Pontipines and play their part in jolly japes around the garden, but are the only characters who don't get invited to dance under the gazebo or have Derek Jacobi tell them to go to sleep. One day this lack of recognition is going to get to them and what then? A family feud culminating in the demise of two star-crossed lovers perhaps? It could be even worse and they could go postal and act out a violent adaptation of Gulliver's Travels involving Igglepiggle. It doesn't bear thinking about.

It's all great entertainment on the whole though and the quirks such as Makka Pakka's OCD and the Tombliboos' trousers falling down with alarming frequency are things that I can relate to. The Ninky Nonk isn't realistic though, it's much more smooth a ride than my train to work...

Exit pursued by a baby

2011-05-08T08:32:00.000+01:00

Ever since Dylan learned to crawl, he has been displaying some unexpected characteristics and, yes folks, I'm going off on a completely irrelevant and almost certainly pointless tangent with this blog entry, but I'm pretending to think that he reckons he's a cat.

For the benefit of anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I should point out before I get any further into this flight of fancy that I work for the feline welfare charity that once had 'League' in its name and that everybody still seems to think has League in its name. It shortened it over a decade ago, but nobody seemed to notice. Oh well. Yes, that charity. Furthermore, until very recently when we decided that Kate would stay at home with Dylan she too worked for the same organisation. It's where we met, in fact, which already adds some credence to my whimsical notions. We all know about the stereotype of the crazy cat lady who hoards unfortunate moggies and attributes human characteristics to them so, presumably, it can work in reverse too. That's not to say that I'm going to get Dylan neutered, mind.

Dylan enthusiastically follows both Kate and me around wherever we go, doing his best to tangle himself between our feet – especially when it's in the vague direction of the kitchen and his food. Similarly, he's adept at dragging himself over to the back door and glancing up at us with a hopeful look on his face. He has also developed a strange fascination with cardboard boxes, sporadically 'sprays' the bathroom when we're changing him and has taken to chasing would-be prey around the house. Last weekend we had to stop him in hot pursuit of a spider that he wasn't going to give up on catching – exit pursued by a baby, eh? – and, in all probability, put in his mouth. Nice.

The penny seems to have dropped with sleeping during the day too. Until recently, he was loathe to have a nap even when he was very tired but now he'll quite happily have a snooze – he even dozed off in his high chair during his dinner yesterday. Add to this the fact that I'm writing this at an ungodly hour on a Sunday morning because he woke us up demanding breakfast and you've got some pretty strong evidence to suggest that our son has aspirations of being a cat. Can't say I blame him really.

So leopards never change their spots, eh? On BabyTV they certainly do...

2011-05-01T11:08:00.000+01:00

There’s something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest for a while – I can’t stand BabyTV. That feels better already, but allow me to vent a little more, dear reader. When we discovered it, we thought it was a blessing – it instantly pacified Dylan when nothing else would and it seemed to have a variety of different educational cartoons and songs on offer. How wrong we were; it has proved to be a curse that is slowly driving both me and Kate mad.

Characterised by patronising narrators who can’t pronounce certain basic sounds properly, crude animation and songs that perpetually hit bum notes, it is a channel that I can guarantee will ire even the most placid of parents. Sure, there are some redeeming qualities, but I can count them twice on one hand. Tucky Tales is one of the good ones – a toucan goes round imitating other creatures and elements of the natural world under the pretence of flattering them, but I think he’s actually taking the Mickey so therefore love him for it – he brazenly urinates on whatever is below him while copying a raincloud on the title sequence alone. Legend. Draco is the other good one – he’s a dragon who I imagine toddlers relate to, he is clumsy in his movements and has a temper on him when he doesn’t get his way but is ultimately likeable and teams up with the narrator to solve problems.

Sadly, not all of the characters are like Tucky and Draco, however. There’s an annoying pink slug called Tulli who finds himself on large objects and guesses what they are with the help of an easily-entertained narrator who sounds as though she’s stoned. I only wish he would discover some beer or blue pellets sometime soon. Then there’s an intensely irritating person of indeterminate gender called Yoyo the Magician who conjures up things to entertain his/her clinically depressed ape friend Darwin by waving a towel in the air and laughing in a way that can only inspire aggressive thoughts by otherwise pacifistic adults.

Then there are the factual inaccuracies – on several of the so-called educational offerings, the narrators seem incapable of differentiating between leopards and tigers, recorders and flutes and tortoises and turtles among many others. I know children of Dylan’s age won’t take it all in, but that’s not really the point. Getting basic things wrong is just embarrassing.

The crowning glory, however, is a song in which an unfortunate child whose birthday it is has a photo of their head superimposed on a badly animated character who dances around with equally poorly contrived animals to a banal song performed by an older child trying to sound like a toddler and hitting more flat notes than most manufactured boy bands when bullied into actually performing live.

So why am I ranting about BabyTV instead of switching over? Well we’ve tried very hard to wean Dylan off it and onto other options such as most of the content on the excellent CBeebies as well as Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom – the wonderfully sarcastic Nanny Plum is our heroine – but there’s one thing that we can’t take away from him, hate it as we do. The show in question is called Louie’s World and follows a simple format – a voice repeatedly says the names of objects that appear on gaudy backgrounds while classical music plays. It’s mundane, but it has an amazing hypnotic effect on Dylan who crawls up to the TV and stays transfixed for the duration. A bit like the little girl in Poltergeist – maybe we should stop him watching it after all...

