It Begins (how I think it helps me be a better Dad)

I have a confession to make. Since late October last year I have been sneaking, more-be-it, racing off on a Tuesday and Thursday night to the other love of my life. Yes, my wife knows all about my other love. I’ve been going to rugby training.

I’m not playing rugby anymore - I’m a coach. BWM tells me I’m too old to play anymore and watching the way these young men go about it I’m gradually beginning to suspect she’s right. However, the itch is still there and I guess being a coach is a way to help me scratch it.

Why have I entitled this post, “It Begins”? Simply because on Saturday the season proper starts. It’s the first round of Sydney’s Shute Shield and the for the next 18 to 21 Saturdays I’ll be racing off to be with my club West Harbour Pirates. I’m into my seventh season of coaching at the club, which co-indecently is as long as I’ve known BWM. She comes along to watch occasionally but still doesn’t understand what she calls ‘toss-ups’, ‘stacks-ons’, or when the referee (according to her) says ‘crouch, touch, pause, grab their bits!’ She may not understand it fully but I know that as I walk out the door she always says, “Good luck, have fun.”

This year my role at the club is Coaching Coordinator, which means I’m not responsible for one team as a coach. I set the week’s training programs in consultation with the coaches, help them at training and at games and I get to watch lots of rugby. This is great as it means some nights I can’t make training as I’m looking after H, so it works out well.

Do you think this has made me less nervous leading into the first round? No chance! Instead of worrying about one team, I’m worrying about four. Will every thing be ok on Saturday? Will players be on time? Will we follow the tactics we have planned and will we have to change things as the match goes on because they’re not working? There are so many questions and so much to get anxious about. At least as a player you run yourself around the field into exhaustion. When you’re a coach you chew your nails to the quick or find other ways to not yell out any frustrations you may have.

Yet how does spending a day in a testosterone charged environment, which I admit I sometimes get quite stressed about, help me be a better dad? Last year I coached a side which didn’t perform as well as I would have hoped. I got very frustrated and at times quite angry (one coach pointed out to me I was better off kicking one of the medical bags rather than a chair because they hurt your foot less). However, all those things would melt away when I got home to see H. I learnt that I could feel angry and frustrated but in the end it wasn’t the be all and end all of my week. Winning (and losing) are important but so are many other things in this world. By having this time at rugby I am able to enjoy time with adults and be myself. For a few hours I forget about being a full time dad and I get to be a rugby coach, which is something I love being able to do. It brings a great balance to my week.

I know that on Saturday I’ll get anxious, nervous, frustrated, angry and a gamut of other emotions – we might win, we might lose. Yet at the end of the day I’ll have seen a group of young men do the best job they can on the field and hopefully I’ve helped them to do that in some way. I’ll head home, probably talk to my dad (who will be watching rugby somewhere) on the phone to debrief, and arrive to be greeted by a smile from my son who knows nothing of what I’ve been through all day. He just knows that Dad’s home and he’s happy ready for bed so he can grow big and strong for us to tackle another week together.

Yoda's quote, unquoted it is.

“You must unlearn what you have learnt.”

                                                            Yoda

It’s taken me a while but I needed at some point in my Slightly Mad Dad to quote Star Wars and especially Yoda. It is my favourite Yoda quote and one I have regularly used when starting the year as a teacher with a new class.

However, Yoda is only my starting point because it’s H who has given me a new version of this quote:

“You must relearn what you have unlearnt.”

                                                H

Is it paraphrasing, bastardising or just giving the tails to Yoda’s heads? I don’t know the answer to that one but I definitely know that H has made me relearn many things already this year.

What can a one year old teach an adult? Not much about anything of worldly value you would think and that’s probably true. However, he’s taught me to relearn finding great joy in the simplest of things. Things I had unlearned as being interesting or amazing.

I watch H when a plane flies over our house and he gets so excited. It’s just a plane but how many questions are there about planes that you could ask? How does it fly? Who thought of the idea of flying? These are some quick questions that pop into my head because I think maybe in all his excitement that’s what he’s thinking. 

Each morning I make myself a piccolo late at home. It’s a morning routine but one which H finds fascinating. As soon as he hears me near the coffee machine he is climbing my leg wanting to watch. I tamp the beans and he “Ooooohhhhhhhs,” and I ask where did these come from, what has happened to them to get here, what’s their story? Yet when I froth the milk the “Oooooohhhhhhh,” becomes a roared “AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH,” and the arms pump in excitement. It makes me think of the science of heat being applied to the milk and what’s happening as the molecules are heated. A simple everyday task sparks so much curiosity and so many questions.

