A blog on thriving, when you only really planned to be one of those three things.
It’s half term; the cubs are with me.
“Daddy; your room is bigger than mine”
Well I’m here all the time; you two are only here sometimes.
“Your bed is quite big though, but I think mummy gets annoyed with you when you snore in her face”
Yes well luckily mummy doesn’t have to put up with that anymore.
Not sure why that annoyed me so much….
BSD
Keep going.
Winston Churchill
This time last week
Last week I let you in on the peripheries of some tough times I was facing. I purposely didn’t go into detail but there was enough vague information to give you the general idea. I was under it.
At times like that it’s hard to imagine a way out. It’s hard to imagine things will ever be good again and it’s hard to see positives.
Somehow, I managed to keep my head. I made a conscious effort not to succumb to any ‘all is lost‘ feelings but rather to believe that things will work out for the best. I quite literally, relaxed and essentially did nothing. It was the hardest thing I [haven’t] done in my life.
How
I did other things. I forced myself to feel positive; I prayed a little more, specifically for an answer, although at the time I didn’t know what that answer was. I asked the Universe for an answer again, not knowing what that answer was. I wonder how many of you I just lost…
I also sang this quite a bit..
There will be an answer;let it be.
This time this week
All has changed.
Actually, they had changed by the middle of the week. Out of the blue and with no prompting from me, I received an official letter that changed everything. It proved to be the catalyst that kicked off a chain of events that will change everything.
It also increased my positivity and my positive outlook, which again gained momentum to help me see more ways to tackle my issues.
It’s the best feeling in the world.
And the moral of the story
Whatever you’re going through, have faith that you will come out the other end.
It doesn’t have to take belief in God or the Universe; just belief in yourself to find a way through your struggles.
Your answer will come.
Ps. Life will always throw poo at you; you just have to either dodge it or catch it and throw it back!
As we speak i’m writing this on my older, back-up laptop, as my (old) primary laptop is having an identity crisis, taking all my passwords and other stuff with it. I’ve asked the Universe for a new one..
BSD
Apology
If you know what a paradigm is; it’s a great word and I like using it. It’s appropriate today. This weekend has been pretty tough and I’m chalking it down to a co-parenting fail.
We seem to be in a push/pull groundhog day where I feel that I’m losing out. Official decisions, external influences etc. have log jammed into a head fug that gives the feeling of skiing uphill.
Settled situations appear on a horizon that can’t be reached but yet, I’m still optimistic.
I still, have so much to be grateful for:
Reality
I don’t care who you are; we are all fighting an unseen battle. There are so many cliches out there such as ‘Walk a mile…’ ‘The night is darkest before the dawn…’ ‘Every winter has it’s spring..’ (I actually quite like winter) and they all ring true.
Change your mind and change your situation. Another cliche and I recognise that this doesn’t work if you are clinically depressed; that’s a special situation that can benefit from professional intervention but for anyone else, shift your paradigm.
How
Whatever you do and whatever you’re going through: DO NOT GIVE UP.
“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.” – Bruce Lee
BSD
At the moment; nothing makes sense.
This doesn’t make sense. Things are tough and I’m conscious of this turning into a diary entry.
I’m a focused individual. Work; Kung-Fu, focused. Relationships? not so. I’m not sure why either.
I’m also a man of science. A lot of what I need to operate safely relies on my understanding of the scientific method and it’s application, but recently, I’ve been counting magpies.
You’re familiar with the rhyme I take it?
As with most luck/superstitions, I’m interested in it when it fits my narrative; a kind of umbrella for my mood.
From my bedroom window, sitting up first thing in the morning I can see my neighbour’s roof. For a suburban area the bird count is quite high, including varieties of species.
There is also a nest of magpies in the locality as their grating call will attest. In the morning, there can be any number around doing their destructive thing.
There are rules to magpie spotting and how this totally random, non-attributable event will affect the rest of your (my) day.
It has to be first thing in the morning; all subsequent magpie spottings after the initial sighting are either null and void, or serve as confluence to earlier magpie signals.
So here’s the thing….
I believe in making my own luck. I believe in both working smarter and harder, so why the hell is this my current state of mind?
I’m distracted. Things aren’t running smoothly in the co-parenting world.
It’s a blip.
BSD
The beginning of this week was a test
My ex and I had recently been discussing joint holidays due to the cub’s ages. Stories of child abductions etc. are enough to make any parent shiver so we decided (for the time being anyway) that we would plan a trip together.
