The End

Dear Arthur (wee man),

For the past year I have chronicled on a daily basis what you and I have done and what we have experienced together. Unfortunately, all things must come to and end, though of course this is not the end of us as a little tag team duo, it's just the end of another stage in life, there will be more to come from us.

Not many dads get to do what I've done and I know it is because of the past year that we now have such a great bond. I also realise that we haven't always been friends and your special kind of madness has on occasion driven me up the wall to the point where I want to sell you.

However I can't deny that watching you grow from a baby who couldn't crawl to a boy who can scale anything in front of him has been a pleasure and a joy and I would do it all again if I could. It has perhaps been the best year of my life and I now know that my greatest achievement in life is you and let's be honest, keeping you alive.

I can honestly say that I was scared of you for six months and if I hadn't have had this time with you I probably would still be terrified but we now know each other incredibly well and I'm very proud of the little boy you're growing into, even if you can be hard work sometimes.

You probably won't remember any of what we have done this year which is why I have written this blog and why it will always be available for you if you want a bit of a laugh or if you need some comfort in the future.

I hope later on in life you can look back through this blog with fondness and I hope I haven't messed you up too much.

Just remember:

In the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.


Much Love,

Dad

The Penultimate Post

Well folks, we're nearly there. Tomorrow will see the end of One Man and a Wee Bairn after writing a post everyday for a year. And let me tell you it has been one hard commitment especially because with the wee man being so mental and also having the weekly commitment of writing for Baby Centre. On the one hand it will be sad to leave it behind but on the other it will be bliss not to have to come up with something to say everyday.

So how do you think I have commemorated such an important weekend? Well I've laid a floor. If you're a regular reader of the blog you will know I'm not massively DIY minded and people generally take the piss out of me for my attempts at things. However the floor is AMAZING and I have dispelled all my detractors with my diligence and dedication to the job.

There might have been a lot of swearing and throwing of things but after six hours of work I managed to finish it. Even The Chancellor was impressed by my endeavors and Funny Mummy has given me the great idea of starting a new blog called DIY Daddy. However there will be no more blogging for a while, maybe when the new baby is here but for now I have too many other things to do and sort.

Tomorrow there will be something a little different here so for now let me say a big thank you to all of you who have read One Man the past year. Your support is what has made me continue and if wasn't for your shares, likes, comments and votes during blogging competitions I wouldn't still be writing this and I wouldn't have made a name for myself in the blogging world.

On Abbey Road the final track is called The End and this post is the final one dedicated to you the readers. Though if you know the Beatles you know there is one little thing at the end of the record...

jpr

The Life Aquatic

It seems appropriate that one of the last posts on this blog is about the same thing the first one was on, swimming. http://onemanandaweebairn.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/my-son-will-win-gold-medal-swimming.html. It's been a year or so since we begun and huzzah the wee man hasn't sh*t in the pool once in that time! If I take one thing away from our time swimming it will be this and only this seeing as I've heard there is a considerable fine if the pool needs to be closed and cleaned.

Anyway the wee man has always enjoyed his aquatic time and now has now graduated along with Funny Mummy and Daddy's son to the amazing heights of armbands. "WOW!" I hear you say. Anyway this means that I don't have to put in as much effort in holding him up and can drift off and relax in a warm pool while the wee man only just keeps his head above water. Everyone's a winner.

One problem though with the wee man is that he spends most of his time trying to get out of the pool. This wasn't too good a couple of moths ago when he did get out at a community pool, run off and slip on the side giving himself a nose bleed. In the pool we go to on a Friday there is quite a drop off the side down to the floor so if he got out he would get more than just a nosebleed. No one's a winner.

It seems bizarre to think that first post I wrote on swimming was a year ago and with only two more posts to go until the end of One Man I'm starting to get a little sad about ending this here blog. Tomorrow will be the final 'proper' post and Sunday there will be something a little different. Until tomorrow...    

jpr



 

 

The Face

So we had our 20 week scan today and yesterday I joked that babies generally looked pretty creepy at their scans. But I was eerily right as it looked from one angle for there to be some terrifying super villain hiding in The Chancellor's womb.

Seriously, just look at the picture. Can you not see the creepy eye and the weird pattern on the head. What have we created? It's going to be born, age really quickly and smother the world in evil killing everyone. And you know whose going to get the blame for this happening? Me.

People will say, "If only you hadn't had moaned so much and been so bloody miserable then your evil child wouldn't be wanting to kill us all and feast on our organs." I'm sorry in advanced for not being able to stop my second child but the chances are I will be dead along with the rest of you so there's not much I could have done.The more I look at this picture the more freaked out I get about what's growing.

Have you ever seen one of those films where the woman is carrying a devil child and you can see the claws from under the skin? THAT. You're probably thinking "what films has he been watching?" but they do exist and I'm sure having watched American Horror Story recently there is a similar thing in that too.

Anyway despite the weird face the 'baby' is doing OK and now it's just a matter of waiting until the day when all the madness starts again and the evil overlord arrives.

jpr

20 Weeks Gone

Five posts to go until the end of an era. However I don't really have time to ponder this too much as life happens to have a way of keeping us all very busy. Tomorrow we have our 20 week scan, which is insane as haven't we just found out we're pregnant? Anyway I guess time is relative. This is what happens when you already have a toddler to look after. 

With the wee man we looked almost everyday at websites like Baby Centre but this time we have done it maybe once or twice. We were also, for some bizarre reason, desperate for him to arrive but this time I want the child to stay in doors for as long as possible. I'm not sure i'm going to be getting my wish here.

The wee man's 20 week scan seems like only five minutes ago but in fact it was over two years ago. In true wee man spirit he needed cajoling for us to get a good shot of him. The Chancellor was required to do star jumps in the waiting room but still this wasn't enough for the wee man to turn around and get out of the corner he was hiding in. Tomorrow I hope for better from my second child and they will need to know that any nice thing they do for me will result in me liking them more. That is unless the wee man pulls something impressive out of the bag like talking in sentences.

The wee man also looked more like the alien for the film Alien in his 20 week scan, all I can remember is his spine and thinking 'wow that's creepy'. It's weird what your mind sees in things isn't it? We are still in two minds whether to find out the sex tomorrow of child number two. I would like to but The Chancellor wants to keep it a secret. I wonder who is going to win that argument...We didn't find out last time with the wee man and that's one reason why I would quite like to know tomorrow. Either way I might, if you're lucky, post a picture here tomorrow.

Wish us luck and I hope we're not having another alien child...

jpr

  

Messy Liberation

Today we welcome back the very excellent Olivia Flint for the final ever guest blog on One Man and a Wee Bairn. Do you mind having a messy child?

As anyone who's spent any time with me will tell you, I find it hard to cope with mess. I like things to be clean and tidy. This applies to hanging out with children as well. I'll be constantly wiping hands and faces, continuously clearing up and keeping things as tidy as I can. I'm happy to get toys out and be messy, but I like ordered mess so I'll tend to encourage tidying up after each game before we get the next toys out; limited mess is better than uncontrolled mess.

I really appreciated my best friend (and sister-in-law) picking me up on this a couple of weeks ago. Her 3 year old son was eating a yoghurt and every time he put the spoon up to his mouth, a bit dripped onto his t-shirt. I've seen this happen with cereal and ice cream as well, and I mentioned that she might want to let him know that he was making a mess, or put a bib on him. Her response was very refreshing, "It's OK, it's got to go in the wash anyway, I want to encourage him to be a child."

Since then, I've noticed how messy children are and how they don't care. They just eat however they want to eat, they fall over, they jump in puddles, they get mucky and they drip raspberry juice, as in this picture:

Obviously, children aren't responsible for cleaning so they don't have a reason to mind, but even as someone who has to wash my clothes, I think I can learn a lot from them. I think it's liberating to sometimes eat a yoghurt without wiping the bottom of the spoon over the edge of the pot before putting it up to your mouth, or to go cycling in the pouring rain through puddles and mud and not worry about what's happening to your clothes.

You don't want to be the adult walking around with ice cream stains all over your t-shirt but I think cleaning a child's hand as soon as it gets dirty makes them more aware of it not being clean and then they want to be super clean all the time. I would imagine this leads to them being quite uptight as an adult and having a heightened awareness of not being clean. This in turn could cause things like not being able to shower when camping to become quite stressful.

I think it could help me have a more relaxed attitude to mess if I took a leaf out of a child's book and just let myself go when it comes to mess sometimes; not being tied to having to constantly clean and tidy up sounds quite liberating to me.

Farewell Baby Centre

First off today a farewell to Baby Centre. I've decided that there are too many things going on at the moment and I have no extra to write blog any blogs. See I can't even write a sentence properly. A new house, a new job and a new child makes life pretty hectic. With One Man finishing in a week it's going to be nice to have free space in my head.

For the past 11 months I've written a post every week for Baby Centre and for the most part I've enjoyed the experience. I have though noticed a drop in standards of my own blogs recently and I feel that I really need a break from all this blogging lark. So thank you to my editors and fellow bloggers I will continue to read your posts and comment if I feel the need to rant. Also thank you for taking the time to read and comment and for voting for me during the initial competition. If you want to read any of the posts I've written just go here http://www.baby.co.uk/author/jrobinson/.

In other news the wee man's first night in his new bed was a success. He woke up once at half eleven and I went in to find him half asleep on his knees on the floor. How he had made it into that position is a little confusing but he went back down without any bother and slept until eight this morning. One night though doesn't make a lifetime and I will worry every night until he's at least 18. He does seem to enjoy his bed and spent a good while today just sitting reading his Thomas books with his back up against the headboard. Can I say it's going well?

So this time next week you might be reading the final post here at One Man. It's feels a little sad to imagine an end but to an end this blog must come, until the next one that it...

jpr