Week 8!

So we're just over the 8 week mark, as of Wednesday, Willow will be a 2 month old, how crazy!




This week has been one of my favourite weeks as a new Dad. We've finally had our 6-8 week checks for Willow and Jodie and they are both doing fantastic! So much development this week! My little baby is growing up.

We have a now 11lb 4oz baby up from the 7lb 12oz at birth! And wow, let me tell you, our arms are feeling the difference! She's grown an incredible amount in length, over 4 inches, and is finally filling out in her clothes and not looking so dainty and fragile! I'm not freaking out so much holding her any more, not so worried that she'll somehow break if I move a muscle!

I spoke to Jodie last week about getting some 'me' time for herself this week. She's been the 24/7 parent since the birth and although she's doing the most amazing job, she definitely deserved a break. Instead of being focused purely on the basic survival and life of our new baby, she needed some time to catch up with friends and be in her own head for a bit. Plus, I've yet to experience one on one time with Willow so I was excited to take it on and bond with her a little more and have some Daddy-Daughter time.

We had a couple hours on Thursday night while Jodie went for a meal and Willow slept the majority of the time, waking for a little bit of play time and a feed and that was that. The time went quickly and I definitely remained confident I was good at this. The next day I booked a half day at work so Jodie could have her hair done for the first time since the birth and be pampered a bit at the salon, I took Willow for a Daddy date at Costa for some coffee and cuddles. Driving in the car alone with her for the first time had me nervous, we've always had one of us in the back seat! But I had a baby mirror so I could watch her like a hawk while I drove (awesome investment!) She actually stared back at me the entire time! 

This week was the first time I've looked back on old pictures to compare her from when she was still so new to this world. What an incredible change already! We have so many facial expressions to admire, plenty of smiles and Willow is constantly communicating with us. To start with she would make the odd noise or 'coo' when she got excited, now whenever we say Hiii (high pitch baby voice of course, I may sound like a wally but it's cute alright?) she gets so giddy and makes noises right back, anything ranging from ooOOoo to Ahhheeww and my favourite, the very close sounding "Hiiiiiiiaaa".

I'm truly obsessed by my daughter. every noise, expression and every sleeping snore astounds me in the biggest way. I'm proud of her for so many things as she develops into such a beautiful little girl. I'm also so proud of Jodie, she's the best team mate I could ever ask for in being parents. Even though she's learning just as much as I am in this whole journey, she's taking to it all so naturally and fills me with confidence that we're going to have an amazing adventure as new parents.

Something I'm looking forward to entering week 9 is our first family holiday! We're taking a trip up to Sherwood Forest in Nottingham on Thursday. I've never visited a Centreparcs retreat (surprisingly we actually live about 10 miles away from Elveden Forest and have never been) so I'm really excited to experience it all and take in all the natural scenery and stay in one of their awesome lodges. Who knows, we may even pay homage to Robin Hood himself and dress Willow up for the occasion while we visit the famous forest.

This week will of course bring more amazing memories and experiences, and more blogs from me as I have plenty of time off this week to catch up and get our memorable moments so far documented to save them forever, The only hard part of the week will be tomorrow when she has her first round of vaccinations! Although every injection so far has been simply ignored while she stares at the lighs on the ceiling without a care in the world. Lets hope she gets through these ones with the same gusto and we continue to have the happy baby we've become so used to this week.

7 (and a bit) weeks!

So this week Willow turned 7 weeks old!

I'm a couple days late with this one but it counts!

Now, as a new parents, it seems like any week 'milestone' is celebrated like it's the best thing ever. I think it's not only a celebration of her getting older but a high five to ourselves as parents for making it another week!

Willow really isn't much trouble. At 7 weeks, she's been sleeping most of the night, waking once for food and going straight back to sleep (we count ourselves as lucky for this!), she's got a good routine going with food too. Usually feeding every 4 hours, which gives us plenty of time to prepare her food so we don't get that hungry crying baby! Not every time anyway. We also have a baby who enjoys bath time (starting to splash!), doesn't mind being changed, whether it be a nappy or clothes. Especially those poos, after a poo she stares at you, almost in amazement that you are actually going down there and braving the mess.

In the development side of things, I've been pretty slack this week on reading stories to her (feeling like a terrible Dad already), which I'll make up for in the next few days, but she loves the sound of our voices still and is constantly smiling and coo-ing back at us when we speak! Also, her neck is getting stronger by the day, Willow has to be upright at all times now, she hates being laid down! Holding her up on our chests, she's holding her own head up and looking around all the time, not so much of the random drunk baby head bobbing we have had to deal with so far. Then there's tummy time, we've started her on a few basics to get her used to it all, Willow loves getting on her front and having a good look around, I can't wait to see her start playing with toys and more textures as she gets more used to those hands of hers.

