Rocking all over the world

As a parent you quickly develop a rock. Your rock is powerful, it is your main line of defence in the soothing of your child. Your rock is good. No I am not referring to the follically challenged Quo, with their power chords and endless rewrites of what appears to be the same song, or any other rock band for that matter. I am of course talking about the rocking motion employed to calm your baby, to encourage sleep and the cessation of tears. After five and a half months I do it without thinking now, in fact it has become my default stance, so much so that this morning I found myself queueing in the supermarket, waiting to buy my breakfast banana, swaying from foot to foot. Of course having no baby in my arms just makes me look a little bit mental, made worse because its a cold November morning and I am wearing what Nikala affectionately refers to as my "murderer's coat" and "rapist's gloves".

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A Medley of Minions

You may recall that I was mid preparation for Noah's 2nd birthday party which was all arranged and happened to fall exactly two weeks after Ellie was born. So you can imagine the state of mind both Nikala and I were in whilst I was also running around frantically trying to put into action all my plans for the ensuing Minion madness. Yes, I was pretty stressed. Anyway as promised here is my Minion cake creation. I actually found a great recipe that froze well, allowing me to bake the cakes a week or two in advance and reducing the panic on the night before. A little. Well OK I was still pretty panicked and with panic comes just a hint of anger and frustration. So sorry to anyone that found themselves around me for those last few hours building up to the big event. Cakes wrapped and ready for freezing. And now thawing ready for the build. Beginning to take form. The sandwich layers are stuck together with chocolate ganache. And then covered with a "cru...

There is a first for everything.

I may have mentioned before that being a working father like most other fathers, I usually miss all the "firsts" for our children. On Monday 3rd November 2014 whilst travelling to work, I received a text from Nikala informing me that Ellie had rolled from front to back for the first time. Great news of course, but once again I had missed it, and although I knew I would get a repeat performance it is never the same as being there for the first time when your child does something new or reaches one of those pivotal developmental stages. I appreciate that it sounds a little silly to be upset about missing something as "unimportant" as a child rolling from its back to its tummy, but when it is your own child these small achievements suddenly seem monumental and when you miss all those little things it begins to add up. Before you know it it feels like you are missing your child growing up. As I type this I can imagine my younger self, the one before children reading i...

Dino Pants Maketh the Man

Noah is now several weeks into, or indeed out of, nappie training. By which I mean he isn't wearing them anymore. I always thought that once we didn't have to cart around all that nappy changing paraphernalia our lives would be so much easier. Sometimes over the last couple of years when we have been getting ready to just go to the shops, it has felt a little like packing for an SAS training course what with the amount of things that we need to fit into the change bag. In fact I often feel like the man in this picture... Of course we still need to take a lot for Ellie however I thought that we wouldn't be doubling up any more. But like most of the lessons I have learnt as a parent, I hadn't thought this through to its logical conclusion. When a child is wearing a nappy and they need the toilet, be that a wee or a poo, they just go. Sure you then need to find a nappy changing area to sort them out and make them comfortable again. At worst you may feel a lit...

I Am That Dad

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