Nothing major, just a camping trip in the New Forest. My daughter’s love of wildlife would be satiated and my son would be in a new environment, great for his development.
Mental set
What I didn’t want to do was ruin the experience by relentless arguing.
Whilst our relationship was deteriorating we’d successfully managed not to argue in front of the kids. I wasn’t about to foul this now whilst on a break so I went about adjusting my behavioural confirmation biases through a process of autosuggestion.
I believe in quite a few things. I was raised as a Christian, fell out with the premise but have recently fallen in again. I believe in the law of attraction, in that what you think about most you will manifest. I also believe that with practice, you can control your environment by altering your perception to whatever the heck is in front of you.
I’d be lying if I said it was easy but the application of counter scripts to the behaviours that you know you will witness work wonders when they do indeed arise. This made responding to them, or not, slightly less stressful. After all, what better way to put all those years together to good use than by counter-scripting every single element of their behaviour that caused frustration.
All for a good cause
She arrived. We loaded the already packed car and set off. I promptly went to sleep. Tactic one completed.
I woke up for a snack break then we set off again; I went to sleep again.
We arrived. It was a lovely site if a little water logged so we looked for a suitable pitch. Found one, in a clearing under light canopy; perfect.
Tent pitched; no dramas
Sleeping quarters sorted; no dramas.
Cubs running relatively free in a beautiful forest and staring in amazement at wild cows and horses.
Proper planning prevents poor performance
Success! 3 days passed and we remained civil throughout. More importantly the cubs loved it. My daughter, ever the adventurer discovered a total of 4 frogs, 2 newts, an extremely tame Robin and a Treecreeper. She missed the Tawny Owl, whose mid-night screech went right to my very D.N.A and had me wide eyed and staring for quite a while.
There was one fall from grace; a heated sentence or two regarding dirty clothes but this was quickly quashed. It was probably more to do with 3 nights on a hard forest floor whilst my camping mat remained safe and warm in the garage, than our normal head butting.
Advice
So that’s the key; prepare yourself mentally and you can get the outcome you require. I’m sure it was equally as testing for her as I’m no saint. It also helped that it was a short period of time or I’m sure we’d both have got more snappy.
Autosuggestion wins the day. And sleep.
BSD
I had it all planned out.
It was my weekend with my cubs. We’d been a bit housebound so to stop us all getting cabin fever I’d planned a walk across the nearby fields.
My daughter had her eye on this stretch of land for a long time. It was at the edge of a football pitch and was fantastically uncultivated. Meadow grass, wild flowers, daddy height thistles and all the fauna to match.
My daughter had reliably informed me that it was the perfect environment to track down the creature that had long eluded her; the grass snake.
My daughter has found a hero (other than me of course) in adventurer/explorer/naturalist and climber Steve Backshall. She’s seen everything he’s done and hangs on his every word and that’s fine. I love nature and the outdoors and so she does too. She had earmarked this bit of land as her hunting ground.
I primed them both for the big walk on Saturday promising a picnic and some pioneering off of the beaten track.
The big day arrived
I was up at the usual 06:00 and the cubs weren’t far behind.
The problem was, they’d woken up tired. I’ve seen them like it before so we lounged on daddy’s bed for a bit and had a cuddle. My daughter then asked if we could watch a movie; my son was nodding in agreement so we watched a movie.
I must admit that I had a little snooze during the movie and felt better for it. I was also determined that we would go for a walk in the countryside.
After much prodding and persuasion I got them both washed and dressed. We had breakfast then packed my rucksack with various snacks and our raincoats; it was glorious sunshine now but rain had been forecast.
I shouldered my trusty D5000, with the intention of getting some good shots for a blog entry under the ‘Activities’ heading; the premise being that I would illustrate how quality time doesn’t have to be expensive.
Off we went.
The sun blazed down but spirits were high. Both the cubs were freerange as we made our way across the top of the pitch and up a beaten path into the meadow. Then it began.
Two stinging nettles were enough to convince my son that the safest place for him was in my arms. Instead of picking him up, I showed him how to stand on the low ones and circumnavigate the taller ones. In his defence, I wouldn’t be comfortable in 6 foot stingers so I cut him some slack. We pressed on.
5 minutes were enough to convince my daughter that she would never find a grass snake so she disengaged stealth mode to see if she could convince some other elements of nature to reveal themselves through the medium of undergrowth kicking.