On the most part, week 7 hasn't brought us many firsts, the week sort of flew by and we made it! But as parents, me and Jodie are becoming more and more confident in ourselves and each other. Even walking around the local shops I feel confident and proud to be a Dad and Jodie is doing an incredible job as Mum!

With week 8 now in progress we have a few big plans. There's a couple of photo shoot ideas to be done (depending on little ones mood that day) we're getting the play mats out for some tummy time upgrades too. I'll be reading a story every day to her when I finish work, that's the plan anyway.

Parenting is still a whole new ball game to us, even at 7 weeks in. It still feels like a big adjustment in every aspect, from sleep patterns to just popping out to the shops, it's all totally changed and we're slowly getting there. Willow is most definitely keeping us on our toes and teaching us new parental skills every day. But I wouldn't ever change it, not even for a minute

Week 8, I'm ready for you and expecting big things!

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February!

So here we are, a week into February already!

This month there's a couple of pretty important dates I need to get organised for. Especially now we have a baby, she has to be able to take part too!

Valentines Day

Valentines day is a day to express love, appreciation and be more romantic than usual. Actually, me and Jodie aren't huge over-the-top valentines advocates, but we do make the normal effort with cards, little gifts and maybe a nice meal. We tend to reserve the big romantic stuff for the anniversary, I guess it just feels more significant.
But this year the game has been changed. I have a daughter.

This is a perfect opportunity to teach Willow about love, obviously she's WAY too young to understand. But what I mean is, I think it's important for her to grow up seeing what a stable and happy relationship looks like. Me and Jodie are as solid as solid can be. Both coming from families where the parents went separate ways, it definitely had an effect. But it's made us appreciate things more, and not take a relationship or family for granted. Pushing us both to strive for a happier and more positive future. If Willow can grow up watching the two of us be happily married and adore each other, perhaps she will look for something similar herself and not settle with the wrong person and be unhappy in her life.
There's an old quote kicking around by John Wooden "The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." And I think that is really important.

So now the question is, what do we do for Willow on Valentines day? I want her to be a huge Daddy's girl so I think I'll treat her to some sentimental gifts and a card every year. I mostly want her to have that day where she can feel appreciated and loved as well as her mother! I'm definitely outnumbered now with two ladies in the house so whatever we decide to do, I'll have to make it super soppy and sweet, I'm an avid collector of brownie points.

Next comes the next big day. My Wife's 25th birthday! Now the birthday is just another day to some but this one is different. It's the first year Jodie will get a present from her baby! Willow has to get her a gift! Now of course, being just shy of 7 weeks old, her gift selection skills haven't quite reached their full potential. The only "gift" she can give so far is a little on the smelly side.

This year I'm going to have a look down the personalised route for gifts, I've never really dabbled too far in the personalised things but for the first gift to Jodie from Willow, I think it needs that extra touch. SO I'm open to ideas!

As for my gift to her, she pretty much likes anything Disney related, I tend to get her something collectable each year, something she can wear (I like to think I'm somewhat of a fashionista) and a few other sentimental things. But I'm still a little stumped this year. What do I give the woman who has given me the most amazing gift? (I still owe her the "push present" which I'm working on as well!)

So I think a Daddy/Daughter shopping day is in order soon, I feel somewhat nervous about having her on my own for the first time, Jodie has never left her sight so I think she deserves a bit of a break to catch up with herself as well. I'm actually looking forward to the idea of having her on my own soon, there's a certain level of confidence I think it'll bring like "yeah I'm doing this and look how amazing my baby is". But we haven't even gone for a trip in the car yet without having one of us in the back seat watching her like a hawk!

Needless to say this month will bring a few special moments to our family, and plenty of firsts. We are finding our confidence day by day and Willow appears to like us quite a bit (success!) so I can't wait to make little memories and start the first year of family traditions. I want to hear from a few readers, what do you do for these days with your children and partners? Any tips, amazing gift ideas and traditions, feel free to share!





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6 weeks in!

Here we are, the 6 week old mark!

Today I thought I'd write a little about the first 6 weeks, of course I've already somewhat covered the first month, well, what I remembered of it as a sleep deprived Zomb-Dad so I will try not to repeat myself too much! Here are some of my highs and lows of the last 6 weeks!

I'll kick it off with one of my favourite moments, not just in the last week but one of those all time life moments that I'll always remember. There's no words to describe the feeling when I saw this face light up with a huge smile today :

I mean Willow has done little smirks from time to time and of course the 'windy smiles' which usually mean a funny smell and gooey mess to follow, but nothing like this. This is a smile, a HUGE smile and it made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world having her look right at me and be this happy. I guess me and Jodie are doing good in her eyes!

