New guest post on Nutripaeds

I'm the resident Daddy blogger at Nutripaeds.co.za and my latest post on how Mitch thinks he's Michael Schumacher is now live. You can check it out here http://www.nutripaeds.co.za/my-son-schumacher-by-dan/

Having an outlet to protect your sanity

Kim being a supporter rather than runner

In the past I've made mention to the fact that Mitch is not a well kid and has spent a lot of time in Constantiaberg Hospital to the point where his visits have become the norm rather than exception. This can put quite a bit of emotional stress onto both your self and relationship with your partner unless you have an outlet of sorts.

Luckily for both Kim and I we are both athletically minded and sport has been a constant in our relationship. When one is stressed the other will often say "why don't you go for a run to get your head right?" It always works. So with Mitchells situation the natural fallback was always going to be exercise.

Probably the best thing we did to start with was buy a running jogger (I'll be posting a review on ours over at www.nutripaeds.co.za in the next few weeks) as soon as Kim was able to run/walk. This has meant that not only can we have family time after work that is also a nice relaxing walk it also meant that from the moment Mitch was six weeks old we were able to take part in weekly Park Runs held around Cape Town.

Unfortunately during one of these Park Runs Kim stood on a stone and got a small fracture in her heel. It was a period of twelve weeks of her being in an air boot that rammed home to us the value of needing this release as suddenly the stress levels at home rose slightly and small frustrations that never phased us suddenly became bigger issues.

Since Kims recovery she has decided to take on the Comrades Marathon this year, a nice little 89Km run run from Durban to Pietermaritzberg. While this has some small time management issues it does do two things nicely.

1. Gives Kim an outlet and stress release while also giving her a mental break or rather something else to focus on
2. Gives Mitch and I three to four hours of quality father-son time at weekends which I cherish especially as he gets older.

 From my side things are easier than they could have been. A few years ago Kim training for Comrades would have meant that I would have had to sacrifice my own endurance event plans. However since having knee surgery in mid 2013 I have canned all endurance dreams and focused on building a strong functional body at an awesome place called Roark Gyms (www.roarkgyms.com). This means that we can both plan our weeks around non-conflicting sports in a way that suits our own goals.

The benefits of all of this? Well for a start we are both a lot less stressed and have natural breaks away from having to be "on" with Mitch. As a result our relationship is probably stronger than ever as we have an outlet other than each other to take our frustrations on, this is a biggy! Finally and more long term Mitch would have known from pretty much the day he was born that mum and dad exercise and look after their bodies. Never underestimate the power of example from such a young age and I really do believe that by setting an example from now we are increasing his chances of making good lifestyle choices later.

Of course we prefer exercise. Other friends outlets range from computer clubs to their church groups to art clubs. It really doesn't matter what it is but I am 100% convinced that you do need an outlet of sorts.

Now if you don't mind I'm off the the gym.....

Our nanny doesn't live on the same planet as us

About five minutes after our snot gobbler entered the world all full of attitude we decided that to stand any chance of maintaining a working life we needed to hire a full time nanny. After interviewing and trialing a few we settled on Gertrude a slip of a thing from Zimbabwe.

Gertrude in the main is awesome. She loves Mitch, he adores her, she is quiet which was a prerequisite seeing as I've stayed in hotel rooms that are bigger than our house and we both work from how a few days a week, and she was affordable. However she is a strange puppy and her points of reference and understanding on life can be shall we say left of centre when comparing it to ours.

We really started to take note of the differences when she arrived one morning in tears. Apparently her husband had come home with his mistress not knowing she was still there as she had the day off. Not nice. Her way of dealing with it? To fast until 12 everyday as that would help show sacrifice, but also to put on weight as African men like big women and she's too skinny. Well first off from a blokes point of view I can tell you that if Kim wants me to take an interest in her, not that she has to request it but if she did......there are a few ways to get a red blooded male like me to do so and not eating until lunchtime or doubling her body mass index are not two of them. Secondly in all the years I've been reading books on nutrition nowhere have I ever read "if you want to get fat then we suggest you don't eat". Funny that, and I generally find a burger pie and six pack of beer a day will do the trick though.

We then come to some Gertrudeisms

- Mitch needs to crawl or he won't be good at maths. Ok so my sons chances of becoming the next Stephen Hawking rest solely on whether he shuffles on his hands and knees? If I'd known that 37 years ago I still wouldn't be walking and would be a genius!

- the reason Mitch has stomach issues is because Kim didn't eat enough chocolate while pregnant. Right ok, ladies go eat some snickers bars right now or be in trouble later

- Mitch farts a lot because he doesn't burp after every feed. Has nothing to do with his chronic gastric medical condition and three intestinal bacterial infections then?

- "Dan where're Kim and Mitch?" "At hospital" "what they have been at the clinic for three days, yoh the queue must be very long there, next time go to mine as I only wait four hours" oh the mind boggles

- her kids schools fees are 500 but her flat costs her 1.2 and her cellphone cost 2.4......took a while but I now know that to make life easy we drop the thousand from everything so 1.2 is actually R1200 makes sense I suppose

The list is endless and gets added too daily, much like the extensions in her hair. The main thing is though that she is lovely, she and Mitch are best mates, and we wouldn't be without her. It's just her outlook on life is slightly different to ours ans sometimes this can actually be fun!

My sons bowels love our car

For some reason or another our dearly beloved son has taken to only operating his bowels while in our car. This affliction has developed in the past week and is becoming somewhat of a nuisance.

It goes like this. Nothing but clean nappies for days, decide to go out to lunch at a place with a very public car park and at least half an hours drive away, or to test drive a new car, or to a friends for coffee and within five minutes Amazing Grace is being played by his lordships bottom and we are opening the windows. Of course by the time we get to the destination the car, and us, kind of smell like a dirty nappy. Then we have to do a quick change in full view of passing people in the boot of the car or on the backseat, followed by me walking around with a nappy bag looking for a suitable bin.

Now why he has started this trend is beyond us. I thought that it was my driving but then he did the duty while Kim was driving. Then perhaps he didn't like the ride of the car, but we then bought a new one and he christened that on his second trip so we are at a loss.

The other thing that we think it might be is that he hates leaving home for some reason, or perhaps he is just vindictive, he never opens his bowels on the way home but only on the way to our destination where he knows we could have some changing issues.

It's also not like we feed him before we go out, or that we always go out at the same time, no it just seems to be totally random and constant.

So the choices, we either don't go out, ever, and have a constipated child, or we do got out and find the most private parking spot we can and pack plenty of rubber gloves? I think it will be the latter somehow.

Bottoms up!

Consolidating as a parent

Before your bundle of joy comes along you are told by everyone and anyone that your finances will fall off of a cliff face the second they come along. For the most part you ignore this as you have probably saved and prepared, we certainly did. However there are some things that just can't be prepared for. Things like.

- school application fees before they are four months old

- medicated formula because they cannot tolerate standard formula, or any food at all in our case

- medicines and general medication

- time away from work due to doctors and hospital visits

These soon create a drain on finances. In our case Mitch needs a special formula which costs 9x the price of normal formula, or one third of my monthly take home pay, plus he has been on prescribed medications since he was born. This has meant that all of our buffer savings have disappeared and credit cards used liberally. Now in talking to other parents we are not alone in this. In fact it appears quite common if not the norm. Plus we haven't even added school fees yet.

To cope as parents we have had to enter a period of financial consolidation as it is no linger a choice not to. How parents do this obviously varies depending on their own situation. However this is how we have approached it.

- make packed lunches to stop us buying lunch and snacks at work

- buy good quality coffee beans to grind at home as this prevents the urge to "pop out for a coffee" at the weekend

- invite people over for dinner rather than meet them out, if we do go out it's for breakfast not evening meal or lunch as this is generally cheaper

- down graded our cars but to newer cars. Both had 5+ year old big engined cars and traded them for one year old smaller cars. Same monthly repayments but cheaper to fuel and insure and also three to four years of minimal maintenance costs

- buy groceries online as this prevents temptation to buy extras

Now all of these are small things but soon add up. We unfortunately have also had two of our three dogs die since Mitch was born and we haven't replaced them as it saves on vet and food bills.

Interestingly there are a few things that we have not cut back on. These include;

- gym memberships and running club memberships - both of us need exercise and this is what we term our "sanity tax"

- Satellite TV - yes it costs a lot but is an unwinding mechanism that we do use

Over and above this we have looked for ways to increase our income streams. I now contribute to www.nutripaeds.co.za as their daddy blogger, it doesn't pay a lot but it does help and was unexpected as I wasn't expecting to be paid. I have also doubled the amount of images that I have on various stock photography sites and have secured some event photography jobs on the weekends. Kim is busy expanding her service offerings in her company www.resm.co.za. Again small things but when put together as a consolidation process it all adds up.

For us the process has been one of enlightenment in a way and one that we will continue to follow. The benefits have been reaped and will continue to be reaped. How are you consolidating? I'd love for you to share your thoughts 

Seven top tips for surviving a hospital stay with a child

Unfortunately for us Mitch has had a pretty rough start to his life. This week has seen him being admitted to hospital for the seventh time in his eight months of being on this wonderful planet. I won't go into what he has and why he's been admitted so many times today, I'll save that for a future post, but I do want to share my top tips for coping when your child is in hospital as we have learned so much.