Kreativ thinking

2011-04-28T21:19:00.000+01:00

Last Monday was a good day. Thanks to my shiny new smartphone, I was able to learn that Tottenham's Gareth Bale had won the PFA Player of the Year Award on my way in to work and, with pleasing symmetry, that I had been given an award of my own on the magical mystery tour that I like to call the train journey home.

The nod in question is the Kreativ Blogger Award and was kindly bestowed by HerMelness Speaks... out who had some very kind words about my writing. In order to accept this gong, I need to follow three rules; to award 10 fellow bloggy types, inform them of this and then regale you with 10 facts about yours truly. I have to be honest and admit that I don't entirely understand the protocol involved but it sounds fun enough so here goes. I nominate:

1) Bringing up Charlie by Tim Atkinson
A friendly, funny and interesting blog by a thoroughly bloody nice chap. He's also very supportive of newbies like me and has made me feel welcome in the parent blogging community. Cheers Tim!

2) Mommatwo by Elizabeth Locke
Another funny and engaging blog that I enjoy reading. Elizabeth's observations will strike a chord with many a parent and, for me, also act as previews of what Dylan will get up to when he's a toddler.

3) Back For Two Seconds by Rasoul Hudda
Not a parenting one, but the daddy of all video gaming blogs as far as I'm concerned! Rasoul is an irritatingly talented friend and colleague of mine and also drew the title image at the top of this very page.

4) Hailsham Arts Festival by Josie Tipler
I make no apology for choosing a second pre-blogging friend here. Josie is another member of the irritatingly talented brigade and has done a lot to introduce some culture into the town that I grew up in. If an arts festival can't be deemed 'Kreativ', what can?

5) Bloggertropolis by Stephen Herrick-Blake
I have to admit that I only discovered this long-established blog very recently but have added it to my reading list. I like his style.

6) Freelance Mum by Jane Purcell
As a journalist/author and, of course, parent with aspirations of one day going permanently freelance myself and working from home, I'll be following this blog with interest.

7) Dad's the way to do it by Paul Williams
Paul juggles a freelance career in design with bringing up his son George and has found time to write a novel too. Well played Sir!

8) Hot Cross Mum by Hazel Gaynor
Another brilliant blog about being a parent. I particularly liked the recent post about the life cycle of blogs that used frogs as an analogy. I think mine is half 'blogspawn', half 'blogpole'...

9) Fart and Culture by Alex Locke
A brand new blog that I like the look of. According to his Twitter profile, Alex hates the Daily Mail, Jeremy Clarkson and text speak so I think highly of him already. Plus his blog has 'Fart' in its name...

10) Files and Records by John Clayton
Another one that I discovered recently. What I like about John's blog is that he covers a good variety of thought-provoking subjects; something that I haven't been brave enough to try doing yet.

So now for the required 10 facts about me:

1) I was once nearly injured/killed by a goat falling out of a tree in Morocco.

2) I got into journalism because a cast member from the TV comedy-drama Roger Roger told me I'd be good at it.

3) I met my wife, Kate, on the work minibus. People seem to find this amusing.

4) I grew my hair long a couple of years ago and was told that it made me resemble a piece of broccoli. I cut it off again.

5) I can't dance, but am pleased as this will help me to embarrass Dylan when he's older.

6) I've had some strange jobs including working in a castle, supervising an exhibition in a shopping centre and removing dead badgers from country roads.

7) When I was four years old, I was out in the great outdoors on a family holiday when I had to answer a call of nature. With no other option available, my Dad wiped my bum with some French bread.

8) In spite of the above point, I have a good relationship with my Dad.

9) In spite of the point before last, I still eat French bread.

10) I have Hobbit feet.

Loitering within tent

2011-04-24T09:52:00.000+01:00

The sunny weather we have all enjoyed of late has seen us finally dragging ourselves outside to do something about the horrendous mess we call the garden. Dylan was born only a month after we moved in, so we had a great excuse to neglect it last summer but sadly not this year from my lazy point of view. Damn this early 'summer'!

So while, with the aid of my green-fingered parents, we've been turning our back yard into something we don't mind our neighbours seeing us in, Dylan has been getting his first taste of camping. A good friend gave us a children's tent shortly after he arrived in this world and it has proved to be an inspired purchase. He loves it, it protects him from the sun and we all get to enjoy being outdoors too. The other benefit, for the moment at least, is that he stays put in it while he gets used to the new surroundings. Everyone's a winner – well, at least until he decides the shed is worth dragging himself over to investigate.

Like DIY, gardening is something I'm awful at but, if you excuse the pun, it's growing on me. While I get the hang of the more delicate side of it, there's the destructive element at which I excel. You've got to love a bit of brute force and ignorance now and then. Digging up and ripping things out of the ground are both very cathartic, although the most pleasing act of pseudo-violence was ridding ourselves of a gnome that the previous occupiers saw fit to leave behind.

