Posts Tagged ‘Children’
Fatherhood²: A Hospital Stay on the Horizon
Those of you that have been reading this blog for a while (or indeed those of you related to me!) will know that both of my sons have had issues with their mouth/throat area. Both Robert and Freddie were born tongue-tied – something which we managed to rectify with Freddie (Read: “Fatherhood²: To the Hospital We Will Go… aka “I feel so tongue-tied”” if you want to get up to speed there) but which we seemingly caught too late with Robert, and have yet to resolve.
For the past 6 months or so we’ve been taking Robert on a variety of visits to various hospitals in our area, with the aim of finding out what can be done about Robert’s oral issues. That is to say, we’ve been referred to a few different specialists to analyse the issues – we’ve not been doorstepping the NHS!
Anyway, here’s a quick run-down of the issues:
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Fatherhood²: Chicken Rocks, but We’ve Got The Pox!
As my last post explained, I’ve been quite slack on the blogging front lately – both due to an overabundance of ‘stuff’ going on, and a project I did for Comic Relief which involved a brick-load of Lego. So it was with great excitement that I approached the Easter holidays – not least of all because we were FINALLY going on a family holiday.
As a family, we’d not had a proper holiday for almost 2 years – 3 years if you don’t count an extended family meet-up. So with a trip to the Isles of Scilly on the horizon, we were all getting very excited about a well deserved break.
So you can imagine our consternation when, on the very first day of the holiday (as we drove down to Penzance for a pre-holiday night in a hotel), Robert came down with Chicken Pox. What stellar timing! Having spent the past 4+ years HOPING he would be struck-down (as many of his friends have been), he managed to catch it on the first day of our holidays – disaster!
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Fatherhood²: A Letter to my 17 Year Old Self (aka Half a Lifetime Away)
Dear 17 Year Old Me
First up, let me introduce myself. I (like you) am Henry Elliss, I’m 33 years old and I am your future self – the ‘you’ from 17 years in the future. I am almost double your age, and it is the approach of this milestone which made me want to write you this letter (technically it’s a blog post, but as you won’t know what blogs are for another few years, we’ll just call it a letter).
I know it might seem a little unusual to receive a letter from your future self, and I should probably clear this up straight away before you get too worried – don’t worry, I’m not about to warn you of some impending disaster or implore you to change your ways, or the course of time. No, I simply wanted to drop you a friendly but heartfelt note to let you know that things are good – you turned out OK (so far!).
I’m writing you this letter on my mobile phone, sat on a busy commuter train from Reading (where I live) to London (where I work) on a chilly winter morning. Earlier this morning my wife (more on her later!) and I got our two children up and dressed, packed Robert (4) off to school and dropped Freddie (1) off at my (and your) brother’s house, where he is looked after while Sara (my wife) is at school. Yes, it’ll come as no surprise to either of us when I tell you that I married a teacher – as did your brother too, now I come to mention it.
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Fatherhood²: “Doctor Doctor – I think my child might be German!”
As the father of two young boys, I often find myself comparing my children – or more specifically, their various developmental milestones and how quickly they reached them. If I’m being perfectly honest, when Robert was born I didn’t really care much for milestones – I regularly scoffed at my wife as she checked his progress according to ‘the books’, or one of the many baby-related email clubs she had signed-up to. In my eyes, he would develop at his own pace and it didn’t matter whether or not he matched (or beat) the ‘average’ child.
When Freddie came along, my opinion naturally shifted. Whilst I still don’t care much for the mythical ‘average’ child, it’s only natural that I (and I assume my wife) often compares Freddie’s progress to Robert’s. Thankfully, there isn’t too much to separate them in that respects, apart from a few differences. Freddie might not be walking at 18 months (Robert started around 13/14 months), Freddie’s eating at this age is MILES better than Robert ever was – so I figure it all evens out.
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Fatherhood²: Robert at School – One Week In
Well, today marks the end of Robert’s first week of school (I know it’s Monday – he started on a Tuesday!) and I’m pleased to report he seems to be enjoying it MUCH more than he had previously been imagining.
Having said that, he certainly *hasn’t* got used to getting ready for school in the morning yet, protesting “I don’t want to go to school today” on a regular basis. But his mother gets like that at least once a week, so I guess we can’t expect miracles this early…!
