Christmas Eve Treats

Some cool treats Kate put together for our Christmas Eve evening with family - delicious! Hit us up if you want to know how to make them :)

Men, want to get more involved in pregnancy? Here's 10 ways you can.

As a man, it sometimes feels difficult to get fully involved in a pregnancy. The woman is the one carrying the baby, and aside from taking care of your wife, it can feel like there's not a lot you can do to help nurture your unborn child.

If your wife is newly pregnant, or you're planning a pregnancy and want to know how you can help more, fret not! I've put together 10 ways (and there are more - so many, many more...) that you can help out during pregnancy -

1) When you wake to a gentle tap on your shoulder, and see that it's 6am - DON'T pretend to be asleep. Get straight out of bed to make breakfast for your wife. Even if it's for the 4th time since midnight. Which it will be.

2) If you notice cuttlery disappearing at the same time as finding your rubbish bags getting heavier, don't make a fuss. Give them a wash, and get them back into circulation. If you don't, you'll have none left by the end of the week.

3) Wear earmuffs and shoulder pads to bed. The earmuffs so that you're not woken by the sound of food being ravenously devoured at 1am, and the shoulder pads so that you can't feel the tapping finger when that food runs out. Sure, this doesn't help your wife much, but a man has to sleep sometime...

4) Increase your diplomacy skills, a million-fold. If you don't, then good luck to you.

5) Accept that you will have to drive to your local store every night, and get looked up-and-down while you purchase yet another tub of icecream, jar of gerkins, and bottle of tomato sauce.

6) Accept that you will find that your wife no longer likes icecream, gerkins and tomato sauce. Return to the store with a new list (a pizza bun and some caramel sauce) without any fuss, and don't panic when the shopkeeper calls the police. Pay, and leave quickly.

7) Accept that your time spent asleep will decrease astronomically. Or, just end completely. Hope for the former.

8) Get yourself into the habit of continuous loops. For example, filling a hot water bottle, followed by grabbing a bag of peas from the freezer - the hot water bottle for keeping your wife warm, and the peas for cooling her down 5 minutes later. These monotonous, seemingly pointless loops get easier. Keep practicing.

9) If your wife uses the car and the keys go missing, don't panic - she's bound to overheat while you're looking for them, and you'll find them in the freezer next to the peas.

10) Cross your fingers that maybe tonight will be the night that your wife gets angry, and sends you to sleep on the couch.

There you go - hopefully, these tips come in handy for any newly-pregnant-men out there.

Good luck.

Putting Up Our Christmas Tree, aka Our 9-Foot Snake

This will be our first 'real' Christmas with our son, and it's already bringing out some hilarious and heart-melting cuteness in our wee boy.

Joseph was born in August 2007, so he's already been through two Christmas's, but this is really the first one where he'll be fully engaged with everything.

We started with an advent calendar at the start of December (thanks Grammy!), and now after opening a few he's bursting with excitement from the second he opens his eyes in the morning. OK, so maybe he's so excited he's not actually sleeping any more at all. Grammy, we take the thanks back.

The cute thing is that he remembers what number he opened yesterday, and knows which one he should be opening today, which impressed us no end :-)

We've set up our Christmas tree, too, and I've never heard so many 'Wooooowwwww, daddy - woooowwwww's in my life - he just can't believe it. The tinsel, and the silver balls, and the lights, and the...snake?

Yeah, we weren't sure either, but he insisted - the Christmas tree, mummy and daddy, is in fact a snake. Took us a while, but we finally realised that me moving the tree around was creating a brushing noise when it touched the roof, which Joey decided sounded just like a snake. Funnily enough, he wasn't bothered by it at all - he was quite happy to have a 9-foot long snake in the corner of our lounge, swaying back and forth against the roof. Mummy and daddy, not so much...

Now that we've convinced him it's not actually a snake, he finds it hilarious - he's constantly dragging me over to it, laughing as he tells me it's not a snake, that it's really a Christmas tree, and that daddy is silly. Ha! I wasn't the one that decided it was a snake, buddy.

I guess in years to come it'll be a running family joke - the year Joey decided the Christmas tree was a snake.