Why these ugly things are perceived in folklore as legendary creatures is beyond me – they're just odd little men, the like of which can be found nursing the same pint for hours on end in your local social club. Anyway, the little bugger had been mocking me with his hideous grin and beady little eyes since we moved in and enough was enough. I smashed the interloper over the head with a shovel before interring him in a shallow grave that we then turned into a flower bed. I know it was probably uncalled for, but the beardy little blighter may have frightened Dylan and, until we have another kid, there's only room for one little loiterer in our garden.

If I had a hammer... I'd probably leave it in the shed

2011-04-17T16:46:00.000+01:00

Well it’s official, we have a crawler! As I was speculating last week, Dylan has established that moving his arms as well as his legs is an integral part of cruising the carpet. Chaos will ensue, as will some basic DIY work to install stair gates. I am fundamentally useless at such things; I used to get chucked out of the workshop during CDT lessons at school because I was taking up too much of the teacher’s time. I had to go and do technical drawing instead, at which I was equally inept.

I was talking to one of my mates at work this week about what it is to own tools. We concluded that it made one feel like a proper man about the house, although owning the tools and actually putting them to their intended uses are two different matters entirely. My toolbox bears a name that is also that of a proper hard-working northern man. For my part, I was born in the north but fit the profile of the archetypal southern softie perfectly. I may well feel a sense of importance when I get the toolbox out for what would be an easy job for anybody else, but the truth is I’m terrified of most of its contents. Being a lover of horror films, I know what I could accidentally achieve with the drill for one, so I tend to leave it all well alone. In fact, it’s something of a mystery as to where I accumulated most of my tools. The only things I actually recall buying are a junior hacksaw about a month ago which, it turned out, we didn’t actually need and a set of 15 screwdrivers I bought in a pound shop while I was at university in 1999.

The irony of all of this is that I actually spent the first couple of years of my career as Deputy Editor on a couple of woodworking magazines. Not only did I pick up a good understanding of how the associated jigs, joints and jargon worked, but I was also once the cover model on one of the titles. Hard to believe, I know, but the organisation I worked for was very good at keeping costs down and if you were a bloke who worked there, there was a good chance you’d end up pretending to know what you were doing while in possession of a power tool. The camera never lies eh? It bloody does! I went as far as insisting that it was switched off and the business end blurred in Photoshop afterwards to create the illusion of movement. Sad but true.

All this said, I installed a simple rotating locking device – the exact name of which escapes me – on the shed to keep the warped door a little closer to its frame. I then got rid of a small wasps’ nest with the aid of one of Dylan’s empty baby food jars and basked in the reflected glory of completing these two missions for the rest of the day.

Of whingers and ninjas

2011-04-10T16:22:00.000+01:00

Well where to start? Dylan’s been doing new things every day at the moment and it continues to be very exciting. The most obvious new trick is that he can now stand on all fours. Kate reliably informs me that this pose is a yoga move known as the downward facing dog, but it’s when he tries to move from this stance that amuses us most. It won’t be long until he’s crawling – he’s 99% of the way to cracking that one – but for the moment at least he seems to be enjoying lolloping about in a way not entirely dissimilar to that of Gollum in Lord of the Rings.

Aside from lumbering around like everybody’s favourite jewellery-obsessed, Middle Earth-blighting multiple personality disorder sufferer, the proverbial penny has dropped with the staple game of baby entertainment that is peek-a-boo. He just didn’t get it for a while, giving Kate and I quizzical, unimpressed glances when we tried playing it with him. Now, however, he seems to think it’s the funniest thing in the world; well, that and me jumping out on him and shouting “BWAH!” Not only that, however, oh no. As well as delighting in us suddenly revealing our faces from around a corner, he has also started playing it himself. So now, when he has tired of playing with his toys and carefully removing my Xbox games from the shelves of our TV corner unit, he can be found using one of said games – usually a wildly inappropriate one involving zombies or global conflict – to hide his own face and reveal it with a “BWAH!” of his own.

Not all of the recent developments have been heralded clumsily or noisily though. He seems to have an acute case of ‘ninja teeth’. The top-front ones had been pushing through slowly for what seemed an age when another one stealthily arrived on the bottom row overnight. There was no warning about its impending arrival, there it just was one morning, sat next to his two already-established bottom teeth like it owned the place. Given his propensity to delightedly yell at anyone he sees at the moment though, I think it’s safe to say that Dylan is more whinger than ninja...

You don't have to be MAD to blog here...

2011-04-06T13:51:00.000+01:00

It's time for a completely shameless, begging blog post from yours truly, dear reader. You see, the MAD Blog Awards for 2011 are open to nominations and I'm hoping that the combination of Dylan's antics and me writing about them can help us make the awards' shortlist in Diary of the Dad's debut year.

The awards celebrate British families and their blogs and there are 15 categories as well as the overall title of MAD Blogger of the Year. Picture me looking pleadingly at you while shuffling my feet awkwardly and you've got an accurate description of how I look right now. No, really, I am actually looking at my computer with a hopeful grin while my feet are going into overdrive under my desk.

Any lovely people kind enough to nominate Diary of the Dad can do so at the following link; you only need to nominate for the overall title on the first page and any of the categories that you feel are relevant on the second – you can leave them blank if you don't have a nomination to make. It will only take a couple of minutes at the very most.

http://www.the-mads.com/nominate.htm

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this plea, normal blogging service will resume soon.

