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...

The first week of Oshin

With the Americans gone, we were on our own as a (newly-enlarged) family for the first time. It struck us on the way home from the airport what a difference it would make, but then we got home and just got on with it:

The drive home from the airport was noteworthy because of the singing in Cori's car. As we'd had to go in two cars, Cori returned with just Oshin and Orry in her car. On the way, Oshin began to cry in his car seat. Cori then began to sing to him from in the front, singing an array of songs, all with Oshin's name in at Orry's request. But he continued to cry without change. Orry then suggested to Cori that she sing one of the songs "you learned at your choir". This she did, launching into With a Voice of Singing and You are the New Day. These being the songs which she was singing with the choir when Oshin was in the womb, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Oshin immediately stopped crying when Cori began and he looked around peacefully and attentively. He is obviously a fan of Cori's choir singing!
It was a lovely thing to see - Oshin so engaged with Cori, from well before birth - and something which Cori looks forward with sharing with the choir when she sees them next.
It's not a picture of Oshin listening to music, but it is him with eyes open and attentively looking around:

This is how he will be found for a few periods if time each day, happily in someone's arms (mine or Cori's) or, for a short while, lying on his back somewhere, with his head tipped round so that he can peacefully look at something or other. He won't be looking at anything in particular - not things as such at this stage - perhaps the window/light, or the colourful edge of the cot.
We have tried to read to him or to engage him in something like noisy toys or music, but he tends to cry for us to shut up soon after we start, so we make do with just holding him happily.

Our first family outing was out to Peel Castle / Fenella Beach, where Cori sat quietly and I explored caves and 'rock climbed' with the boys:

(The last picture, by the way, is of a buggane's head in the sand, says Finn).
Whilst at the beach, Cori took the opportunity to take some pictures of Oshin in the cot there, and he looked as lovely as you'd imagine:

The rock climbing was something from The List. This we made shortly after the Americans left, of all the things we should do to help around the house (since there were now a larger number of children, then they had to try to take on more of the household chores etc.), and also the fun things we wanted to do this summer (mainly during my paternity two weeks).
The boys have been very into the list, in theory, though the hope of them doing more house work off their own back has not materialised, sadly!
In the first flourish of the list & excitement about house work, there was some surprising 'putting away', especially from Orry:

The boys have been quite lovely about Oshin. In between their bouts of doting adoration of the baby (which are very much there, but don't last very long before they're distracted again), they have been doing really well at playing quietly by themselves and together in a make-believe situation. They play together very well in this way, in a way which is quite new to them, as they were previously playing in a way that left Orry slightly out of it, and so liable to spoil the game out of boredom. But now they can play happily like this for long stretches of time:

Within a few days, we had our first visitors to see Oshin.
With Finn, and probably with Orry, we very much wanted to form as a family, so visitors were nice, but only in a limited visit. And also, everything was difficult, and it was seemingly a two-person job to manage the baby with Finn. Looking back now, we have no idea how that was the case - were we rubbish at the parenting thing, or did we just have mad expectations of what 'busy' & 'difficult' were?!
However, with Oshin, he pretty much is slipping into the way we have things anyway. Things are coming back to us as we go along and we work him into the boys' & our lives without much difficulty. Things will have to change when it's just Cori, but for the moment it's surprisingly simple. And, since everything is already in place, visitors are very much welcome. It means Finn & Orry are entertained and we are left alone to sit down and drink tea for a while, which is all we're normally hoping for. - Great!
Finn and Orry also very much enjoyed visitors, especially ones who brought gifts like magazines for them, which they are enjoying here:

Our first BIG outing was to the Royal Agricultural Show, which was, inevitably, a lot of walking about for Cori:

The usual delights of freebies, competitions, rides and machinery was on offer:

There were also plenty of friends to bump into and chat with, and Finn's fearless confidence had him as the volunteer at one of the public performances, with the owl / bird man:

An unfortunate outcome of the day at the Show resulted from our not expecting that good weather, and the sunshine. We had brought Oshin's hat, but not his sun hat or anything like that. After a day at the fair, despite our best efforts, it was clear that the Out side of his face in the carrier was ruddy with the sun.
We are terrible parents:

Oshin survived though (we think), and lived to discover the joys of being close to a washing machine, as Finn and Orry did before him:

We were surprised in the first few days to find Oshin smiling in his sleep. Of course, he's not smiling when awake at all, but it is still a lovely thing to see on his face, even if he is asleep:

Whilst we're at it, here's another little video of Oshin sleeping, this time to the dubiously relaxing sounds of Radio 3. (We weren't being deliberately pompous with this choice - he had fallen asleep with Finn and Orry noising about in the room, so we wanted something to keep the same soundscape as we escaped to lunch... or, at least, the making of lunch, before he woke up!):

With Oshin around, we dug out the book we had made of Finn's First Year. This was a photobook we had made from the pictures in this blog (so, if you want to know what it looks like, just go back to 2011 here). It was a really nice thing for the boys to look at, to contextualise Oshin as not just a baby but as someone who will become a boy soon enough. However, to the same extent that Finn enjoyed seeing a book all about himself, Orry grew very sad/whingey that there wasn't a book about him. (It had always been our intention to make such a book, but, inevitably, we couldn't afford the time when there were two children, and Oshin certainly won't be seeing one any time soon!) To make Orry feel less neglected, we made our own one, drawing them from pictures in the blog. Orry was delighted with the outcome - his own book about himself was a delight:

Whilst we're on the subject of creative things, here is the lovely card that Orry created with Gramma & Auntie Jaimie, for that first time they came in to meet Oshin in the hospital. It's a lovely thing:

Also on the Oshin art theme, Orry sat down at his whiteboard and asked for suggestions of what to draw. I asked if he could draw Oshin and this is what he came up with - a lovely thing indeed:

Sticking with the older boys a moment longer, Finn (and Orry, to a lesser extent) has been really enjoying the books which Gramma brought from America. They are 'chapter books' about a Zombie Goldfish. They are not the sorts of things we'd have chosen, as they are close to being as annoying as you'd imagine, but Finn has really taken to it. Evidently, books perfect for 6-year-old boys should be as annoying as 6-year-old boys generally are!

Me & the boys also had a very enjoyable trip out with friends, leaving Cori and Oshin alone for the afternoon. We had a great time getting wet and lost in the woods up in the hills - the sort of thing we could never get the boys excited about on our own, but with other children involved it is the best afternoon's entertainment imaginable:

But, returning to Oshin to finish off with, since it's the sort of thing we'll forget about in the future, I filmed what the week-old Oshin crying sounds like:

And, in case you are traumatised by the sight of crying babies, here is a rather more contented film of him (with suitable baby simpering):

We were somewhat shocked on the first night at home that Oshin didn't need feeding to go to sleep, and that Cori was able to put him into his cot for his sleep. This was a thing which just never happened with either of the other two.
But it didn't last for long. It soon became apparent that that wasn't going to be a feasible way forward, as Oshin joined us in the bed soon after, and then I was turfed out to make room for him there a few days later. It wasn't long after that that the 3-sided cot was put up next to / adjoining the bed as we did for Finn and Orry. Why fight the inevitable?!
With Cori breastfeeding, it means that I cannot be much use in the night, but my taking him away for an hour or so in the morning is a joy for Cori. My getting him to myself for a while is also rather nice (especially in that first week when he tended to go back to sleep, allowing me to read with coffee!).
I don't have a picture of one of our morning hanging-outs (since Cori's not around to take the picture), so here's one of my holding him as Cori gets ready to take him for the night:

This seems like a good place to leave it, as there are other things for other posts, including lots of lovely pictures more, such as The Photoshoot...