And introducing......Mrs T

Hi. Mrs T here, temporarily contributing to the blog. So, traveling with AD requires an extra set of hands. I know that a lot of people feel this way when they travel, that they would benefit from assistance. So, I’m not saying we’re unique, but this is AD’s blog anyway. The extra set of hands that we have for AD in airports—i.e. the handicapped assistance person—is good for helping AD out, but doesn’t take the place of a fully able-bodied additional person. The assistant’s main task is to push AD and take care of AD’s carry-on luggage, etc. This leaves me to essentially take care of the baby, my own things, and AD’s overflow stuff that the assistant can’t manage. There are only so many things that can be fit into the bottom of a stroller, and a rolling suitcase is not one of them. Then, when the stroller is checked, that leaves me to wear the baby on the front, my backpack on my back, my jacket around my waist, the baby’s bag over one shoulder, and something of AD’s (whether coat, one stick, or bag) on my other shoulder. It is crucial to have the boarding passes and passports put into a front pocket of one of the bags on my shoulder, otherwise it’s even more of a mess. So, to wrap up my ramble—it’s all well and good that AD gets an assistant for himself, but what about me? Not only do I not get an assistant, but AD isn’t able to be as helpful to me because he’s being pushed through the airport. I do appreciate going to the front of the lines, though. It would take forever and a day if we didn’t get to cut the line.   

(In the name of editorial full disclosure, you should know, that I was given a telling off for my use of dramatic/poetic/ license in the previous post- the pilot who helped Mrs T with SJ at security, was neither a dashing specimen nor overly willing to help- his mate next in line encouraged him. I stand corrected - AD)

Back Staging part 2

As for security, I've long since made my peace with the fumbling to get everything out my pockets and the groping. patting, tugging, swabbing and back of the hand-pressing that is entailed in having a one-on-one inspection (which is what they call a 'male assist') - such is life when walking unaided and shoeless through the metal detector is not a realistic option.

This left Mrs T to get herself and an  essentially comatose 3 month old through security. The plus side...you know that star-jump, chest crunch type thingy they now get you to do through the detector...well they didnt make her have to do this thankfully.  Nor even did she have to go through the metal detector while throwing SJ over the top of the machine having to catch him as she exited. In Mrs T's case, she was permitted to do an approximation of the star-jumpy chest-crunchy pose while still holding SJ- phew! The real down side came before all of this metal related palava. Mrs T, not only had to schlep all the luggage and things onto the conveyor, but also the stroller, since we were checking it at the cabin door. What do you do with a baby, when you need to fold the stroller and put the car seat through the scanner? in such In a sudden Hollywood-esque moment of fate, Mrs T, found herself next in line behind a rather dashing, eager to assist, airline pilot who was only too willing to 'hold the baby' whilst the stroller was folded, placed on the conveyor, and of course unfolded on the other side. Thank-goodness for hunky, helpful airline employees- oh, did I mention his wife was expecting twins?!

The feeling of '3rd wheel-ness' was not lessened once we got to the gate where SJ decided he was hungry, leaving me with nothing much to do, other than look mildly gormless being left to sit in the wheelchair which our attendant kindly left us. 

She arrived again to push me down the jetty to the plane. When we left the stroller st the airport cabin door, SJ was asleep. We settled as quickly as we could given all our baby related paraphernalia (not least that both of us -according to our pre-arranged plan, were wearing baby carriers) into our bulkhead seats and the flight attendant brought the bassinet we had booked and the seat-belt extension so that SJ could be fastened into Mrs T's seat belt.

Now, as I write this with hindsight, I'm left wondering why didn't I ask for a second extension so that we had the option for SJ to also be strapped to me, freeing up Mrs T, for eating, moving around, movie watching etc? The answer is, of course, that I could have done, but that actually the pressure in those (public) situations where you are doing everything to prevent your child from causing a scene is to get everything done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Handing off SJ to me would have been a big faf, trying to attach him to me an even bigger one, essentially wasting our precious time and making him more prone to screaming.