Fancy that! Dylan's first crush

2011-04-03T10:20:00.000+01:00

Dylan is continuing to change at a rate of knots and there have been another couple of firsts this week. Okay, the first one is tenuous, but that’s not going to stop me writing about it; he seems to have developed his first crush! He’s been moody for the majority of the last seven days due to his top teeth pushing through and, on some occasions, there has only been one thing that brings his tantrums to an abrupt end: the CBeebies bedtime story and, more specifically, the celebrity reading them this week. Yes, our nine-month-old son fancies Kimberley Walsh from Girls Aloud.

Without fail, every time she has appeared on the screen he has stopped mid wail and beamed at the telly before getting shy and burying his face in my shoulder and taking another coy glance at the new object of his affections. It’s equally relieving and concerning – anything that stops him crying is, of course, most welcome but what if he ends up liking Girls Aloud as a result?! I don’t think my ears could take it. I used to have songs I like stuck in my head for ages, but now it’s either the theme tune to Waybuloo or one of the god-awful things from Baby TV – but that’s a rant for another time – these I can just about put up with, but manufactured chart music? No thank you! I think we’re going to have to put him on a strict Foo Fighters diet for a couple of weeks until the risk has passed.

The next new thing in Dylan’s life is that he is now in his own room. We meant to put him in there ages ago, but the skanky old window needed replacing and this has only recently been done. I write this, in fact, after his first night in there and, surprisingly, he slept pretty well. In spite of the fact that at present it’s half nursery, half fly tipping site, he had a good night’s sleep. The poor little man can now probably relate to Stig of the Dump, but he seemed happy enough this morning – just in time to give Kate her Mother’s Day card and gift. His room is going to be lovely when the remaining clutter has been hastily shoved elsewhere and his pictures are up. And what will adorn his walls? Well, we haven’t ruled out pictures of Kimberley for when he kicks off...

Bath time fun? You're having a bubble!

2011-03-27T10:09:00.000+01:00

There’s a sign on the wall at our local Mothercare that says something to the effect of ‘your baby won’t enjoy bath time at first but soon they won’t want to get out’. Well the first part is definitely true, albeit something of an understatement, but there’s no sign of the second becoming a reality as far as Dylan is concerned. It’s somewhat ironic that his name means ‘man from the sea’; he seems to absolutely hate water!

He can be happy as Larry – I’ve always wondered who Larry is and why he’s so damn chuffed the whole time – but put him in a small amount of water and waterworks of his own are fully operational within seconds. Screams fill the air and his little legs go into overdrive making the bath the driest part of the room, while his facial expression seems to say “How could you do this to me, you evil people?” He’s nearly nine months old – surely he should like baths by now? Of course, we always make sure the water is the correct temperature and have tried different bath lotions to find one that won’t dry his skin. We also give him things to play with in an effort to distract him from the fact that he is sitting in his nemesis, but none of this has worked yet.

So with the logical approach yielding nothing, I’ve been doing the blokey thing of trying to think of some more leftfield reasons as to why he loathes the bath so much. I still haven’t come up with a satisfactory explanation though; he hasn’t seen any of the Jaws films so it can’t be fear – besides, he’s the only bitey customer in the water. Neither can it be body issues – he’s way too young to develop dysmorphia. The only vaguely credible one I’ve come up with is that I’m not keen on large expanses of water and maybe he had inherited my angst about it. That’s still tenuous at best though.

Maybe I’m overanalysing here and he’ll eventually like having a bath. Knowing our luck with his apparent enmity for water though, that’ll be right before he becomes a soap-dodging teenager...

Ullo Dylan! Gotta new motor?

2011-03-20T11:06:00.000Z

Dylan seems to be getting a tiny bit more independent with every day at the moment so what better time to let him try out his first set of wheels? Like the vast majority of first-time drivers, his car – ok, it’s a walker, but it looks vaguely like a car – is second hand. It has been very kindly loaned by his older cousin, Jack, who has long since moved onto a cooler mode of transport with fewer wheels.

Unfortunately, the wheels on his walker don’t get on too well with the new carpet in our living room and staying put is no fun, so there’s really only one room he can go and act like a Sunday driver in; the kitchen. Our kitchen is fairly narrow, so his initial attempts at moving around in search of things to grab and put in his mouth – his favourite hobby alongside showing his affection for us by trying to rip our faces off – were reminiscent of the scene in the first Austin Powers film when Mike Myers tries – and fails – to manoeuvre a long, cart-like vehicle through a narrow corridor. All he succeeded in doing was alternately ram raiding the dishwasher and the oven.

Still, once he learned how not to career around like George Michael, he learned that, even in our poky little kitchen, there is plenty of fun to be had. Repeatedly smacking into our legs if we have the temerity to turn our backs for a moment seems to be enjoyable, as does knocking over the admittedly large accumulation of recycling by the bin. I keep meaning to do it every weekend, but often can’t be bothered and let it stack up until the point that, when I do eventually go to the local bottle bank, I come home with arms like an orangutan. I digress. The positive side to my laziness is that we almost have enough plastic bottles for him to play human skittles with now.

