Busy times
For a dad blogger, I feel like I’ve not written too much about being a dad lately. Sorry about that!
Things have been super busy on all fronts – as they tend to be as a parent – so I wanted to give you a general update (on nothing in particular) and summarise a little of what’s been happening in our lives.
First of all, and most importantly, Marley has been a star. He’s turning in to this beautifully sweet and polite little man, he makes me laugh absolutely every single day without fail and we all generally couldn’t be happier.
We have tried really hard as parents to make sure we are bringing him up properly. Every parent faces the tricky task of trying to mold and shape their little people in the way they want, without knowing how it’s going to work out, so it’s incredibly rewarding to see him becoming such a nice little guy.
He asks me how my day was when I get home from work, he thanks us both whenever we give him his dinner….he even congratulates me when I get song lyrics correct!
I’ll be singing along to one of his TV shows and when I finish I hear his little voice say: “well done daddy”
It’s so nice!
But it’s not all, necessarily, plain sailing. There are times when he presses our buttons.
Most evenings before bed he will, in some little way, test the limits of what he can get away with either by doing something we’ve instructed him not to, or by not doing something we have (repeatedly) asked him to.
Put that down. Come and brush your teeth.
No, put that down. PUT THAT DOWN!
That’s right, come and brush your teeth.
No, don’t pick that up. No. Put that down. Come and brush your teeth.
PUT THAT DOWN. COME AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH NOW!!!
I think it’s this part I find the most difficult. When he’s been so good during the day, but then in the evening, when he’s felling a little tired, he pushes us that little bit too far.
It’s really challenging not to get wound up. But it’s also really important that he knows when he’s misbehaving.
I have heard some parenting advice that says you must always remain positive, and never threaten punishment. But I truly don’t understand a) how that works, or b) how that could possibly prepare Marley for the real world, where everything isn’t rosy and certainly isn’t always positive.
So our strategy is very much to let him know that if he does something wrong, there will be consequences.)
You know, something shocking. Like not getting to have his little deer toy in his bed for the night.
So aside from continuing our parental learning experience, and watching lots of episodes of Peter Rabbit, there’s also plenty of other things going on.
My wife is right on the cusp of launching her online jewellery business to the world….more details on that to come very soon.
And I’m just about to start presenting my very own radio show! I worked in a radio station for several years almost a decade ago, and as producer I was usually behind the scenes. So i’m very excited at the prospect of doing my own thing and deciding what to talk about, who to invite as a guest and what music to play.
I will be posting plenty more about both of these exciting developments in the coming weeks. So if you haven’t already done so, please enter your email in the ‘subscribe’ thingy up top and get those updates….and i’ll see you soon!