With that, SJ happily slept and eat his way through the flight. Screaming only for the 3 minutes I was holding him so that Mrs T could take a well earned wee. All the rest of the time he was snugly attached to my better half.

There was one last moment baby related high-jinx just as we were about to get carried away with how smoothly it all had gone. That was the incredibly public wee  that our darling son did, as we changed his nappy while waiting to get off the plane at Heathrow. A bigger audience of already disgruntled people he couldn't have wished for!

We were whisked through passports and baggage in much the same way as we had check in and security at the other end. To arrive in my parents words (as they met us at arrivals) 'looking all put together'.

Appearances, don't tell the whole story.

Back Staging Part 1

Even Adaptive Grandpa wrote to me after the previous post to tell me how cool, calm and collected the three of us seemed when my parents were there to meet us off the flight to London.

It's true that our traveling went far more smoothly than we had any right to imagine. Frankly that's much less interesting (and I hope worthwhile) than hearing the story behind the story...

It all begins with our wearable baby carrier. Back in March we had bought bought a Baby-Bjorn as our wearable carrier of choice. To say 'our' is honestly more than a little misleading, You see, as with the vast majority of the baby equipment we have chosen ourselves the sole barometer of that choice is my ability to use the contraption/device/thingymabob/ successfully. Rigorous in-store practicing with the 'in-house' baby doll, seemed to show that I would be able to carry the  real baby in it successfully when the time came. With that, the choice was made, the 'Bjorn' became 'our' wearable baby carrier. 

 Now, this approach does have a distinct advantage in as much as it makes the process of baby shopping much less overwhelming because in every significant sphere it cuts down our choices. We our fortunate that every purchasing selection does not feature the agonizing choice between  150 versions of the same thing that seem distinguishable one from the next by little more than 'the cute dog design'  or the 'one with the spaceships'. Who knew you needed half this stuff? Truth is, in reality, there are a few bits of kit that have proven essential and many others that we now consider essentially superfluous. (I'm sure this must be in common with the experience of many other new parents be they adaptive or able-bodied).

In this case, our approach proved flawed as within a few weeks it became clear that the Baby Bjorn, while still comfortable for SJ and working well for me, was putting too much pressure on Mrs T's back. After some testing of her own, Mrs T selected the Beco Gemini (we'll say nothing of the aspirational, pretentious name) as her carrier of choice and so, on the very day of our flight to London we became one of those 'two-carrier' families.

We specifically wanted to have both carriers for the flight so that we could both take turns with parenting duties in the airport and on the plane while the other could eat, watch a film, sleep etc. Plus, of course Mrs T wouldn't have to carry all the luggage and the baby too. From my perspective this was great as I, as ever, was concerned that the burden of parenting was likely to fall on Mrs T during the journey and here was a way to even the load. This is part of the reason that the inside story of the flight was actually one of frustration for me.

As I said in the previous post, we were all packed and ready when the cab came to take us to Logan- thanks largely to my being sent to do trip-related errands (including buying Mrs T's Gemini carrier) while Mrs T handled the packing and SJ. Things started to go down hill once we arrived at the airport.

Clearly, its not all bad. I imagine that tonnes of able-bodied folks are quietly jealous of wheelchair users at airports like myself who get whisked effortlessly through all the various queues. That said no ones ever fest this up to me, just a hunch. In fact, when Mrs T and I first traveled abroad when we were engaged she would constantly double check whether she should be coming with me as we merrily skipped the queues.

That said, as soon as we arrived at the airport and the wheelchair attendant met me the tone was set. I was put in the (naughty) corner where people requiring assistance are made to wait for a pusher. Fortunately, the baby was sleepy. Mrs T went to check in and soon returned to take all the luggage and get the stroller tagged for aircraft side check-in. I was left twiddling my thumbs, thankful that the baby was too busy being tired to cause any trouble.

When the wheelchair pusher arrived off we went, me with the hand luggage on my lap. The assistant, pushing me and Mrs T with the baby and all the other hand luggage.

