After seeing what a great start my wife has made to her blog, I thought I should try and get some of my thoughts down too.
I know it's been a long time between drinks, but I've finally made the move to a new blogging system. In fact, Jules & I have combined our blogs into a single one.
To see the new and improved version, head on over to beckitt.com/blog. Hopefully just having one blog to update means it will get updated more frequently.
You can only hope...
TTFN
//Daniel//
Andrew started taking more unassisted steps yesterday. It was pretty much the first time he took more than one or two steps without falling down at the end. In this clip you can possibly see that he actually stops to correct his balance halfway to Jules. What a clever boy!
BTW, the clip of Andrew in the bath was obviously too raunchy for YouTube, so it's been removed. Sorry about that! If you want a copy, email me and I'll send you one.
Been a while since my last "post" so while I'm still not saying terribly much, here's a clip of my little boy clapping his hands and blowing a kiss. Another clip to follow...
Sorry - YouTube took this video down. Maybe it was the full frontal nudity that was too risque?
It's been an incredibly long time between posts, so I thought to make up for it I'd give you a video of Andrew being very cute (for a change!) Jules took this video this week while she was doing the vacuuming. Enjoy!
I know, I know. I'm slack. I haven't really done a decent blog since Andrew was born (despite my best intentions) but I do plan on fixing that right now!
There's been way too much that has happened in the last five months to go through here, so you'll have to forgive me if I steer you over to Julia's Blog for all the details. For now you'll have to be happy with a recap of the big day, and a quick catch-up on what life has been like since Andrew James Beckitt entered my life.
B Day
Even though we had both been preparing for this day for, well, at least 9 months, it still kind-of hit me by surprise. Jules had been denying her contractions all day and I'd been doing my best to pretend that they weren't happening all the way through dinner that night. While we were doing the dishes I suggested that perhaps we should look at finalising the choice of baby names. You know - "just in case". That's when we finally came up with the option of Andrew James Beckitt. We'd tried both Andrew and James in different combinations in the past, but this was the first time we'd tried them together and it just felt right somehow. I had been having trouble settling on a name up until then. You could imagine how hard making a decision that will stay with someone for the rest of their life would be for a bloke who took as long as I did to decide to propose.
Anyway... by about 11pm that night I was still in denial and frantically trying to get to sleep for the next day. Meanwhile Jules' "contractions" seemed to be getting worse. By just after midnight we had called the hospital (I had finally realised that this might actually be the real thing) and let them know what was going on. They suggested that we stay home for as long as we could, but we were on the road not long after 1am.
After being dropped off at the hospital by Jules' parents the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. We got settled into the birthing room and Jules was into the shower to help with the pain pretty much straight away. We were expecting to be in there for quite a while - the midwife thought at first it would be another 6-8 hours before the final stages of labour. It felt like we were both sitting there in the shower for ages, but I guess it was really only a few hours. Jules even joked at one point about it was a bit boring just sitting there in the shower.
We eventually got the midwife back in around 4.30am to give her another exam and it looked like it was all systems go. She was ready to give birth!
Looking back I still can't believe how amazingly strong Jules was through the whole process. To think that she went through the whole process at all is just incredible, but knowing that she did it all without any drugs is even more amazing.
Apart from a few scary moments when Andrew's heart rate dropped, and excluding the slightly 'messier-than-hoped' final stages, everything really went pretty well. Of course, I can say most of that fairly confidently given that all I was doing was some hand-holding and a bit of photo-taking at the end. Jules was doing all the hard work.
So... at 5.01am on Friday the 14th of October, 2005, Andrew James Beckitt arrived.
Life with AJ
You can read all the books you like, and go to all the classes you like, but I think the best preparation in the end was just to 'expect anything'. Mind you, I think having a missus with the maternal instincts that Jules has is a definite advantage. ;-)
It's definitely been a ride thus far with the new addition to the household. A huge learning curve for me, too. Even though I have four little nephews I've never had a whole lot to do with babies. Everything from holding them through to changing/dressing/feeding has been a new experience for me.
It's amazing how much he has grown and changed in the last 5 months, too. It doesn't seem that long ago when he could nestle into the crook of my elbow, but now he fills up most of my arm.
So... what have been the highs and lows so far?
Lows: The initial sleepless nights (although getting some quality 'Daddy-time' was nice in the early days), discovering that I have a low tolerance for the sound of crying babies - I can get a bit cranky sometimes, being demoted to third in the chain of command in the house and being able to go to only one movie in the last five months.
Highs: Holding my baby boy for the first time, realising that I might actually be able to handle this after all, seeing him smile at me when I get home from work, making him laugh, hearing his first words last night - "Dad-dad-dad-dad".
There are plenty more highs and plenty more lows, but I think the highs are definitely winning out so far.
Might leave it at that for now, but will try and keep this thing a bit more up to date from now on.
To finish up, here's a recent photo of my Little Man:
I know I could have posted one of him smiling, but this one just seemed so 'him'.
TTFN
//Daniel//
As soon as I have the time I promise I'll post a full account of what life has been like for the last 4.5 weeks (I can't believe Andrew is 5 weeks old on Friday!). Things are a little on the crazy side around here, but it's all definitely worthwhile. Jules and I keep saying to each other whenever Andrew's unsettled "it's a good thing he's cute..."
So... to share his cuteness with all of you I've uploaded heaps of photos to flickr.com and have added a permanent link to it in the 'links' section to your right.
To whet your appetite, here's one we took recently:
TTFN
//Daniel//
Okay - I know it's really day 7 now (it is Thursday, right?) but I hadn't had a chance to upload these new pics yet.
Andrew is more or less behaving himself. He's alternating between sleeping reasonably well at night and not really sleeping at all. We're hoping he decides that it's much better to stay awake during the day.
Will give a full rundown on what happened last Friday soon, I promise! Well, maybe not a full rundown.
Here's some pics:
