Category: Being a Dad

Irritating Things Dad’s Do Through The Night

Renee BartonLeave a comment

I don’t know if it’s the same in other households but way back in the beginning of this whole parenting thing we agreed that I would be the main bearer of the night shift in our house.

And I’m really fine with it. Kaine gets up early to go to work through the week and my job is to satisfy the whims of our precious little one (who is now not so little at 16 months!).

However, that doesn’t mean I’m not driven crazy from time to time with the night antics that occur in our house.

With a child that has only slept through the night a handful of times, I am up at least once if not more every night. And there are definitely some things that Kaine does through the night that irritates me to no end.

Here’s a few irritating things dad’s do throughout the night. Or maybe it’s just my husband…

1. Sleeps. Yup, there is nothing more irritating than waking up for the third time in as many hours to feed or soothe a bub while husband sleeps soundly and blissfully unaware.

2. The passive-aggressive rollover. This manoeuvre is designed to let you know you’ve disturbed his sleep but he’s not actually willing to wake and offer help. There’s just a very loud sigh from his side of the bed followed by an angry rollover and tug on the doona.

3. States the bloody obvious. When the teething toddler is screaming blue murder in the middle of the night and no amount of pats on the bottom or cuddles can fix it, Mum begins to administer pain relief (which could only be made easier by putting the child in a straight jacket) when dad comes out in his undies, rubbing his eyes and says “why don’t you just give him some nurofen already”? If looks could kill….

4. Pretends to be asleep even when it’s the weekend. It wouldn’t be too much to expect that dad might handle the early morning bottle on a weekend right? Wrong! I’ll get up again shall I??? Oh, do you want me to get him he says knowing that you’re already half way out of the bed.

5. Complains about being tired. Um, excuse me? You don’t know the meaning of the word!

Like I said… It might be just my husband who does these things. But geez, on a really bad night I do admit to wanting to stab him in the (shut) eye with a fork!

And god help me, if he comes out in his undies at 2am in the morning again, directing me to give Jesse nurofen after another terrible night of trying to settle him and get him back to sleep, I may be driven to cut off what got us into this situation in the first place!

Okay, that could just be the sleep deprivation talking.

Or is it?

I love you, darling.

Sleeping baby. Nek Minnut…

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

So imagine this… it’s a Tuesday afternoon and I’m sitting at my computer at work, missing Renee and Jesse like crazy. I decide to send Renee a quick text to see how it’s all going.

I get a text back saying everything is great. They had a great time at the shops, especially Jesse. He had such a great time in fact, that he is soundly sleeping.

Not long after that I get this photo through.

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O … M … G …

My heart melted and all I wanted to do was leave work, head home and snuggle into him while he slept.

I shoot a text message back through about how cute he looks.

Two minutes later, I get another text from Renee saying “Scrap that, this is him now!”

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My first reaction was… WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!?!

Then, I kind of felt a little happy that I was at work and didn’t have to deal with his tantrums all afternoon.

Good luck with that babe… I ummm, actually have a lot of work to do, so I better get back to it. HAHAHA…

Oh how quickly things can change when you have kids!

Sunday Not-So-Fun Day

Renee BartonLeave a comment

Here’s a question. Why do they make toddler shoes so f%#*ing hard to put on?!!

Allow me to set the scene for you. 

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon and we have a 1st birthday party to go to. We are already running late. Jesse is grumpy because he woke up too soon from what is usually a two hour nap. Kaine is just now deciding to make his lunch when it’s time to go. And I’m feeling just generally pissed off. I hate every item of clothing in my wardrobe and my hair looks like shit due to crappy, rainy weather. 

Needless to say tensions were running pretty high already. 

And then it was time to put Jesse’s shoes on. Now that he’s walking we need to put shoes on him more often and I thought, given the weather, his cute little work boots that he hasnt worn yet would be perfect. 

I checked the size against his foot and am satisfied that they will be a perfect fit for him now as previously they have been too big. 

I sat him on my lap and began squishing his foot into the first boot. After a bit of a struggle, pushing, pulling and wriggling I finally managed to get it on. I exhaled with relief and exhaustion. But it was short lived as I picked up the next one, took a deep breath and prepared to do it all again for the other foot. 