I also had a not so great moment in the last couple of weeks. I actually got pretty down the other day. Going from the first month where I was able to be here with the two girls all day. I then went back to work. 40 hours a week I spend away from my little girl and wife. I mean I should be used to it, I've worked since I was a teenager and it's the daily grind! But I honestly started to feel less like Dad. It's far too easy to feel like your losing touch I think, as a working parent I do feel like I miss out on parenting and special bonding time while I'm away, and I felt so out of touch with the whole thing only after 3 weeks back at work. But I talked to Jodie about it, she gave me the ego boost I needed, I needed to be more positive and confident, Willow would react accordingly and guess what? I won't say this too loud but, she was right! She's been an amazing Mum and Wife to me and Willow, she knows wayyyy more than I do and I'm thankful and lucky to have her as my partner in this whole adventure. (Collecting more brownie points)

Back to a positive! 

Our girl is showing off her strength! From the day she was born she's had a pretty strong neck, especially when she wants to do that tired crying thing that makes me wonder how difficult baby life must be. You know being fed, changed and sleeping all the time, terrible right?

But this week we decided to introduce some tummy time with her, she's had the odd few moments before now but we didn't want to force her to develop before she was ready. Judging by this picture Jodie sent me at work, I think she's ready!

Another thing we've discovered, Willow has a huge appetite. We've had to go and buy some more bottles that were bigger than the little newborn ones we got, Willow made the move up to a 6oz feed this week and the small bottles couldn't keep up! I think Jodie was happy, we finally got to go and buy a load of pink bottles to replace the neutral colours we had when Willow was still a surprise baby gender. We are sticking with the Anti-Colic MAM bottles for now, they seem good for her and have a self sterilising feature which I've only just discovered after 6 weeks, bonus!

That's it for now as my little girl is about to wake up for her next feed, I think I'll have to start posting here daily just to keep a good record of everything that's happening. People always say things happen so quickly and they really do, so much happens in such a short space of time, it's easy to forget where we were a few weeks ago. I still love being a Dad, there's nothing better than having a new family and experiencing parenthood for the first time. So keep up, I'll try to do the same!

A Story From Dad

Work/Life Balance

The work/life balance is something I never really thought about before. For the last 6 years me and Jodie have been in stable jobs working Monday to Friday and enjoying each weekend as much as we can. There's been the odd hours of overtime to interrupt here and there but on the whole, it was all pretty easy.

Then we became parents.

Don't get me wrong, I love parenting, I don't think I'll ever see it in a negative light. It's an amazing privilege to be a Dad! But what I didn't anticipate was I never really appreciated how much time I had spare before having a baby.

I really think our relationship has been a saving grace in the big changes. Officially I go to work all day, but that doesn't mean Jodie staying at home is her getting off easy. She's working just as hard for just as long, she is the 24 hour parent/super Mum! If anything, it's me that gets a break going to work 8 hours a day. That appreciation and respect for each other really makes things flow easier, I see way too many parents trying to compete to see who works harder or does more work. I want Willow to grow up with two parents who back each other up and support each other, in hopes she will share those same values.

We're still adjusting to everything to see what works best. Right when we find something that works, Willow will throw in a curve ball and make her own routine the next day. But I guess that's what it's all about, growing and adapting with her while trying to fit her into our lives at the same time.

As for the life balance, Willow has actually saved us a fair amount of money. We used to enjoy a meal out most weekends and plenty of pointless shopping trips to get out of the house. Because it can be quite a chore to just leave the house on a spontaneous idea, we have cut back on that side of things. We actually are looking for things we can do now like going for walks or little coffee dates (my favourite!) The biggest change is definitely sleep. We have to allow for an extra hour waking and going to sleep to get bottles ready, change nappies and get carried away staring at Willow.

Lastly, having Willow has actually gotten the two of us a lot more organised. We are champion procrastinators, still are actually but now we have a bigger drive to organise ourselves, Willow and most aspects of our life. There's some big things coming in our near future and having a baby really pushes the incentive to actually go through with them and it feels good actually having a plan of action most days, there's a huge sense of satisfaction when it all goes to plan!

We're all still trying to find the balance but it's one incredible experience so far. Willow is pushing us to more exciting and better things already, as long as we keep focus on who we are as a married couple, parents and individuals who need the occasional 'me' time, I think we'll be just fine.

