Recently in parenthood Category

We looked into buy a car after Oscar arrived, the previous summer's heat and fitting things in and out of a three door car was getting to be a pain in the back, literally. So the quest began, five magazines and dozens of webpages later we settled on a second hand, but recent Renault Scénic. It is the original European MPV, sort of a big hatchback, ours has only five seats. It is not a 4x4 nor a minibus, it has acquired the totoro nickname catbus already. It delights in the colour Ottoman Blue, as shown.

The factory where they are made in Douai, near Lille looks intriguing on Google Maps, but you can get a peek in these aerial shots, the lowest level of detail on Google is hidden, so as to not give away the prototypes I guess.

What else did I learn on the journey, well car magazines mainly disagree with one another, but on aggregate say similar things, but they often are contradicted by their user reports. I learnt a lot about car technologies, as our last car was eight years old and they have got a lot safer and have more toys now. Euro-NCAP have been doing a great job at raising the debate on safety now that rust-proofing and reliability are pretty much a given.

We've now had the car for a year or so and we love it. Clever things like the lack of a car key, it uses an RFID credit card sized token instead. This handsfree car key is excellent, with a baby boy in one arm, I only need open the door, it unlocks for me. Then there are nice simple automation touches like the automatic windscreen wipers or the headlights that work out if it is dark and turn on, perfect in tunnels.

It is also quite nippy, turbo diesels are surprisingly powerful these days. If you want numbers 130bhp and 0-60 in under 10 seconds. It makes driving feel safe, knowing that it can pull out of a situation easily, particularly in the 30-50 mph on the bigger roads in London. Last summer we drove to the Loire in France and it was delightful, quiet, fast, fun and held everything.

When chatting to fellow fathers soon after the birth of Oscar, it became clear that most people had got a new(ish) car around that time and virtually all of them had got a turbo diesel. It seems they are the engine of choice, at least in Europe, I'm aware they have an undeserved reputation for being noisy in the USA. I suspect it is a way of getting a more powerful car without buying the ludicrous petrol top of the range model. It looks like a quieter beast, but secretly it is quite a brute.

The Scénic is one of the few cars in the world which had a woman as the primary designer, I think you can tell. There are so many practical additions to the car, like rear seats on rails, so that you can slide your child towards you from the front seats. Sunblinds which are attached to the door, clipping to the top of the window, so that they don't fall off and you could open the window for some air, whilst leaving the sun blind attached.

Buying a new car is not something we did lightly, as they take a lot of energy to produce. We sold on our old car, so it is still being used. We take the train to work everyday and use the car for longer journeys. Perhaps we could live without a car altogether, like some friends do, but with a child a car feels more justifiable.

The recent report from Alcohol Concern that alcohol should be prohibited from children at home under 15 feels wrong. Lucy and I had already discussed when Oscar should get some wine and we decided 12 was a good age. Essentially the same age as we both started. The French do seem to have a healthier attitude to alcohol, being disapproving of being drunk in public. Caroline Flint correctly pointed out that this law would be unenforceable.
The rise in drinking in teenage and pre-teenage children is worrying, but as prohibition showed in the USA, bans only increase the attraction. The overall culture towards drink is amiss in the UK. Drinking for the sake of getting drunk is too popular in the UK. I'm quietly hoping that the smoking ban will encourage a less alcohol focused evening culture in the UK.

A sweet concept, the tired sleepy warm happy look that your son or daughter gives you after a warm bottle or breast full of milk. Adorable.

I really like the autumn, the food has a warm slightly greedy feel to it, a welcome repost to the summer's salads. Stews and warming soups predominate, which build well upon the abundant harvest of vegetables. I know it rains more and the winter and dark evenings with bare trees are coming, but as the leaves turn the colours are pretty. The light also drops to a more flattering angle and lights up the sides of buildings, giving views which surprize you.
Time to start wearing a jacket again, I've needed one most days in the last week or two, rather than the default jeans and a t-shirt of the summer. An umbrella too, I've got soaked once already running from work to the tube.
The rain and continued sunshine has meant that the gardens are confused and even the grass is flourishing, recovered from the dry summer. Epping last weekend was damp and muddy in places, but there were dozens mushrooms lurking in hollows, or brazenly growing in the open under trees. All this under a canopy of still green leaves, which felt wrong, perhaps the leaves will turn by hallowe'en.
I'll miss the sun when we get to the darker afternoons with journeys to work and home in the dark. Each autumn I think I should become a morning person to make the most of the daylight and with Oscar maybe I will, he wakes at 7ish most mornings. I've never been a morning person though, so we'll see what happens. He is a ray of sunshine each morning though, so that makes getting up easier. Beaming smiles and excitement at each new day, it must be thrilling to be that age. Everyday has a sense of novelty and discovery is a daily joy for him.

I'm now 35 and today in a survey I had to tick the new box 35-50. Do I have more in common with people at 45 or 50 than those at 25? Sometimes I think I definitely don't, but then I feel young still. So, what would I want to tick, maybe a 30-39 would suit me better. I have a lot more responsibilities than I had ten years ago, I had a house then, but now I have a family and I'm more senior in my job.

Yet I don't feel that much in common with people a bit older, but maybe that is unfounded, most of my collegues at Nature are early twenties to later forties, certainly plenty of people are off having children. So maybe that is the key issue, not my age, but commonality in life experiences. State of job, enthusiasm for the new, having a child. More than a tickbox, but harder to capture in a survey. Having a family at 20 is very different to mid-thirties. As ever context is the important thing.