What goes on inside a child's head is amazing. Their imagination can be so bizarre, yet when you actually sit down and think about it, spot on. We've since tested the Christmas tree noise, and guess what? It sounds exactly - exactly - like a snake hissing. As adults, our preconceptions and experiences severely limit that imagination, and it re-sparks mine whenever I hear my son's take on things.

Before it has even really begun, Christmas is a completely different experience having a young child - looking forward to the rest of December, and all the cute moments it will bring :)

Talking Dirty

When you become a parent something happens. Yes, you get an adorable little creature to dote on and nothing compares to the unconditional love that comes your way. But there's something else...

No subject is out of bounds anymore. In fact, you'll find yourself delighting in conversation solely surrounding potty training and the inevitable 'boo boos' (yes, another new term to add to your hypothetical parenting dictionary) along the way. Just the other day I had a one hour conversation to a good friend of mine on the subject of CONSTIPATION. Her child hadn't 'gone' for a whole week and understandably she was beginning to worry.

'Grab the prunes' you may say - which in theory is a brilliant piece of advice. But this little girl is luxuriating in her 'terrible twos' stage, and has been delighting in the constant power struggles you face on a day to day basis. 'No prunes, yucky prunes'. Ok, Plan B. Up the fruit, veges and cereal. 'Yucky fruit, veges and cereal' was the reply. So now my poor friend is not only worried about constipation but also STARVATION! It seems parenthood is also a one way ticket to a life time of worry! Vomiting, diarrhoea and the arty things kiddies do with both are also high on the agenda (they give Picasso's works a run for their money).

No subject is too disgusting or vulgar that it can't be discussed at length over a hot cup of coffee and gooey chocolate cake. So, embrace the new you and talk dirty to your hearts content, knowing that somewhere in the world, even in your neighbourhood, there are hundreds of mums (and the odd stay at home dad) discussing the finery's of life on the edge of sanity.

A Day With Daddy, aka The Patience Battle

It's just going into summer here in New Zealand, and I play club cricket every Saturday. There was no game this weekend, so Kate and I took the opportunity to switch places for the day - she headed off to town, and I spent the day with Joey.

I always have a blast with one-on-one time with my wee boy - it gives us a chance to catch up and reconnect after being away from each other all day during the week, and I know Kate appreciates the chance to get some time to herself!

Joey and I have a lot of fun together - he loves getting out and about, and the more boisterous the play the better. But it's a huge challenge at the moment, too. Joey is 2 years/3 months old, and he's very much in the 'terrible-two' phase of life.

Particularly, he's really struggling to understand the idea of patience - he just can't grasp that sometimes you need to wait before something happens! This could be anything - getting a cracker from the cupboard, putting his shoes on for him when we're getting ready to go somewhere, or holding a pile of stones for him while he grabs another 5. He's getting there, but I don't think he understands the concept yet - and it's making for some interesting little battles.

Sometimes - and it's not all the time, but it's regularly enough - all I need to say is a gentle 'Just wait, Joey, we'll do such-and-such in a moment, when we've finished this', and his face just changes. His bottom lip drops, his eyes well up, and he just explodes into a teary mess. It's actually extremely cute - the expression on his little face is priceless :) But, the cute face doesn't actually help solve the issue...

I never know what the right thing to do is - tough out an argument until the bitter end, hoping the lesson gets across even if he's a sobbing mess...or just hurry up and give him what he wants immediately, and move on so he doesn't get upset, hoping that he'll understand eventually.

Is there even a right answer? I guess every kid is different, so probably not :)

Very keen to hear any similar experiences you've had, though, and how you've dealt with them!

About the Nappy Brains

When we had our first child (back in August 2007) we very quickly discovered that nothing can prepare you for having a baby, or for being parents.

Now our second baby is one the way, and will arrive just as our son hits the peak of his terrible two's. No, we did not think of this when we planned the pregnancy. Obviously.

This blog is part-therapy for ourselves (must.get.it.out!), and part what-we've-learned-so-far for you to glean information from. So, please interact with us - tell us if something you've read here has helped you, or if there's a piece of advice you can offer us. Believe us when we say we're all ears!

We hope you're enjoying reading our blog :)

Yours in insanit...err...parenthood,
Israel and Kate.