No problem you might say, indeed there was no problem until, that is we got to the security check.

And for that come back for part 2... (which is a proof read away from being published so should be ready by some point tomorrow (Monday), see you then.

A Tale of Two Plane Rides (and the holiday in between them) - Part 1 - Inbound

On the off-chance that you've been feeling somehow bereft without a regular dose of Adaptive Daddy, I'm glad to let you know that we are back.

Mrs T, SJ and I have recently returned from a holiday based mainly at Adaptive Grandpa and Adaptive Grandma's house in Deepest Darkest outskirts of London.

We haven't done much travelling of any kind since the baby was born. Every new, un-mastered task seems overwhelming, the greater the amount of logistics involved,  the more mind-mindbogglingly insurmountable it can seem. And so it was with the prospect of our first (international) air travel as a trio.

As a couple we are not prone to irrational panicking. In general my calm (if occasionally stern) rationalism is generally a useful foil for Mrs T's intermittent moments of snappy unreasonableness. Add to this the fact that I'm married to a woman who makes the German nation seem grossly blotted and inefficient and you'd be forgiven for thinking that the prospect of getting the 3 of us in a plane and to the UK all present, correct and accounted for would be a doddle.

Well, it would be a doddle, except you forget to consider two things. First, my lingering bachelor tendencies and, second the accumulative effect of parenting and being a breast-feeding Mum on Mrs T.

To the bachelor tendencies first. Gone are the days of my throwing my luggage haphazardly in an unnecessarily large check-in  bag and looking forward to the 'Giant Airport Combo', bought at the Hudson News closest to the gate -that's a  massive bag of cheezits washed down with Diet Coke. It wasn't just with vacuum packing and home-made sandwiches  for the journey that Mrs T rocked my world and won my undying affection, but these definitely helped.

The fact that I'm still tempted by these old habits and that the perennial exhaustion of parenting and nursing means I can no longer rely on Mrs T to do the logistics for both of us, definitely made fuflilling our international travel commitments seem even more daunting.

In the end, the day of our trip to London passed without major incident and all three of us were packed and  ready when the taxi arrived. Once at the airport, with the advantage of wheelchair assistance for me we were waiting by the gate in no time. This all seemed too easy- SJ had either been asleep or too drowsy to care what was going on around him.

But there was still the flight to come....

As for the flight itself....we needn't have worried! When SJ wasn't eating, he was sleeping. Indeed the only time he threw a bit of a tantrum is while I held him so Mrs T could use the loo - typical! Of course we're saying nothing of our darling son weeing all over the plane in front of all of the bemused passengers as they waited to deplane after landing. (Why did we decide to change his nappy on the table they have for the baisonette, rather than in the privacy of the arrival hall toilets again?)

Sound too good to be true? Join us in part two for a reality check...

Public Service Announcement

I'm  sure there is a better and more efficient way to alert you all to this, but thanks to those of you that pointed out that the videos were inaccessible. I had accidentally uploaded them as private - I've changed the settings for both to public. Enjoy!

Also I'm currently in the process of uploading the 3rd video (of the 'special' nappy set up) . According to Youtube it should be done in 24 minutes time. Check back then for a fully complete and functioning blog (with public videos and everything)! 

Och Aye the Poo! (updated with public and additional videos)

One glimpse at the title of this post and you'd be forgiven for thinking that perhaps 'Och Aye the Poo' is my apt and succinct description of Scotland's display in last week's football against England.

Alas, we'll save my cutting analysis of international sporting events for another time and place. What we are, in fact, going to talk about today is...nappies (no apologies for lack of translation). Here's the connection...

Och aye the Poo is an homage to our wonderful cloth nappies - known as TotsBots - www.totsbots.com/ . This slogan came to me early one morning late in the pregnancy when I turned over towards Mrs T and woke her with the gentle words 'I just thought of what TotsBots's strap line  needs to be... 'Och aye the poo!' And so it was, in our home at least. Y'see TotsBots is not just a Scottish company, but a company that revels in their national identity.  Lest you think, though, that our choice of these bulky, colourful, cloth creations  to house the delicate posterior of our son, smacks of some sort of warped jingoism on my part, here's how Totsbots came into our lives.

