Friday 25 March 2011

Like a second paternity leave

The family is currently togther in Spain partly on holiday and partly meeting the other side of the family again. EJ is now 9 weeks old and we followed several peoples advice to holiday early with a baby because its easy then when they are a 1 or 2 years old, guess what they were right. EJ is having a great time and i am loving it because its like a second paternity leave, i get to spend every day with him rather than just bath time like i do at home when working.

The experience of the journey was not so bad overall, Gatwick saw the baby and all the staff and pointed us to the fast lane through security. However the flying experience is truly archiac. Why do infants travel on your lap with a cheap seat belt extension ? This offers zero protection in the real world, it would be far better to allow us to use the car seats that we all own these days, this standard is a million miles in advance of the bare minimum the airlines offer. Its high time there was some decent international standards for airlines that start to move things forward in areas of Baby/Infant safety and passenger leg room for tall people.

Finally i was very pleased to fly with Monarch despite there baby related limitations, Monkey jet is for people who think that they get the same service but far cheaper. In reality on many routes the price is not significantly different but the service always is (worse).

Saturday 5 March 2011

7 weeks

Today we took EJ up town to get his first passport and i have to say i was impressed. In and out of the passport office in 25 mins, its easy to knock the officialdom but those lot have a slick operation. I thought we'd be there for hours.
EJ is now 7 weeks old and one of the best things i have been able to do the last few weeks is feed my son with expressed milk. There is nothing like holding your own childs head in your hand whilst you feed him, he's vulnerable and cute, its a duty and an honour.
I'm only beginning to learn how to be a good parent and provider like my parents were and are but right now its going well, you do get used to the reduced ammount of sleep, eventually.