The only slightly worrying thing in all of this is that he does seem to get quite animated and shout a lot when he’s driving around so I wonder whether he’s going to inherit my road rage – one of the very many reasons I have never learned to drive myself. So while Dylan’s driving is, for now at least, constricted to the kitchen I think I’ll keep mine limited to GTA and Mario Kart. That said, Yoshi is a little sh...

Tears to cheers

2011-03-13T09:27:00.000Z

Dylan has been a little mardy of late; it's understandable though as he's got more teeth coming through. I know how much my wisdom teeth hurt when they sporadically push their way through so it must be agony for the poor little man. So other than doing our best to help alleviate his pain, we've found ourselves doing all kinds of weird things to cheer him up.

It's amazing the lengths you'll go to in order to stop a baby crying; the other day I discovered that acting like I was in a mosh pit at a thrash metal gig made him completely forget his tears and laugh his arse off. It was definitely worth the quite literal pain in the neck. Throwing myself around the living room like a man possessed aside, another trick that seemed to stop his tantrums in their tracks during the early days was a strange way of holding him, known as the 'Tiger in the tree'. It’s not a big secret; it’s in most of the baby books, but it’s worthy of a mention as the facial expression it elicits is so funny. For the unversed, you basically carry your baby around with the side of their head in the crook of your arm and your forearm underneath their chest. You then pass your other arm between their legs and grab on to your other hand and that’s it. Without fail, it seemed to transform a howling, red-faced Dylan into a silent and completely discombobulated Dylan. Magic!

Other odd things that have either amused him or put paid to his woe have included the buzzing of my electric toothbrush, me imitating the buzzing of my electric toothbrush, the fridge – which, Kate very pithily pointed out, chilled him out – and anything that he’s not supposed to play with. I can tell already that he’s going to be a bit of a gadget geek; he’s forever trying to pinch my new phone and loves remote controls. We’ve given him an obsolete remote to play with, but it’s the Sky + one that he’s really interested in; he managed to grab it and change Peppa Pig for a gambling channel last week before pressing a still-unidentified button that made everything vanish and some random symbol appear in the corner. Thinking about it, it’s a shame that, when he’s crying at least, he doesn’t have a mute button...

I predict a diet

2011-03-06T11:48:00.000Z

People always start a new year with good intentions, particularly when it comes to things like their diets. Like everyone else, Kate and I decreed that the early portion of 2011 would be a defining era in which the three of us would eat more healthily. Well, to paraphrase a well-known singer whose chosen moniker seems to suggest his own great love for food, one out of three ain't bad.

The one in question is, of course Dylan who, since we started weaning him, has dined like royalty. It's amazing how many different flavours of baby food are available now; I can't remember what kind of things I was fed on at that age – unless it was so awful that I repressed the memory – but I'm sure it could never compare favourably to the cuisine our greedy little monkey has us shovel down him morning, noon and night. Take the other day, for example; Dylan chowed down on Moroccan lamb with cous cous while we, thanks to a faux pas with regards defrosting some meat, had to settle for a frozen pizza.

There's no doubt he's eating better than we are; other recent feasts of his have included a Sunday roast, a pork casserole and a number of fancy Italian pasta-based offerings that wouldn't look out of place on the menu at Zizzi. Unbelievable! Still, he's continuing to devour everything in his path and is never backward in coming forward to very loudly voice his dismay at either the speed at which he is being fed or the presence of an emptied bowl. This is usually accompanied by banging the tray of his high chair with his tiny fists which, until this point, have been busy being jazz hands for the duration of the meal. I wonder whether adopting some of his direct tactics could make my money go further in restaurants? Now there's food for thought...

OCD – that’s Obsessive Compulsive Dad

2011-02-26T12:33:00.001Z

I’ve always had a bit of a fastidious nature and have been cultivating what I am sure will one day blossom into a full-blown OCD for quite a few years now. I’ve long since had what I perceive as the sensible habit of checking my pockets every time I move from one place to another and, at risk of opening myself up to ridicule here, have alphabetised our DVDs, proofread text messages before I send them and only allow the volume on the TV to be tuned to an even number unless it’s a five. There’s nothing weird about any of that now is there?

But lately my neurotic behaviour has gone up a notch thanks to the fact that Dylan is now being bottle fed, which requires all the necessary equipment to be sterile. Obviously, the steriliser deals with most of that side of things – it’s not just a clever name – but it’s my input that I worry about. Part of my morning routine involves making his first bottle of milk so it’s ready when he decides to unceremoniously wake Kate up. Of course, another part of said routine entails getting shower gel, shampoo and face wash on my hands and putting on my battered old shoes among other things and, being the sort who frets, I worry about whether I’m going to transfer any nasties onto the teat of his bottle. So much so, that I’ve developed a hand-scrubbing habit worthy of Lady Macbeth after everything I do.

Still, being fanatical about things regarding his health isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s come in useful with the current project of baby-proofing the house, for example. He’s starting to make efforts at crawling, so plug sockets have been the priority – and the people who lived in our house before we did must have had an OCD of their own with regards installing the bloody things; I can imagine them getting up in arms at the prospect of a square metre without access to power. Shame their compulsion didn’t extend to getting the wiring in the kitchen done safely, but that’s another story... I only had three minor shocks, so no real harm was done.