After a few minutes of more pushing and pulling I was still no closer to getting the bastard shoe on. I expressed my frustration with a few expletives and Kaine came to my rescue. 

Well, he has even less patience than I do and soon things are getting very heated. I wouldn’t have wanted to be that shoe that is for sure. Beads of sweat are gathering on his brow as he forcefully tries to squeeze Jesse’s foot into the boot. 

And then Kaine slams said shoe onto the bench, rips off the other one and throws them both down the hallway and into Jesse’s room.


Meanwhile, this whole time Jesse has been relatively accommodating and wondering what all the fuss is about. 

We throw some slip on shoes into his bag and pile into the car, both still fuming. 

It would have been absolutely hilarious to witness all of this going on. So any flies on our walls, we hope you enjoyed the show. 

But here’s a neat idea for a business. Design some kids shoes that you can actually get on the kids feet!

DIY Dad

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

So this weekend I put some shelves up in the office!

That’s right… Just call me DIY Dad!

I… Put up shelves… All by myself… I mean, just have a look at them! They look AMAZING!!!

For those who are wondering why I’m making such a big deal about this, it’s because I’m not exactly what you’d call, a handy man. As far as fixing things or doing work on and around the house, I’m actually pretty useless.

So useless in fact, that I usually have to call my mum… Yes, my mum to come and help me. Why mum? Well that’s because my dad is about as useless as I am when it comes to using tools.

To give you some perspective, my collection of tools consists of a hammer, a hand-me-down drill with no drill bits, one wrench, a half set of screwdrivers (cause I may have lost one or two over the years), and a collection of allen keys that I’ve got from various furniture we’ve bought over the years!

Yup, that’s right, I’m not your typical hands on dad when it comes to this sort of stuff.

But with all that said and done, after a little guidance (thanks mum) I managed to put up our new office shelves ALL BY MYSELF!!!

And that, my friends, is why you can now call me DIY Dad… At least until the next time I need to fix something and I’ll probably call mum again.

But for now, I’m going to revel in my handiwork!

Footage Friday: 12 – 15 Months

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

It’s been a while since our last milestones video.

But since our last one we’ve had broken laptops… no access to video editing software… and endless shopping trips trying to get ourselves sorted out again.

So with all that, we totally missed doing Jesse’s 12 month milestone video.

BUT…

It may have worked out for the best. Because instead of doing a 12 month milestone video, we have instead decided to do a 12 – 15 month video. And with that, I think we might continue to do these until he turns the big 2!!!

So what’s been happening with Jesse these past 3 months? Well, check it out and see for yourself. 🙂

When is the perfect time?

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

So as you would have seen from our ‘Photo Friday’ post two days ago, there is a new addition to the extended Barton family. Little Flynn. My brother and sister-in-law’s second child.

And with that comes new conversations with family members and work colleagues. Well, not new for Renee and I, because its a conversation we’ve been having for a while now. But no one else knows that.

The hot topic of conversation… when Renee and I are planning on having a second baby. It never ends does it!

“When are you getting married?”

“When are you having a baby?”

“When are you having another baby?”

Over the past few days since Flynn’s birth, we’ve been advised on the benefits of having kids close together; we’ve been reminded about our ‘age’ and how the ‘clock’ is ticking (as if we didn’t know); and I’ve been told by someone that she is very keen to be an Aunty again! About as subtle as a gun don’t you think!

But what everyone doesn’t realise, is that we are already all over this.

The conversation about when we should have more kids, and how many kids at that, is a conversation that Renee and I frequently have. As do probably all first time parents. But funnily enough, even though we do talk about it regularly, I feel like we aren’t really any closer to coming to an agreement on both questions. Particularly how many children to have.

I am set on two. We won’t be outnumbered, and wherever you go, family passes are always for two adults and two children. Perfect! But Renee is still trying to talk me into three. She’s pretty adamant she will win this argument too! I think just recently she even said something along the lines of, “Oh we’re having three kids” in that kind of tone where you realise you don’t have any say in the matter.

So back on the topic of when we should have bubba number two! Well, while both Renee and I come from families of three kids, our family dynamics are quite different. Renee, her brother and her sister are all around 5 years apart, whereas me, my brother and my sister are all quite close at around 1-2 years apart.

