August: The Paternity Leave

It was at the leaving of the Americans (when Oshin was four days old) that my two weeks of paternity leave began. This meant that shortly after Oshin's second week, I headed back to work.

Before getting stuck into the reflection on these important two weeks, here is something of beautiful Oshin - his first bath. This is on Monday, 13th, when Oshin is nine days old:

Happily we filmed the moment he went in the water as, you will see, he loved it and became immediately calm upon getting in it - a lovely thing to see:

And, in case you were wandering if he remained so calm, here he is again later:

Those who know about new born babies will therefore realise that the first bath must have followed the coming off of the umbilical cord. Indeed, that came off finally the day before and was as minging and crusty as everyone elses before!

Paternity Leave is there to smooth the transition into a new way of life, with the addition to the family. It was certainly the case with these two weeks in August, but it has been much easier than it was with the previous two.
Oshin has slipped into our lives very easily. Or, rather, we have slipped him into our lives much more easily than we did Finn, and Orry too. A baby is a known thing to us, so we have just switched into that gear very easily, and re-acclimatised ourselves to this way of life which we recognise and know already.
It is perhaps because of this that these two weeks have felt like something of a holiday for me. Of course, one with a baby, but a holiday all the same - something natural, almost normal (though novel), and something enjoyable and pleasant. This has certainly been helped by my main task being entertaining or distracting Finn and Orry as Cori tended to Oshin. In this it has indeed been much like my holidays from work.
But, away from work for so long, and with our List to drive us forward, I emerge from my fortnight with the family feeling rather pleased with what we've done and how we've all come closer for it.

Some of the special things we've done includes:
... visiting friends in Ramsey and going on the tram, after which Orry felt sad to be away from his friend (actually Finn's friend, really, since she's his classmate!), so he had us draw a picture of her, which made him feel much better:

... repeating what we've done with Finn and Orry and getting his footprint. (We'd hoped this was going to be a magical whole-family experience, but in actual fact we caught Finn and Orry in boisterous and inattentive mood and so ended up banishing them from the room!):

... visiting the Wildlife Park with granny:

... creating some beautiful art between us all, utilising everyone's specialist skills - Orry's chopping of tiny pieces of paper, Finn's drawing and skilled chopping of fish, Orry's drawing of people, Finn's sticking/glueing etc. (Orry drew the sun's face - he's not the devil! Orry also drew the pink caterpillar at the side, with people riding on it, apparently disappointed that the donkey place was closed as they'd really wanted to be riding a donkey, not a caterpillar... Orry is odd):

... we watched a documentary (from Planet Earth, about life in the sea, when Finn amazed us by knowing a lot about it already - whether from Octonauts or otherwise, it's getting into him somehow, including recognising and naming immediately the Vampire Squid and other rather obscure animals), and also a few 'Charles Guard sites' (who has done a lot of films about places of interest on the Isle of Man, such as the ones on World War II sites, which I visited in Douglas with just Finn and Granny on a guided bus tour by Charles himself, which we all enjoyed.

... we followed up on something we heard on Finn's much-loved kids' radio, Fun Kids, and downloaded their 30-minute Science podcast. In the first sitting, Finn listen to four episodes in a row, sat silently tinkering with his Lego as he did so (and we retreated to the farthest corners of the house to be away from the blaring volume of the thing which he apparently needed it to be at to be able to hear it!). It was perfectly pitched for Finn, and a lovely thing for him to be listening to (especially once Orry acclimatises himself to pottering around quietly also, happily stacking up his things on top of the radio):

... although the boys don't normally have much screen-time, we worked it down to very little at all. We felt very virtuous, until they started using their crafty creativity to create their own games of having tablets, drawn on cardboard! They even did this with blocks of wood and sticks when outside meeting friends too! - This is probably the image of the lost-ness of modern youth:

... I also got the boys out, away from Cori and Oshin a few times, including a lovely trip to Ooig ny Meill ('Ooig' is the Manx word for a cave) which was just around the first headland at Niarbyl, but which we didn't know of until a week ago. Finn explains why it's interesting in the video:

Of course, we also got to hang out and enjoy being around Oshin, even in rather unusual situations and/or ways:

And, with all that, it takes us up to the final day of my Paternity Leave. Although we didn't spend the whole day with Cori and Oshin, we had a lovely day, and I hope that the space alone to just the two of them will be appreciated by Cori in the fortnight or so ahead before school relieves her of all of them at once for the first time again!
Rather brilliantly (or rubbishly, depending on how you look at it!), the day began with our being got out of bed by the boys, so that we could watch their show which they had prepared. It was quite spectacular, as you will see:

After that I headed out with Finn and Orry to enjoy the drizzling outdoors with friends. Highlights included doughnuts at a tholtan, exploring the ruins, tales of the Phynnodderree & Moddey Dhoo in the locations where they happened, care-free abandon in playing in the river on the way home:

(Most of these pictures are not mine, which is why they are lovely, and so many selected for inclusion here!)

Then it was home to get into new clothes and relax, even with Cori's 3D glasses for her phone, which we caught her trying out as we returned:

Then Oshin was refusing to leave Cori alone (it had turned into a long afternoon for Cori towards the end!), I put him in the carrier and took him out for a walk for the first time. It was lovely, as ever, along the shore in Peel, leading me to walk further along the headland than I'd ever been before, discovering, to my amazement, a new beach:

And, after all that, it was off to work in the morning, and our New Normal was begun...