So going back to making the house Dylan proof, we were advised by the health visitor that the best way of discovering dangers is to crawl around on the floor ourselves. As a result, all of the spare sockets are blocked now but, given my latest character trait, the majority of my time has been equally divided between the carpet and the bathroom sink...

Dad's the word

2011-02-19T09:38:00.001Z

Very exciting news: Dylan sort of spoke his first word last week and, to my delight, it was “Dada”! A big moment, even though I know it wasn’t really directed at yours truly. I’d read ages ago that it was the sound that most babies tend to make first, so I tried to be pragmatic, but couldn’t help but get carried away with the belief that he was acknowledging me.

It’s all too easy to try and attribute meaning to the sounds he’s making and, try as we might, both Kate and I have fallen into the trap of trying to fathom what he’s banging on about. Speculating about his latest development then, if he wasn’t addressing me maybe he was referring to the strange, iconoclastic cultural movement that many believe inspired its surrealist counterpart? He is, of course, a child genius so perhaps he was trying to engage me in a conversation about the merits of Dali’s work. An esteemed friend and colleague of mine also suggested that he was, in fact, speaking Russian and saying “Yes, yes” – maybe he’s a pensive eastern European intellectual? Sounds equally feasible to me.

There are two remaining factors to take into account though; the first is that, over the last few weeks, I have done the predictable thing of repeatedly saying “Can you say Dada?” when I’m feeding him his dinner and – yes, I know I’m probably clutching at straws here – the first time he said it was while being fed. The other came in the form of what he said next – a monosyllabic offering that sounded very much like “git”. Maybe he was referring to me after all!

A fistful of firsts

2011-02-04T13:02:00.000Z

An update at long last, dear reader! Kate and I have both been stupidly busy writing copy for a book in our free time of late; I could tell you what the subject matter is, but if I did I'd have to kill you. Suffice it to say that given the topic, the fact that I seem to have started referring to myself in the third person when speaking to Dylan is somewhat alarming.

Since my last update, there have been a number of exciting firsts; Dylan has now experienced his first Christmas during which he learned to roll on to his front and, after a few episodes of whingeing, onto his back again. His first tooth then appeared and was soon joined by another. We've also started to wean him, so he's experiencing all kinds of weird and wonderful flavours for the first time. Banana porridge seemed to elicit the most batshit-insane response – although he did decide he would rather wear it the other day while my back was turned for all of 10 seconds – while the cauliflower cheese resulted in a distinctly unimpressed countenance. Can't blame him for that though, it does smell like farts. Of course, all this solid food has resulted in another inevitable first – or should that be ‘second’ if we're talking about number twos?

The nappies have got smellier and heavier and, thanks to a combination of the Christmas refuse collection schedule and my own forgetfulness, I now know what it is like to manoeuvre a wheelie bin containing more than my own bodyweight in used nappies down a narrow back alley that the Victorians didn't want people to negotiate with any semblance of comfort or ease. The positive is that this dirty job alone was probably enough to sweat off the turkey, so I may be releasing an alternative exercise DVD involving a binload of crap later this year – how could it fail to catch on?

Small talk

2010-12-08T21:40:00.001Z

Dylan has been changing a little bit every day of late and has compensated for the sleepless nights he continues to create by providing us with plenty of entertainment. He has been getting very close to rolling over and seems to be finding the strangest of things downright hilarious – his own coughs seem to inspire a hefty bout of chuckles for one – but the most exciting thing has undoubtedly been the array of new sounds he has started making as he begins to work on his language skills.

One of his favourite vocal exercises at present is to carry off a highly convincing impression of the never-seen teacher in the Peanuts cartoons while Kate is feeding him. If you’re in another room, you’ll know he’s chowing down thanks to the constant ‘wahwahwahwahwah’ noise. I think he’ll eventually graduate to Popeye’s spinach-munching-inspired ‘numnumnumnumnum’. Sticking with cartoons, he’s added raspberry-blowing to his repertoire, so along with all the other frantic sounds he animatedly blurts out, he can also perform a passable imitation of Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil and I’m sure once he starts crawling he’ll add Taz-like carnage to this too.

Apart from these repetitive efforts, he has been trying out singular vowel sounds and you can see the surprise on his little face when he manages a new one. It’s very easy to try and attribute meaning to what he’s ‘saying’ – the other day when I got home, he really did sound like he was saying: “Who’s that?” – but we know the closest translation to any of his musings is something along the lines of “Mother, dearest, I’d like some of the house white please” or “Father, old boy, this is most embarrassing but I appear to have soiled my undercrackers; sort it out would you?”

Speaking of language, I’m going to have to start watching my own now that he’s starting to dabble with the basics of verbal communication. As far as I’m concerned, swearing is big and it is clever; I particularly like the word inadvertently made popular again by James Naughtie and Andrew Marr recently, for example, but I’d be absolutely mortified if Dylan acquired such idioms before he understands that they offend. I don’t know where to look when I hear other people’s young kids mouthing off and definitely don’t want him ending up like them. We’ve therefore started to embark on a word replacement strategy; ‘Cameron’ is the new C word in our house and I’m sure many of you will agree that it adequately expresses the same sentiment. We’ve been struggling over what to replace the F word with though – ‘flipping’ isn’t nearly as satisfying – any suggestions are welcome!