These are such humble things and they’re not the only ones that get him excited. Seeing a fan spin, or a truck drive by or the joy on his face when he sees his Mum come from work. All these things are simple but they provide so much joy, curiosity and wonder to one so little. By following his lead and relearning to find so much joy, curiosity and wonder in the small things around me I’ve joined H in getting excited about the interesting and amazing in my everyday.

The H-Bomb's gone off in his chair!

This parenting thing is a messy business. I knew that when I was getting into it but there are times when I think, “It can’t be THIS messy!” That’s not your standard messy, this is more Jackson Pollock has popped around and done some decorating for you messy.

I am sure that during any performance review Bread Winning Mum (BWM) may have done wearing her HR hat would always have said that keeping things clean and tidy isn’t exactly my specialty. In fact I think I would always be ticking the “Needs Improvement” box myself on any self-evaluation. This one goes back to well before I was married so we won’t even ask my own Mum for her evaluation of my cleaning skills.

However, when confronted with a one year old and his Jackson Pollock inspired mess I think I’m getting a little bit better. Where in the past the few remaining crumbs of the previous meal were left proudly encrusted to the high chair they are now removed with vigorous intent almost before they land. Well – that’s what I say to myself anyway although I’m perhaps not yet that OCD in my cleaning.

Now that he’s turned one H is a big fan of feeding himself. He loves picking food up and stuffing it in his mouth although he does attempt to ingest some food groups through his ear, some through the bend behind his knee and, quite remarkably I think, some get inside his clothes and are ingested through the belly button. Needless to say it’s as messy as my last sentence was long. All this requires cleaning up fairly quickly during eating time or very quickly after. Otherwise it does look like the H-Bomb has gone off in the chair.

Making all this easier is the fabulous Splat Mat we were given by friends. When we received it I wasn’t sure what it was exactly and I phoned up to say thanks and (tactfully and surreptitiously) asked what this thing was because we weren’t quite sure. After it was explained I thought it wasn’t a bad idea. Now I’d say it should be the present of choice that you give to anyone who is about to become a parent for the first time!

Of course sometimes the H-Bomb makes a mess without food. This could be because I’ve failed in my nappy putting on - but you very quickly learn to check and fix the error of your ways. Or even worse you could be on the massage table being manipulated by an osteopath and the H-Bomb regurgitates his morning tea over everyone and everything from his chair. Let’s just say that one didn’t necessarily crack me up.

After five weeks I think when it comes to the cleaning up I might almost venture that I could give myself a better mark on my next performance review. It’s probably not at “Exceeds” just yet but I think I know enough about the mess the H-Bomb makes to know that “Needs Improvement” just doesn’t cut it when cleaning up after an aspiring artist in Jackson Pollock style.

Cracking the Mummy Code

I found Neil Keene’s article in Kidspot in the Daily Telegraph from last weekend most interesting. In the article entitled “The Father of all dilemmas” he looked at some of the problems stay at home dads face in developing their support structures.

Much of the article rang true for me as there have been times I have found it difficult to accepted into other groups of Mums who are at various activities I attend with my son. On the flip side of this I am also very lucky in that I know a couple of other dads who are at different stages of being stay at home dads and I also get to go to footy training a couple of nights a week and games on Saturdays.

These allow me the opportunity to experience plenty of what you could refer to as my ‘man’ time.

So, yes; I am very lucky in being able to have this ‘man’ time. However, that’s actually not what I really want when I’m out with other kids and their parents (in this case most likely Mums). I want some help! I want to talk about things such as what their one year old eats, how do you stop them ripping books off the shelf or do you leave the toilet door open or not? “Suck it up,” I hear you say, “Talk to Bread Winning Mum when she gets home.”  Well I do. I even read the internet and look at what people say. However, I’ve learnt that getting a breadth of opinions from different people by talking to them is the best way to glean information.

Thanks to Neil’s article (provided for me by my very helpful Father-in-law) I have started to make some changes this week. In my first four weeks I have sat back a bit and let things happen. This week I have made more efforts to engage the mothers I have encountered at the play centre, at story time, at swimming lessons. In fact anywhere I have been with my son. Some stand off a bit and don’t want to chat while others are really great. I had one mum at the play centre this morning tell me all about how her husband took time off when their first son was born and she gave me some great advice.

I’m going to continue to ask questions of all the Mums I meet out there. I’ll try not to be a pest but it’s important to share and help the dads out too. In return I might even share my footy tips with you!