next week's efforts

This week a course of antibiotics meant that "Same time as his kids Athletico" got to sleep not with one ear on a Unicorn hot water bottle but in the default setting that has suited him for years.

In the recovery position, one hand palm face down under the pillow the other out ready to receive a baton in the 4 by 100 metre check the front door is still locked and the carbon monoxide batteries haven't run flat, relay.

The best night's sleep came, as predicted, after a weekly being smashed and attempting to smash fellow BJJ practioners. For the quality of sleep it provides it would be well worth doing a BJJ class every night although that might mean things start falling off.

One of the best bits of advice I could give anyone,specifically anyone anxious who struggles to get good sleep is to try and do any exercise in the evening. Even a 15-20 walk round the block can wear you down and chill you out enough to help you drift off.

If and when a nightly routine of hiding behind bedroom curtains to scare Daddy, ends in slipping on the sharp side of a toy box and slicing a big toe, remaining calm is the key.

How to deal with a bleeding toes bedtime crisis.

1)      Manage the room. If your heavily pregnant wife whose not great with blood is feeling faint ask her to sit on the floor before she lands on it. If she’s not too faint to help, use her nervous energy. In this case get the first aid box from the kitchen and put a pull up nappy on our son who has just admitted to piddling on the carpet.

2)      Pick up your daughter and raise her foot above her heart to slow down the bleeding. Cover her in a duvet or dressing gown to keep her warm and keep her occupied by asking her questions about what she had for lunch /who her favourite my little pony is.
        Answers= Macaroni cheese and Apple Jack.

3)      Apply some pressure to the big toe and have a good look at it. At first I thought she had sliced the top half off but following a quick clean while enquiring about Apple Jack's role I managed to ascertained we were going to be spared an evening trip to A and E.

4)      Once her toe was cleaned and bandaged a bit of chocolate just in case she was a bit shocked by the ordeal can be a good. Chocolate also helps smalls boys who are upset about piddling on the carpet and pregnant people scrubbing piddle off carpets.

Galleria Proxima Generacion

Unicornio con 7 patas

 Felt pens on white A4 paper. Artwork rescued from being mistaken as a Primary School's updated policy concerning PE footwear.

21.0cm X 29.7cm

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or like me, stuck in an anxious moment.

http://capitalsfromasouthcoast.blogspot.co.uk/

To watch some utube Tips about ....

1) my Dadmission to raise the World's collective morale and

2) make the washing up more interesting please check out or even better subscribe to my Utube channel.

James Macdonald's Dadmissions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBq5onzZtj0

Or just come and say hello or Twitter 

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                                                                                                                                                       James Macdonald Copyright 2018

Breakfast of Champions

Forget the early morning Seafront patrol, getting the kids to School, on time is where the week is won and lost.

It was also "Same bedtime as his kids Athletico's" turn to have some glue ear. The baton which was usually held firmly by "Asleep within seconds Town" was passed over on Wednesday. This was an especially unattractive proposal because it was all gluey.

"Same bedtime as his kids Athletico" who changed his name to as "Glue Ear Town" slept with his ear on a hot water bottle on Wednesday and Thursday nights. This wasn't an altogether unpleasant experience. Rolling over and branding his forehead on the metal key fob attached to it was.

"Same bedtime as his kids Athletico" remembered someone at work explaining how pouring olive oil in their ear helped to ease the pain of glue ear. This might have explained to anyone passing the kitchen window at 2am why a grown man in his pants was pouring oil into his ear, rubbing e45 on his nose and clutching a unicorn hot water bottle.

On Thursday night "Tired and emotional Athletic" noticed two ants wondering across the barren landscape that is the family bathroom floor while she was counting balled up scratch mits. This was the catalyst which led to her launch operation "Search and destroy Ants nest" and refusing to go to sleep until the Saltdean ant population was completely wiped out.

It also gave her an opportunity to christen the most interesting looking of the Dyson attachments. 

Thursday's getting the kids to school, getting the car parked up for your wife and yourself to work by 9am challenge was it's usual white knuckle ride. 