New kid on the box

2010-11-18T14:03:00.000Z

Dylan seems to have become mesmerised by the telly lately; it's not that surprising really – he's been taking an interest in everything around him for a while and it attracts the eye and makes a lot of noise. While we've tried not to plonk him down in front of it to pacify him when all else fails, it's tricky not to as it's so effective.

He's suitably subdued by things specifically made for babies – including most stuff on BabyTV and insane masterpieces like In the Night Garden, which I find intriguing and disturbing in equal measure – but there are some more surprising broadcasts that prompt a fixed gaze and a series of fascinated-sounding gurgles. I'm pleased to report that laddo has shown the first signs of enjoying football – he hasn't yet complained about the fare on the idiot box, although some of my team's recent performances have given me a few reasons to whinge in his stead.

Similarly, he absolutely loves Sky Sports News, particularly Jeff Stelling and the Soccer Saturday team. He gets as animated as the show’s host does when Hartlepool have scored at times and responds well to Chris Kamara’s excitable reports too. I secretly harbour the hope that his first words will be “Unbelievable, Jeff!”

Inevitably, Sky comes with a plethora of adverts – I know, we're making a monster here – but his reactions to some of them are worth his equally inevitable future campaigns for toys, sweets and access to gold-cashing services; the one for Bell’s whisky that features a cartoon dog playing bagpipes makes him go absolutely berserk. Marvellous!

He is also quite quickly mastering the standard behaviour of a bloke watching TV – he farts indiscriminately and, the other day, he tried to help himself to a slice of pizza from my plate while he was sat on my lap. That said, he observed the minute’s silence before the Stoke vs Liverpool game last weekend impeccably. It's also a good sign that he seems to have realised the error of his ways in impersonating Jonny Wilkinson of late – the other day we were at Kate’s parents’ house and the rugby was on; Dylan's response was a long, bored-sounding sigh. Good lad – I’m so proud!

The littlest emo

2010-10-30T13:02:00.001+01:00

Dylan has been suffering a bit with eczema lately; not a big problem really – a lot of babies do and it’s supposed to be easy enough to deal with – but it’s what has come with it that is of concern. He’s scratching himself to ribbons. It’s not just the affected areas either; he seems to have developed a penchant for attacking his own face as well. While he hasn’t managed to make himself look entirely like Dr Evil yet, my little Mini Me has certainly been making a good fist of it thanks to his Houdini-like ability to escape his scratch mittens, which seem to have been relegated to the status of pointless fashion accessory now.

We’ve started to wonder whether, as a result of this apparent self-harm obsession, we have the world’s youngest emo on our hands. It’s just as well that neither of us are into the likes of My Chemical Romance then, but we’ll err on the side of caution and keep him well away from Kate’s Twilight Saga DVDs. This has got me to thinking about what he’ll be like when he’s a teenager – and I hope he won’t be an angst-ridden sort who nobody in the world could possibly understand because, of course, nobody else has ever been a hormonal soap-dodging teen.

Another possible hint as to what a future Dylan may be into came to light recently; he appears to enjoy striking the same curious pose that Jonny Wilkinson adopts before hoofing an egg-shaped ball in the vague direction of a large, metal H. Yes, I can’t stand rugby – wrong shaped ball you see. And this leads to another of my neuroses about him – what if he likes football but supports the wrong team?! It’s every football-obsessed dad’s worst nightmare. I don’t mind if he doesn’t like the beautiful game or, if he does, who he supports – with three exceptions. If he decides his allegiance lies with Arsenal, Chelsea or West Ham then I’m going to run away from home and live on a deserted island somewhere, crying myself to sleep every night.

Going back to the Dr Evil thing, yes, I know he’s based on Blofeld but I don’t like James Bond either. So there! So as long as Dylan is an emo-dodging, rugby-loathing and 007-hating Spurs supporter I’ll be happy – that’s not asking a lot now is it?

Shits and giggles

2010-10-17T20:39:00.000+01:00

Dylan laughed for the first time three or four weeks ago. He had already been smiling and making cooing noises, but this was completely different. He was lying on the mat we change his nappies on at the time; hardly somewhere synonymous with mirth, but chuckle he did. I had just got back from playing football and was getting out of the shower when he decided to debut his little giggle. If I were more of an insecure person I would have been fighting off some pretty strong dysmorphic feelings after being apparently ridiculed by a ten-week-old child, but I have long since accepted that he’s my intellectual superior – as every new parent will tell you, their child is a genius – so I let him off this time. It isn’t as if we haven’t laughed at him, after all.

Even before he was smiling, Dylan was giving us plenty to laugh about. First of all were the myriad of facial expressions; from his ‘quizzical alien’ look to the involuntary chin wobble that occurred every time he tried to lift his head when his muscles weren’t quite ready. Then there are the noises he makes as he experiments with sounds; the other day for example he interrupted me mid-rant with an extended, fed-up-sounding sigh. Brilliant comic timing which cut me down to size instantly. The other thing is the toilet humour, of course. It’s probably just as well that Kate and I have the sense of humour of a pair of eight year olds, as funny sounds and smells emanating from his nappy punctuate the day at regular intervals, along with the ensuing infantile laughter from us both.