I base all of the following on the fact that one parent needs to stay in hospital with the child overnight as this is the point of reference we have and is common for young children and babies. We also have one child so accept that this is easier than if you have more than one child. I'm sure that these tips could be adapted though.

1. Its going to be tough accept it - stating the obvious I know but the sooner you accept that its going to be tough for not only the parent who is staying in hospital but also the one "home alone" the better. Acceptance is a great way to move forward, and you will be home as a family again soon.
2. Create some sort of routine quickly - as the stay at home one we find that with all the doctors checks and nurses shift change overs me being there early morning isn't really that useful. What we find works is for me to come late morning early afternoon and stay later. This means I can keep up to speed with work but also means that I am there to support when things are getting frayed around the edges. Which brings me to.....
3. Try and create some normality for both of you. By me only going to visit later it means I can work, do some exercise, walk the dogs etc. Then by me doing an afternoon shift Kim can do some work, go for a run, catch up with friends for coffee, or even come home for an hour or two and walk the dogs.
4. Give the stayer a break. Being stuck in a hospital ward is not pleasant so give the parent staying in hospital a chance to get out. Often they will refuse, however the space offered is always welcome
5. Make home cooked food. We are lucky our childrens ward has a small kitchen with microwave oven this allows the stay at home parent to make a "normal" dinner or lunch and bring it to the hospital for the other parent. Not only is this healthier but its also cheaper by far. It also keeps a sense of normality as everyone loves a home cooked meal over a hospital dinner or take away.
6. Make friends with the nurses. I cannot stress this enough. So often we see parents who treat nurses as quasi-slaves or personal servants. Bad move. Yes they will be professional and do their job but that's it. We have always made a point of finding out their names (its on their name tags so not hard to do) and calling them by it, buying them a chocolate bar, offering to make them tea or coffee, or just finding out more about them. It pays off believe me as when we go into hospital now we have a relationship with them and they are more flexible with visiting hours, or looking after Mitch while we have a break. Stuff that can make a huge difference to your experience
7. Don't force people to come and visit. We learned very early on that some people hate hospitals and will do anything to avoid them. This is ok. The people who want to visit will and those who don't won't. On the converse you don't always want to be entertaining visitors and just want to be left alone. This is ok and totally natural, you will find a balance.

So there's my seven top tips for surviving a hospital stay with a child. As I said its not easy but you will get through it and everything will be ok. Trust me!

Looking at my role in the first seven months

Out little bundle of joy recently turned seven months, and for some reason it got me thinking about
what my role has been during this time. It’s an interesting question as I had always been of the belief
that I wanted to be a father and not a sperm donor. That unfortunately flies in the face of the popular
belief that “dads get involved from a year onwards”. So truly what has been my role?

Well for a start Mitch was premature which meant I was involved from the word go in ICU with feeding and changing, I had no choice and wouldn’t have had it any other way even if I had a choice. Then we hit a sensitive issue, breast feeding.

Unfortunately my wife really battled with breast feeding and even expressing, this is more common than we like to believe. For us though it was seen as a positive as Kim wasn’t the only one involved with feeding. This had two benefits;

1. Kim got a break and sleep as we could share the load with me doing the nighttime feeds or we could rotate them. The value of this cannot be stressed enough especially when your budle of joy is on three hourly feeds

2. I got to bond with and be a part of Mitch’s life from the word go. This is a small thing but invaluable to him and I still feed today and typically do the first feed in the morning at around 4:30am before heading to work and various feeds at the weekend. It’s a time that I enjoy.

Of course there are the day to day things that I have been involved with such as bathing, unless totally unavoidable I am home for bath time as we have made it a fun family time. Changing nappies, comforting, playing are all taken care of as a team so we jump in and work them as a couple.

Within the day to day activities I have found that there are certain gender specific roles that do take place. For example comforting is definitely a “mommy thing”, I tend to crush him without realizing it. On the converse of this certain elements of the fun stuff like launching him into the air, playing rough and tumble, yes even in the first few months, I am better able to do.

However in looking back I have seen that my main role actually hasn’t been anything to do with Mitch. My main role has actually been supporting Kim especially as we have had a sick child. The both emotional and physical support given to the mother sometimes overlooked as a major role in the life of a child. This support doesn’t necessarily mean being a councilor, far from it. It means being there for them, reinforcing that they are the best mother your child could ever wish for and then doing the little things.

Little things in our house include; cooking dinner each night, running the odd bath, taking Mitch for a walk after work to give Kim some space, likewise on a Sunday morning so she can have a lie in, sending her off for coffee with friends, so on and so forth.

So looking back yes I think I have played a key role in my sons first seven months but you could argue that I have potentially played a bigger role in my wifes life. It’s something that you don’t often think about.