"We've leaving in five minutes people! Five minutes! Child 2, do you need a wee? Child 1, have you got your book bag? Your shoes on? Your teeth brushed ?"

"Nearly daddy!"

"Lying on your stomach in front of the dryer in your pyjamas is not nearly ready!"

"I've just really got to help this woodlouce! It's gone under the dryer!"

"Darling much as I admire your compassion for the local Woodlouce community I am terrified of being late for school again. Having to bow my head and beg for the Head of KS2 to open the gates and let us in for the third time this month wouldn't be a good start to the day. There are only so many times she is going to buy "The traffic on the A259 was a nightmare" routine. Especially as she lives three doors down from us!"

Tired and emotional Athletic had declared the parent's bed an official no go zone until the baby is born. "Same bedtime as his kids Athletico" accepted this fairly happily knowing that trying to stock pile some sleep in his upstairs bunk bed palace was a sensible choice. Even Fidgety Legs United had accepted the new terms but not before he had brokered a deal for his sister's 5 foot long unicorn.

Galleria Proxima Generacion

Felt and grass stains on white paper

21.0cm X 29.7cm

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might also like this. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or like me, stuck in an anxious moment.

One man's mission to help develop a universal basic living wage and send some postcards.

http://capitalsfromasouthcoast.blogspot.co.uk/

To watch clips of Tips about

1) my Dadmission to raise the World's collective morale and

2) make the washing up more interesting please check out or even better subscribe to my Utube channel.

James Macdonald's Dadmissions

Tip 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBq5onzZtj0

Or just come and say hello or Twitter 

https://twitter.com/DadMissions2018

                                                                                                                          James Macdonald Copyright 2018

Pregnant lady climbs ice shelf in her pyjamas!

"That’s not ice cream darling and it’s probably about 20 years old!"

I came down on Monday morning to be greeted by a unique family scene.

My 35 of a possible 40 week? pregnant wife sat in front of a freezer chipping away at the more stubborn ice in her dressing gown.

The chipping tools of choice being a wooden spoon and a plastic dinosaur. I was tempted to suggest a screwdriver  but the spoon and the T Rex  did seem to be making pretty quick work of those ice shelves.

My son was laying on the floor playing what can only have been another instalment of "International woodlice rescue" He was so engrossed in his own World that he didn't notice the Cheerios stuck on his forehead and cheek.

My daughter was working on her latest masterpiece at the kitchen table (see below).

I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed the weightier of the Velociraptors available and waited for my shift at the Ice mine to start.

Two gate patrols this week meant that "Same bedtime as his children Athletico" had never been a more accurate name for the family's patriarch.

Tired and Emotional Athletic quite possibly tired from her ice chipping activities early in the week seemed to have had a fairly solid week of sleep. 

"Asleep within seconds Town" and "Fidgety Legs United" were also both unnervingly quiet all week. There were even mornings when I got to view a possible future.

I made loud noises from the kitchen.

I turned on bedroom lights and opened curtains.

I pulled off duvets covers and tickled feet. 

The only possible explanation for this sudden U turn from being a family of sleepless bed hoppers to adults who genuinely can't believe their luck at having a three and fivenager is that we may all sense the times are about to change. As well as having a Kids bedroom that now looks like the cupboard has thrown up, our children now need to be woken up at 7.15am!!!!

I think everyone senses that Boy two who presently at 35 weeks could be like Boy one who started his life early popping out at 36 weeks. 

Maybe a higher power is giving us all a bit more sleep in preparation to having a bird like animal who will eat, sleep, poo repeat with absolutely no regard to any sort of

Circadian Rhythm.

"Asleep within seconds Town" arrived fashionably late at 42 weeks. I remember the bovine noises coming from our flat as I sprinted back from work. Noises that indicated that these weren't Braxton Hicks contractions!

These were the real deal and we were about to become grown ups. 2 People who would now have to always eat off a plate sitting down at the table. Official adults who would get used to merely high fiving their incomes as they appeared ghost like into accounts before becoming just another monthly direct debit payment.