His ‘sharts’ as we’ll call them are like volcanic eruptions and, in the early days, they were so forceful that these by-products shot sideways through both his nappy and bodysuit, decorating both me and my clothes. Nice, although we have both now developed Matrix bullet time-style reflexes while changing him, which is a bonus. The finest example of the poo-related comic timing he is cultivating though, came on my parents’ wedding anniversary. “Wish Grandma and Grandad a happy anniversary, Dylan,” I said. His response was a loud, prolonged and squelchy expulsion of air and faecal matter. See? Genius!

The times they are a changin’

2010-10-03T13:05:00.000+01:00

It’s amazing how even the most mundane everyday things change when you become a new parent; the other day I walked into Sainsbury’s – other supermarket chains are available – and was greeted with a huge stack of nappies that were on sale at a slightly less extortionate cost than usual. “Ooh, that’s a good price!” I found myself thinking. Oh dear.

It’s not just shopping, however. Oh no. In the first few weeks after Dylan was born my internet history made for interesting reading; the likes of Facebook and BBC Sport were largely replaced by Mumsnet and NHS Choices – again, other social networking, sports news, health and parenting websites are available – as every little move or noise that laddo made inspired a visit to one of these to check that everything was normal. Then there’s doing all kinds of household chores with one hand, making a feature out of the baby sick on my favourite T-shirt and attempting to get out of the habit of swearing so much for when he eventually starts repeating things.

Going out anywhere has become like a military operation; particularly when it comes to feeding. If hunger strikes, there’s not a lot that can be done to appease him other than being clamped on to Kate and, somewhat surprisingly, it’s not always easy to find somewhere where breastfeeding isn’t either scowled upon or full of nosey sorts who stare like mad-eyed religious zealots. We were on Eastbourne seafront recently when wee man decided that it was dinner time so we found a secluded bench set back from the promenade, got out the muslin to hide him under and off he went.

The people walking past were fine; those who looked in our direction smiled at us, kept calm and carried on. Until the Dotto Train – or ‘a safari for the bigoted’ as Kate succinctly put it – came along. It seemed to be full of Daily Mail sorts who wanted to enjoy the seaside without having to mix with the rest of us. From the plethora of thunder-like faces turning their attentions to us we could only assume that, as far as they were concerned, breast is most certainly not best – or maybe they just hate muslins. Well, sod ‘em! Have the times changed quite as much as I thought they have? Maybe not – and other newspapers are most definitely available – but Dylan has undoubtedly changed a lot lately, more on that next time.

Happy Smurfday

2010-09-19T17:14:00.001+01:00

If you believe what you see in films and television, you're in for a bit of a surprise when your first child is born. They would have you believe that the mum-to-be has to push for about 20 seconds – barely breaking a sweat – before their bundle of joy emerges gracefully to the sound of uplifting music.

My son, Dylan, arrived with the same poise and grace that Mr Bean does at the start of each episode; after the decisive push there was a slight pause before Briggs junior faceplanted his way into the world. As the deluge of emotions and thoughts going through my head took their firm grip, the ‘soundtrack’ I had in my mind was that of a whoosh and thud as he flew head first onto the hospital bed. This ‘score’ was closely followed by the morose choir tune that accompanies the arrival of Rowan Atkinson's popular social misfit.

The baby books tell you that your offspring may not appear how you expect them to at first – they're not wrong! Immediately after his Bean-esque appearance, Dylan’s cord was cut by yours truly and he was presented to us. He was blue. While he quickly turned the right colour, there was still time for another comic aside courtesy of what the midwives did to keep him warm – they put a knotted white piece of Tubigrip on his head to act as a makeshift hat. This, of course, had the desired effect but also made him look like a Smurf!

If these initial impressions are anything to go by, he’s either going to be a resourceful odd-ball with a silly voice or will live in a mushroom; another brave little soldier in the war against Gargamel. Time will tell...

Dawn of the Dad

2010-09-11T19:51:00.002+01:00

I’ve always loved zombie films; there’s nothing quite like the chaos that ensues when a group of mismatched survivors hide away from an ever-increasing army of the undead and, one by one, succumb to the inevitable in the name of entertainment.

The thing I like most in these films is not the clunky plot and dialogue, the gore, the inventive methods of dispatching with the walking corpses or the character studies of what a group of otherwise normal people would do when faced by apocalyptic events; it’s the zombies themselves. You have to admire them; although they are slow, stupid and almost too amusing to be considered a threat, they almost always win and everybody loves an underdog story.

Imagine my delight then when, thanks to the arrival of my first child, Dylan, I realised that I had become one of my silver-screen heroes. Yes, this is a slightly odd way to start a blog about the happiest event in my life – alongside getting married to my wife, Kate, of course – but, much like the hapless victims in the films of George Romero et al, I haven’t slept in a while. I now amble my way through my days in a fairly aimless fashion doing stupid things and groaning like a flesh-eating fiend at the effort that this requires.

In this blog I’ll be banging on about my new experiences in the hope that others may enjoy and relate to them. Thanks for reading this far and I hope that, like the zombies, you come back!