And look, I really can see the pros and cons at doing it either way. Which timeline is best for us… I still don’t know at this stage. Though we don’t really have age on our side to consider the five years apart option.

Are we ready or a second baby? I don’t know… But is anyone ever truly ready for a second baby? Is there even such a thing as the perfect time?

I still feel like I’m learning to be a parent to Jesse. I still feel like I am yet to truly find my feet as a dad, where I can go out and confidently say, ‘yes, I have got this!’

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Though I’m not sure if a parent ever gets to that point.

But then you have the people that go, the second one is easy! The first born is always the hardest. It gets easier with each baby you have. Really? Does it? It seems like it’d just be Jesse x 2… and just Jesse by himself can sometime be a little overwhelming. Maybe its actually a matter of the parent getting more relaxed rather than the subsequent babies getting easier.

So the question is, is it time to jump into the deep end and try for baby number two? Or do we revel in the delight of our only child for a little bit longer?

Guess I better go find Renee so we can start the conversation again…

 

 

Reclaiming Our Bed

Renee Barton1 Comment

Something incredibly sweet has occurred in our house this week. Jesse has once again started sleeping in his own room. Hallelujah! I can now have the light on when putting on my pyjamas, read a book before bed and actually sleep in the position of my choosing without fear of waking him up.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for co-sleeping. In fact, I really love it. There is nothing, sweeter than cuddling up next to my small person at bed time. However, not so sweet is him deciding that my face is a comfortable pillow or getting kicked in the guts at 1am!

Co-sleeping with him as a newborn just worked for us. It was the only way to ensure anyone got any sleep and, when breastfeeding every couple of hours, it just made sense. But I was that woman who insisted I would not co-sleep with a toddler. Our bed was for us, husband and wife. The children would be welcome in the morning for snuggles but were not to sleep with us in our bed all night.

Yeah right!

We moved Jesse into his cot in his own room at about 3 months old because I needed some space and because we thought it was what we were meant to do. It went okay for a while but then teething started and suddenly he developed a severe allergy to sleeping in his cot. It’s like he had a sixth sense and knew he was in his cot as soon as you had put him down in it. No matter how dead asleep he was prior, he would stand up and immediately start crying as if you’d just lay him on a bed of nails. And don’t even consider putting him in there to put him self to sleep. No form of sleep training or pick up, put down methods would work on a kid this stubborn!

So back into our bed it was and that’s how we’ve done it for the last 8 or so months. It worked for us. We all got sleep and we enjoyed being together.

But recently I just felt like Jesse was ready to sleep on his own. And I was ready for it too. So we converted his cot into a toddler bed and decided to give it a whirl. We started with day naps (yes, he would have these in our bed too!) and for a whole week he slept like a champ. So then, with a little hesitation from Kaine, we attempted his first night sleep in his ‘big boy’ bed. It was a little bit sad but incredibly liberating at the same time. And it went brilliantly, he was in his bed from 7.30pm to 6.30am with a couple of little wake ups in between. Success!

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I was totally expecting it to be a gradual process but here we are coming up to night 4 and it has been a breeze.

Next step, getting him to sleep through the night… hmmm…

Guess I’ll take what I can get for now.

Photo Friday: Family Mountain Climb

Renee BartonLeave a comment

A few weekends ago we headed out to Samford and, as a family, climbed Camp Mountain.

It was a fairly rugged hike, and was made harder by carrying an extra 11kg in the form of a 14 month old… But we really enjoyed it. And the view from the top was great!

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It was also really wonderful to see others at the summit enjoying a warm winters day and having lunch. When you get weather like this during the winter, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of it.

We will definitely be climbing more mountains in the future… And maybe, we might even attempt some trickier ones.

Footage Friday: Making Bath Time Fun

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

So Jesse loves bath time!

Whenever he hears the bath filling up, he heads straight to the bathroom to watch the water spurting out of the tap and to wait until he gets to hop in.

In fact, he has always seemed to enjoy his baths, even when he was a little baby.

But what he loves more than just regular bath time… is bath time with Aunty Lia.

Yup, LOVES IT!!!

As you can see in this video, Jesse and Aunty Lia have a lot of fun at bath time. And then mummy and daddy have a lot of fun mopping up the water from all over the bathroom when bath time has finished.