It's very strange to literally one minute be a 36 year old man flapping around a hospital room annoying his partner.

"No I don't want a f@ck!n* back rub!"

To seconds later become a bare chested 36 year old "Dad!" flapping around a hospital room asking the midwife if poo that looks like my daughter has been drinking stout for nine months is normal?

Like lots of really good things in life, great things can happen on the other side of vulnerability.

You just have to embrace the change, trust in the process and keep offering those back rubs.

Galleria Proxima Generacion

Woodlouse atrapado en in gran sombrero de vaquero

Felt pen on white Brighton and Hove Albion notepad paper. Lost behind the broken steam cleaner until Wednesday then stuck on the fridge till Saturday.

21.0cm X 29.7cm

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might like this as well. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or if you're anything like me, stuck in an anxious moment.

One man's mission to help develop a universal basic living wage and send some postcards.

http://capitalsfromasouthcoast.blogspot.co.uk/

                                                                                                                                      James Macdonald Copyright

Praying for constant and quiet.

"He's taken an impossible to use work phone to the back and he's down!"

On Monday night "Same bedtime as his kids Athletico" was having a dream about his work phone ringing and his not being able to find it. Heart racing and claw like fingers searching in pockets, in an Alfred Hitchcock pre dawn fog. An increasing need to alert the Coastguard to an emergency unravelling before his eyes.

A light bouncing around in the shoreline. It could be reflective strips from a jacket on a lifeless body? It could be a life jacket that has innocently fallen off a boat and made it's way to land. Both scenarios are possible but only one will jerk you awake when your mind is loading a distressing show reel to accompany night sweats.

Luckily this was just a dream. This becomes startingly apparent when your ringing work phone ineffectually pads the duvet  as Tired and Emotional Athletic throws it at you at 4.30am.

When your day starts here then breakfast will feel like lunchtime and lunchtime will feel like bedtime. 

If your day starts here as it can do for Same bedtime as his kids Athletico" you're making your way down to the Seafront to open gates, shine a light under Piers and check students haven't run off with a life ring.

By Wednesday and two sweaty nights in it looked like "Same bedtime time as his kids Athletico" could find himself at the bottom of this week's family sleep league.

It really wasn't the fault of the International students playing chicken with the shore dump that he was knackered. His 20% gruffer than normal reminder of the dangers of shingle beaches and shore dump might have saved them from wet feet or far worse.

As "Same time as his kids Athletico" went to sleep on Wednesday he prayed for a night of constant and quiet. His prayers were answered and at 5.30am the alarm rang out to remind him if he was to write a blog that could become something? Now would be a good time to continue chipping away at that.

He could hear the soothing noises of Asleep within seconds and Fidgety legs United discussing the power play between Captain Hook and Peter Pan downstairs.

This and a humming boiler being the only noise downstairs meant Tired and Emotional Athletic may have to change her name to Adequately rested with reassuring squirms Sportive.

The increasing number of texts this week about Braxton Hicks and tummy tightness reminding both people in the family old enough to understand that a time of scratch mits, powdered formula sand being woken from animal like snuffling noises was fast approaching.

Who would this new person be?

How would his presence effect the family dynamic?

What would his Family sleep league name be?

Galleria Proxima Generacion

"Mi familia es mi puerto en el puerto en la tormenta."

 Crayon and felt pen on Salmon crepe paper. Water and grape juice soaked from a leaky bottle in an upside down book bag. Dried on the radiator, flattened under The beginners guide to Krav Maga for 2 days and stuck on the wall. 

21.0cm X 29.7cm

If you've enjoyed this blog, you might like this as well. It might help to pass the time if you find yourself in a lengthy queue, stuck on a train, stuck in a lift, or if you're anything like me, stuck in an anxious moment.

One man's mission to help develop a universal basic living wage and send some postcards.

http://capitalsfromasouthcoast.blogspot.co.uk/

© 2018 james macdonald copyright