I doubt you'll be surprised to hear that, as with virtually all  parenting/ child care item choices we make, many hours of research went into our choice of nappy. The barometer for a successfully nappy is my ability to use it. Just to be clear, they don't make an adult size nappy and thank the good Lord, neither I, nor Mrs T are in need of such unbecoming contraptions at this stage of our lives,  so when I say 'use the nappy' I really mean my ability to get it off and on SJ easily and without incident.

We are very fortunate to live just minutes away from The Diaper Lab - www.diaperlab.com/ an institution so devoted to the promotion of the use of cloth nappies that they have regular classes and many creative incentives designed to help cloth nappies become a realistic and affordable child care option. So committed were they in fact that they actually opened specially for me, Mrs T and our lovely OT Anna from UCP MetroBoston (of which more in a coming post - www.ucpboston.org/) one Sunday back in I think April to help us navigate this strange new world of nappies.

The owner gave us our undivided attention for over an hour as I took nappies of different brands and designs on and off a charming, but not exactly life-like, Cabbage Patch Doll as we tried to determine which was the easiest to work with. The owner's patience, thoughtful comments and knowledge of her stock were amazing. Although it wasn't until several weeks later that we finally decided to go with the Totsbots, it seemed clear that on balance they had been the easiest for me to work with.

Now, it is true that Mrs T and I are glad of our choice of cloth on an environmental level. Also, due to the design and fore-thought that Totsbots have put into their cleaning regime, having to clean nappies regularly  as opposed to throw them out has not proven to be a big deal. However, the choice was not made on environmental grounds, it was a pragmatic one based on usability.

So we've been using totsbots for several weeks so far, why are they good to use and how has it been to actually use them in the field? Well that's a great question. Here's the deal....

For the first week or so we had to use disposable nappies- the thick meconium poo that babies get in the first few days of life is too much for our cloth friends- you're glad you asked aern't you? The disposables were difficult for me to use (as anticipated) because the velcro tabs on the side are small and the area you have to aim at to attach to is also just small area of velcro.  See below:

Compare that with the much larger/wider  tab of a Totsbots nappy and you begin to understand the advantage:

Add to that the wide band of velcro to secure the tab onto that extends virtually the entire length of the front of the nappy and there you have it - one snug-fittin', put-on-able poo-catching devise.

Below, incase any of that was less than clear, are two videos. The first sounds like me auditioning for a mother and baby special of Blue Peter, explaining the advantages of the totsbots nappy and how to set it up ready for use. The second is of me actually changing a real life nappy for SJ - don't worry no poo appears in the video!

A disclaimer from a father feeling slightly guilty: Since SJ appears naked in one of these videos without his prior consent, I'm adding this particularly gorgeous picture below, hoping that it slightly makes up for it. Also, just because are son is ridiculously cute - Enjoy!

Preparing the nappy for use:

 http://youtu.be/NUrki6uk9mk

The 'Special Way' to set up the nappy:

http://youtu.be/BpCLI6UNRDc

Changing SJ's nappy:

 http://youtu.be/ZZKZKCVW6TQ

Thinking Ahead...(or the Cuddle Trap)

You'd be forgiven for thinking that things here at Adaptive Daddy Towers have been moving along at a sedate pace, since I haven't posted for over a week.

Not a bit of it!

Of course having a one month old, makes life anything but sedate. Both Mrs T and I are doing are best to focus on our lovely son and work around the chronic lack of sleep. So, ofcourse, its only the lack of blog action  that makes it look like not much is afoot in our lives.

Again, appearances can be deceptive....

As it happens, I've had the next three posts in mind for a while already. It had been my intention to have the first of the 3 be about our lovely Scottish Nappies! I've been busy making films and taking pictures for this topic, and you'd be reading about them now if I hadn't been roundly defeated by the massed ranks of Apple and their deceptively simply (looking) i-Give up. Once the videos and pics have been successfully linked to the blog, you'll have all that to look forward to....