I don’t remember seeing Steve Backshall kicking nature into plain sight!!
She agreed, before catching a grasshopper in her hands.
My son had run off ahead up the hill and was now proudly holding and waving something green and plastic at me. It was a cigarette lighter. The grass was tinder dry.
One daddy sprint later and disaster averted. I gave him a chocolate bar from my bag and told him not to pick things up off of the ground. We pressed on (again)
I saw my first photo opportunity in a macro of a thistle. I could foreground it with my son running up the hill behind it, blurred into the background. Genius.
I lined up me shot and pressed for autofocus before manually adjusting. The D5000 responded with the idiot bleep and the message ‘No SD card inserted…’
My daughter held up the cigarette lighter and called out; ‘Dad; I’ve found this!’
We went home.
As we entered the park to reach the main road, she found two feathers. one appeared to be from a Jay and the other from a Buzzard. She turned to me:
Best walk in the countryside ever!
Here is a photograph of my camera. That’s all I have to offer.
BSD
After being a dad for over 7 years, I don’t consider myself to be new at this; but I’m perplexed.
- Yesterday was the last day of the school term.
- Today is the weekend.
- Yesterday neither of my cubs could get themselves out of bed.
- Today they’re on my bed by 06:00.
- Yesterday they were running on empty.
- Today they have enough energy to power a medium sized farm.
- Yesterday everything made them cry.
- Today; everything is making me smile 😉
I think today will be a movie day…
BSD
Time waits for no one.
Nothing I didn’t know and I’m sure you’re the same. Let me talk you through this one.
Sunday is the day that my ex and I plan childcare arrangements for the week ahead. We actually do this a month at a time, but Sunday is confirmation day. This week, it was also when we entered ‘Meet Year 3 teachers‘ for this afternoon at 16:30.
Head down in projects and deadlines I lifted it above the parapet at 16:10. No drama; the drive isn’t far and work is flexible enough for me to pick up the slack later.
Driving affords me the great opportunity to be alone with my thoughts
I’ve known where my priorities are ever since my first born came into the world. Parenthood had a profound affect on me, and where I had been a career driven promotion hungry chap before that day, my focus undoubtedly changed when I became a dad.
I got to the classroom one minute late (time means a lot to me) and squeezed my huge frame into those chairs that are perfect for little people. The two new teachers were at the front, presenting; the parents were scattered around the classroom on a combination of chairs and desks (If only I’d been a couple of minutes earlier..) and our respective children playing and reading quietly on the far side of the classroom.
Then, a no so subtle signal that I’d got my priorities right; my daughter looked up from what she was doing and spotted her daddy across the classroom. Without hesitation, she stood up, made her way through her soon to be teachers, through the parents (who were smiling, knowing where she was heading) made it over to my side and threw her arms around me. Decision qualified.
This is not the focal point of this entry. My point is this; it quite literally seems like yesterday that I walked her into school on her very first day. It all seemed so wrong! she was my baby! she’s way too young! she’s not used to these people or this place etc… She was still so small and vulnerable. I took a photograph of her in her new uniform and shiny shoes as she sat on a bench outside the classroom, waiting for her day to start.
That yesterday was actually 3 years ago.
Life does not hang about waiting for us to make the right decisions; we have to get up, get out and live. We make decisions without knowing if they’re life changing or not; those effects won’t show themselves until years later but, we have to do what we feel is right.
For me, the right decision is to put my cubs first. A missed deadline, an unanswered email or an embittered boss will pale into insignificance in 12 months but my daughter remembering that her daddy was at sports day, at the summer dance, at the nativity and at the teacher meet will last forever.
Choose wisely; you don’t get that time back.
BSD
Albeit a gorgeous one
A spent a short while ironing my toddler son’s clothes for nursery this morning.
He looked very smart.
Seconds after I finished getting him dressed, he proceeded to lie on his belly at the top of the stairs and slide down all 14 steps (feet first).
I had to admire his technique; it was flawless.
BSD
It’s business as usual by the time I pick up my daughter.
My son is asleep within 5 minutes of me driving off. The day is warm so I don’t blame him.
She is full of energy and big hugs which is always something I look forward to. I ask her about her day.
My friend hypnotised me with a piece of bread and I’ve been practicing my kicks. I can kick to a child’s head!
Ok. I don’t want to know how she knows that, but as I received no phone calls during the day, I’m good.
BSD
broke-single-dad 