Despite the miserable pose he struck in the photo that accompanied last week’s post (“Fatherhood²: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to School we go…“) his first day went relatively smoothly – and the rest have followed in a similar vein, with only a couple of minor hiccups along the way. Here are a few of the highlights from week 1:
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Fatherhood²: 5 Books for Preparing Kids for School
I should probably have written this post a couple of weeks ago to be honest, since we’ve been drip-feeding some of these books for the past few months at least. But hey – better late than never!
As this week will see a load of little munchkins heading off to ‘big school’ for the very first time, there will almost certainly be plenty of nervous tears, anxious stares and scary moments – and not just for the children. So you may be wondering “What can I do to help my little one getting ready for school?”
Well, there are plenty of books out there which are ideal for subtly getting your little poppet ready for the big day, so I thought I’d collect a few of them together with some handy descriptions in case you fancy buying them. We’ve read all of these, so they get the Elliss seal of approval (unlike a couple of crappy books we’ve read lately – but I’ll save that for another post!) – but do feel free to contribute your own suggestions in the comments…
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Fatherhood²: The Trials and Tribulations of Toddlers and Technology
As somebody who spends half of my life sitting in front of a screen (if not multiple screens!), the topic of how much time children should spend on a computer is one that I follow quite closely – though admittedly one that is only just coming on to my own parenting radar on a personal level.
I’ve written posts in the past dealing with the issue of parents who spend too much time on their mobile phones, but I wanted to address the issue of how small children themselves are educated in the use of computers – and what you can do to help them.
Like it or loathe it, computers (and mobile devices) will be a big part of your children’s lives. If, like me, you have children of a pre-school age at the moment, by the time they get to senior school they will almost certainly be doing lessons on tablet PCs. Even now, a large proportion of schools are phasing in the use of laptops and mini-books for regular lessons – and junior/middle schools won’t be far behind.
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Fatherhood²: Five Scary Parenting Myths…
…and 20 moments that will make you forget them!
Unlike five years ago, we’re now at the stage in our grown-up lives where more and more of our friends from school/university are starting to settle down and have families. As a result, my Facebook feed is quite often filled with expectant or new parents fretting about the experience they’re about to… well, experience.
A couple of months ago, two very good friends of mine from school shared the good news that they were expecting their first child. After the initial round of congratulatory and positive messages, my banter with the man half of the couple settled back in to it’s normal routine – light-hearted mocking and fun teasing, like we always have. Thanks to my friends cocky (light-hearted) arrogance, there have been quite a few opportunities to tease him about the joys of parenthood – an opportunity I usually relish, figuring that most people will know I’m only joking.
However, after a conversation with my friend in which I realised my teasing might be a little out-of-kilter with my usual tone here on the blog, I decided I should right the balance by putting together a list which will hopefully give parents-to-be some positive to focus on.
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Fatherhood²: Birthday Parties for Kids – How Much Effort is Just Enough?
With both Robert and Freddie’s birthdays coming up in the next couple of months, our minds have turned to the sticky subject of birthday parties. Obviously with Freddie it’s a first birthday, so his opinion on how it’s spent is not really top of our priorities – so long as he gets food and a bit of sleep, he’ll be happy.
But with Robert it’s his fourth, and more crucially the first he’s had where he truly understands the concept of both a birthday and a party – especially now that he’s at pre-school, being invited to lots of other birthday parties himself. Until this year, the only parties he’d really been exposed to were those of our friends’ children, which is a fairly small group. But now he’s in a class of almost 30 children, and the ferris wheel of parties has started to crank up…
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Fatherhood²: Time to Set the Children Free, Once Again
With just over a week to go until Sara returns to work (albeit part time), the day is also approaching when we’ll have to leave Freddie at nursery for the first time. Not only that, but it’ll also be the first time Robert has gone full-time at pre-school – so nerves are definitely running high in our house at the moment, to say the least.
Whilst I’m definitely worried about all three of these changes, I’m well aware that we’re very lucky to only be experiencing most of these for the first time now, almost 4 years in to our time as parents. Sure, Sara went back to work after Robert too (and last time it was full-time).
But last time we were extremely lucky in that we had a relative who was able to do the child-minding for us – something which isn’t possible this time round. Robert spent Sara’s work hours with his aunt Katy, who very kindly looked after him along with his cousins who are around the same age.
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