Having a baby has changed my mind on one thing which was unexpected. Having a 24 week limit on abortion is quite a long time, I know babies who have survived earlier than this. Below 23 weeks gives a less than 50 percent chance, so setting the cut off at below this means that there is no possibility to be aborting something that if induced would survive. So a twenty week limit seems to make sense. I believe that abortion should be allowed and am certainly no a pro-lifer. By three months, people should be aware that they are pregnant, they'll have missed two periods, that gives them two months to make their decision and emotionally come to terms with it.

There are I think medical reasons why 22 weeks is suggested, from memory certain conditions can only be determined at this stage, so maybe 22 is better. I didn't think I'd be writing about this, but the 20/22 week scan is a powerful image in my mind. It will be interesting to see if this Government makes any moves toward changing the limits, certainly the Health Secretary is not keen. Some stats, cribbed from the BBC, 87 percent happen before 12 weeks, and only 1.6 percent happen after 20 weeks, which in 2004 was about 3000, but of those about 100 were at 24 weeks.

Oscar was a month old at the weekend, he remains lovely and fascinating. We've discovered new experiences - feeding, nappies, crying and first smiles too. Having a baby is tiring, more than I imagined, but thoroughly rewarding. I have scant time for other things though, hence light posting on my blog, but there is always the flickr stream. I've got dozens of things backed up to write about, but the moment passes and they get abandoned, as there seem to be more important things to attend to. I've swapped back to MarsEdit to compose blog posts in an attempt to achieve the frictionlessness that Ben Hammersley was talking about in his swap to iWeb, but there are many areas of my life that could do with paring back. Achieving less, or maybe valuing what you achieve more and picking what to achieve seems to be the order of the year. This might be me back to blogging, though there is always Oscar to play with...

I'm going to be a Dad in a few days, maybe a week or so. It is a strange feeling, cuspal, marking a firm transition from being someone's son to having a son. I'm scared, excited and dreaming about it.

There is the daunting sense of being entirely responsible for a creature that can't really look after itself as well as a new born foal, until it is 21 months old. Then supporting and encouraging him until he is at least 21 years old and the rest. Then there is the life change, a simple weekend away is not just the two of us and a hotel or tent wherever we fancy. There is much more preparation and thought required. So far only one room is over run with baby things, though a lullaby Miffy has made it into our bedroom already. I'm sure the rest of the house will be given over happily to him, much to the cats' chagrin.

Yet in return for these small relinquished freedoms we get to watch our child grow up and take his first step, say his first words, run, climb and become a person. I know that this happens by the million every day across the world, but it happens to someone else and their child.

I've thought about growing up and the decisions I made, forced and unforced and the irresponsibility that childhood offers, it will be a challenge I think. 2006 is not the 1970s and the world is faster, harder and more accessible. Whether we stay in London til he is a teenager is unlikely, so the question becomes when to leave, but not yet.

Walthamstow seems like a nice place to bring up a baby and on towards being a toddler, we've made one step towards that in booking a nursery place for him. Before that we have a first summer to play with him. I'm so looking forward to meeting him and losing sleep in exchange.

Last Friday on Radio 4, there was a short piece on buggies or pushchairs in the Today programme. I'm soon to be a Dad, so it was close to my interests. First on the name, though, I call them buggies, as that was what they were called in Belfast. Pram is the older word, I'm not sure where pushchair came from.

In the interview there was a sense of disagreement over the need for a buggy to be a certain size. I can see the point of this, the three wheeler all terrain travel systems are enormous and heavy. We've spent a long time thinking about this and dismissed anything that we couldn't easily pick up empty, let alone with a small child or baby inside. This ruled out the majority of the travel systems, which I feel are really aimed at the US market and people who drive almost everywhere. See this conversation on DaddyTypes for an insight into the US / Europe cultural differences on buggies.

So that left the cheap end of the market, the basic Maclaren buggy and the posh end of the market. We wanted a buggy / pram usable on the tube system from birth to two or three, so looked a bit more up market. There are a range of mainly Dutch products in this space, which matches London in its use of public transport and limited use of cars, plus they have cobbled streets and mixed weather.

So, between Bugaboo, Quinny and Stokke, what did we like and dislike. The Bugaboo Chameleon is undeniably attractive and appealing, in the shop it does really want to be bought. It is compact folded, easy to collapse and light. It also works in a clever two wheeled mode for walks in the forest. However it is quite wide and your baby is a long way from you. They are also everywhere and the celebs' first choice for baby accessory. Still, it came a close second.

The Quinny Buzz is a nice product, but too wide in the rear wheels and the handle height adjustment is awkward, with too fiddle buttons to press in. The space between the wheels is also a bit low, especially when the bag is attached. I'm over six foot and it felt like I was continually kicking the bag. It came third for us, but the Zapp looks great for an older child and really compact.

So on to the winner, the Stokke Xplory, it is bigger than the Chameleon folded, slightly heavier and more expensive, but it won for a few unique features. Your baby is up high, right next to you, which is psychologically very powerful. A comparison with the Chameleon and the baby is a foot lower, which was key for us. It does the two wheel trick too and in a more elegant manner than the Chameleon, so we are thinking it would be perfect for navigating the many steps in London's Underground. Lastly it can work as a high chair in cafe, which means we are no longer restricted to places which can supply high chairs.

The Xplory is not the cheapest of the three options, but it is the best life fit for us, living in London and wanting to keep using the tube / underground to get to places. Thanks to my brother Andrew for helping us to buy it.