So I called this post Thinking Ahead, although thinking ahead isn't an arbitrary title, nor simply a reference to the fact that I (shock, horror!) had actually thought ahead about posts to come, but also refers to key issues for Adaptive Daddy.

You could call it 'Thinking Ahead', but perhaps the issue is more accurately summed-up in the phrase, thinking my way out of any given situation'. The best example of this is 'The Cuddle Trap'.

'The Cuddle Trap' is that most sinister and under-hand of baby ploys, it works like this: I'm sure I'm not alone amongst the (new) fathers of the world in enjoying the bonding moment of cuteness that is  taking your child in your arms and essentially just reveling  in their cuteness as you think to yourself 'We made that!'...and 'He's cute, like, objectively, good-looking'. Now these moments are unmistakably precious and amazing. It's just, did you think about how they would end? Are you, caught for 20 mins, 30 mins an hour in 'The Cuddle Trap? It's all well and good starting the cuddle, but did I think about how I would successfully end it? The answer most times out of 10 is a resounding 'No'!

What does all this boil down to, well...put bluntly, it  makes very little difference if I can successfully lift the baby, hold him, place him in the stroller, push him in the stroller, carry him in the car-seat, change his nappy etc, if I haven't thought about the transition from one scenario to the next. Clearly you can't always plan what or where you (or the baby & you) will need to  go or do next, but often times it helps...

Let's go back to our 'Cuddle Trap' example. Say I'm holding the baby in my arms while I'm sitting on the sofa. I can't get up from the sofa whilst holding the baby safely, its just not a physical possibility. That means that without Mrs T to help. I can't move the baby to where he needs to go next, unless I've thought my way out of this situation in advance. In this case, I have to remember before I sit down on the couch with SJ in my arms to bring the inside stroller (with car seat attached) to where I can reach it so that when SJ needs to go for a nappy change, its time to nurse, needs to be moved around to calm him down or whatever the case may be, I'm now all set up to not only enjoy the baby in the here and now (on the sofa) but am also able to place him in the stroller and move him to wherever he's off to next.

Of course, that's one example of a phenomenon, an example that has happened often enough for me to know now what has to happen to resolve it. This doesn't change the fact that the need to plan ahead (an escape route from any given scenario if you will) is one of the constant challenges of being Adaptive Daddy.

Carrying Walking Sticks and Baby Car Seat at The Same Time: The Problem and a Solution

Our son (SJ) is three weeks old today.

In that time, I would say that, on balance, I've been both relieved and excited to find that I have indeed been able to successfully perform many of the baby related that I hoped I would.

As I think  I mentioned one of the tasks that I have been able to do is to carry the baby in the car-seat both up and down the stairs of our apartment building.

Success!...or so it sounds....

Problem is that in all previous trips up and down the stairs I've used one hand to carry the car-seat (with SJ in) and the other to hold the banister. That leaves precisely no hands for holding my walking sticks- Mrs T has had to carry these for me as I ascend or descend.

So how can the stairs be tackled when its just me and SJ? Can I carry the car sear, my walking sticks and hold the banister in some way?

In step our wonderful occupational therapist from United Cerebral Palsy of  Boston (we'll call her A) with the following solution: A carrying sling. This sling allows me to carry my walking sticks over my shoulder and across my back in much the same way as an archer might carry arrows. Genius! Here's is how the system works:

1. A 'twisty-tie' (the kind of thing you use to keep a started loaf of bread, closed and fresh) is tied around the diameter of the walking stick about 1 inch below the handle.
2. A second 'twistie tie' is twisted around the stick about 4.5 inches from its bottom.
3. Both twisty ties ties are held in place using duct tape.
4. The carrying strap from our camera is then attached. The clasp at each end of the strap is  placed around the 'twisty-tie' to keep it in position.
5. Immediately next to both ends of the strap are attached two pieces of Velcro - one at either end. Each of these pieces of Velcro is about 8 inches long and a thumb width wide.
6. The Velcro is also held in place by the same pieces of duct tape that are used to secure the twisty-ties.
7. The Velcro at each end of the walking stick is then wrapped around the second walking stick and stuck in place so that both sticks are held in place and are carried together.
8. The sling is placed over the head so that the sticks are carried across my back.