Leaving the house

So it's my favourite time of the morning again, you know, the funny hours between midnight and 6am that you normally sleep. Seriously though, Willow is my living alarm clock, now she's fed, changed and now sleeping again, I've been left wide awake so I'm preparing for the day ahead.

Me and Jodie spoke yesterday about heading out this morning to Babies 'R' Us to have a look at a few bits. By "have a look" I mean we are probably going to spend far too much on cute things and forget the one item we planned to get! The struggle is real for sure.

We need to go look for some cot/travel cot system for Willow, to our surprise the lovely Moses basket we fell in love with from Izziwotnot is now becoming a little cramped for our 5 week old. She's not a big baby by any means, but shes getting so long! Already grown an inch since birth!

Before leaving the house, there's a bit of a checklist to complete, were getting better and faster at it, but it's still a bit of a chore. (gets easier right?)

1. Feed Willow
2. Burp Repeatedly, congratulate and compliment her on said burps for some reason (anyone else?)
3. Change Willow, sometimes change again, little pee diva.
4. Get changing bag ready; Nappies, wipes, bib, spare clothes, dummies (sterilise again), bottle (sterilise first), muslin cloths, poo bags and some random bits that we never use but pack anyway.
5. Get ready myself, Jodie takes on Willow duty
6. Jodie gets ready, I take on Willow duty
7. Double check changing bag for no reason
8. (Optional) get carried away babbling at Willow
9. Get the car seat ready, Willow gets locked in
10. Shoes on
11. Get in the car and GO!
12. Run back in the house for random forgotten item

It can sometimes take us a good hour or more to get ready and leave the house, no matter how much a pre-pack or plan things out! Luckily once Willow gets in the car seat, she falls asleep instantly and we make the time up by zooming through shops before she wakes up and needs food, changing and staring at some more. Admittedly, I lose a lot of time just sitting there babbling at her but when my baby babbles, you better believe I babble back!

So the plan is to leave early (Sunday hours so maybe 9-10?) browse some things, come home and relax on my last night off before work (work/life balancing sucks). Not too shabby for a Sunday plan, I'm hoping we can sneak a cheeky fast food lunch in there somewhere too oh and plenty of coffee. I'm going to time and update this later on exactly how we did!

I think I'm getting the hang of this!

This week we hit the 5 week milestone!

Now a lot of things have changed in the last 5 weeks, actually let me rephrase that, EVERYTHING has changed in the last 5 weeks!

For starters, sleep. Sleep is the big one, it is incredible how little you can have in the first few weeks and still manage to operate, but not always at full capacity. There's been times where I put the kettle in the microwave, forgot to put the lid on the milk before shaking and a few other 'baby brain' related incidents. But now, we are looking at a good 3-5 hour snooze at night and a few cat naps during the day, now I could get used to that!

I think the main change that I've seen in the last 5 weeks, is our confidence as parents. Jodie and I have been fairly self critical the whole time, which is totally normal! When you have a screaming baby, it is easy to sort of think you're not doing something right, but Jodie is literally a champion baby whisperer, and has every right to be proud about it! As for me, I'm getting there! I still have this weird feeling that everyone is watching me when we go in public and feed her or walk around but hopefully that'll go soon too!

My confidence as a new father is coming along now. It's still very much a work in process, but I think I'm getting there! I just managed to change Willow without so much as a peep (both of us still half asleep) and feed her, right as she smacked her lips in pre-warning of hunger at 5am. I feel pretty good about that, now she's sleeping and I have some time free and haven't heard any form of fuss, I'm patting myself on the back for that one!

In general, being a confident parent comes from just figuring things out for yourself. When Jodie was still pregnant, we went to the parenting classes, read books, lived on Pinterest and used Google search and Youtube for everything else. Coming into the first few days of being real life parents, we tried to do everything by the book, the way you are 'supposed' to do. Nope, not happening! I mean, obviously there are rules and guidelines in place for safety and health reasons (no shortcuts in that department) but really, it was impossible to do everything the way you are told is the 'right' way. It took us a couple of weeks to figure that one out, now we are getting somewhere! As long as you have common sense, not a whole lot can got wrong.

I'm really starting to enjoy parenting now. It feels much more like parenting this week, the last few weeks seemed more like survival!  But here we are, surviving and learning every day. Willow is developing so much quicker than I ever expected. Holding her head up since the very early days, growing very long (just like Daddy) smiling, chuckling and since last weekend, responding to us when we talk to her with little sighs, coos and cute noises. I honestly can't remember what life was like before becoming a Dad, because this feels so right and so exciting, I'll never need to look back. I've got two amazing girls here and this whole parenting thing is the greatest!

That's it for now, far too much to get done while we have a sleeping baby!