A time to think

I am off to New Zealand tonight. I am not really sure how I feel about it. On one hand I am going to miss Jo and Sam a lot, I feel physically and mentally burnt out and it's ****ing miles away. As a stand-up comedian said last night 'any further and you're on your way back'. He also said that Chiswick is 'Ealing for wankers', both true.
On the other hand, maybe I can sleep and catch up with myself on the flight. This is probably as good a point as any to stop and take stock of the last few months.
What have I learned? Amongst other things:
1. Until you have had a baby, you have absolutely no idea of what being tired means.
2. You can have endless days of frustration and worry about your baby but then he looks at you and smiles and you forget about all the negative stuff.
3. The structure of your days will never be the same again. 7am is a lie in, 11pm is late. Normally you will find yourself falling asleep after the first game of Match of the Day and being up before they re-show it on Sunday morning. Bearing in mind that only a few years ago we might still have been up from the night before, this is a pretty big shift.
4. You can't look after your baby and try to do anything else at the same time. Maybe this is a bloke thing but I can't write a proper email, concentrate on any work, tidy the house, file, sort or fill out forms when Sam is there and wanting attention. Actually maybe this is a Sam thing.
5. You will have a less frenetic social life but secretly be quite pleased about not having to stand in a bar full of gurning twenty-somethings on a friday night.
6. You can have the odd night 'on it' but if you overdo it your baby will make you pay like you can't imagine.
7. Your energy levels will fluctuate from between 20-70% capacity but never higher.
8. As soon as you are away from your family, you'll want to be back with them.

We won a huge pitch last week. I got a good pay rise yesterday. It's a beautiful Spring morning and Sam seems to be getting better.
Who knows what is on the horizon but I am going to enjoy now because now is pretty damn good.

It's official

In terms of healthy babies, we have the most brilliant but most high maintenance little boy in the world. I was chatting with Jo last night, both of us exhausted by a weekend of Sam puking then running about like nothing had happened (and even though we'd all only had about 3 hours sleep), and she told me that virtually every mum she meets has babies sleeping right through the night. How annoying is that??? Granted some of them are kind of lethargic formula fed frogs that just sit there and grunt every now and again but what I'd give for one of those just one night a week....
Apparently when Sam went for a developmental check at the clinic last week they do this test where they see if the baby can pick up a raison. Not only was he almost juggling them but he also worked out that if he licked his finger that it made it sticky and he could pick up a whole rice cake with it. Then when they left, and the female doctor waved goodbye to him, he waved back. She almost fainted. Like I said, brilliant and clearly very bright but not a sleep lover by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately, I blame his parents.