Sound complicated? Check out these pictures and videos... The observant amongst you will notice that many of these pictures are of the earlier version where the sticks were held together by rubber band rather than Velcro, both systems work well, the Velcro is simply more secure and durable. Even if my instructions above are not so clear to follow I hope the photos will at least give you the idea.

Carrying car seat up and down stairs, two walking sticks and holding the banister - done!

Video 1: http://youtu.be/Gy-r1t4cRks

Video 2:     http://youtu.be/AQRgimcDyq8

Some pictures:

Initial reflections on becoming a father - part II

I dont know how long I'll be able to play the 'new father card' and it is certainly my intention to update the blog more often than I have managed up till know, so please excuse the fact that when I wrote the last post on Saturday night I also wrote that I would write again the following day..as I say, definitely playing the 'new dad get out card' as my excuse here....


Today is day 15 of our son's (external - as opposed to in utero) life. I suppose I ought not to be surprised at the pace of change. I mean, here I am finally sitting down to continue my reflections on becoming a father and I cant help but be struck by the fact that what I would have written on Saturday is a good degree different to what I am a bout to commit to cyberspace today. Saturday to Wednesday equates to over 1/3 of our sons life and my experience as a father, no doubt then, that things should have changed significantly in that time.

So far, becoming a father has been a very different experience than I had imagined it would be. During pregnancy I would say I experienced a slew of emotions. I will try, below, to identify, enumerate and explain  feelings that I remember being persistent, significant or recurring.

1. Concern - How were we going to support our child?

2. Excitement - At the prospect of becoming a father.

3. A sort of satisfying sense of bloody-mindedness - as I relished the prospect of overcoming (or attempting to overcome the challenges of becoming a father with a physical disability.

4. An almost all engulfing, paralyzing, (no pun intended), sense of responsibility to our child and to raising him in accordance with our values to be a decent, thoughtful human-being.

5 - Gratitude to Mrs T for her love and constant commitment to getting us the support we needed in order for me to be the kind of active father I want to be and both my son and her need me to be.

Laiden with all of these,  I expected parenthood to be an overwhelming experience that I would enter with an ongoing sense of trepidation. In reality, to my endless relief, I find myself to be (so far) enjoyably serene, quite a calm father. Overcome not by trepidation but, instead by intense feelings of love, connection, excitement and satisfaction. I imagined that, perhaps, I would spend some time grieving not having my time be my own anymore, having it be dictated by our son and his needs. Nothing could be further from the reality, he is a supreme cutie and I love spending time with him and fulfilling his needs- even things that seem gross.

 Talking of needs that are gross, I'm not about to claim  that changing my son's nappy is the pinnacle of my day. Yes - I can acknowledge that it is not a pleasant task and I'm sure I wouldn't revel in being presented with some other child's pooy backside to clean.  When it comes to my own son ,however  there' s is  no brief moment (as I thought there would be) where I hesitate, think 'This is nasty!' and then carry on anyway - you just do it, out of love and because it needs to get done.

I think my calmness has something to do with the fact that our son's life revolves around three things- pooing, eating and sleeping, this means that the tasks of fatherhood at this stage of his life are more-a-less clear cut,  predicable and repetitious. I know whats expected of me and I can get it done.

I have definitely gained much satisfaction from finding that in reality:

1) I can do many of the tasks I spent months training for.

 2) I have benefited massively from being allowed to have the space and time from Mrs T to get these tasks done (even when they take me longer than they do her) eg carrying the baby in the car seat up and down the stairs of our apartment  . (NB - I will return to analyze how this worked in upcoming post with pictures to boot!).

This feeling of achievement and a heightened sense of gratitude to Mrs T, while very welcome, were expected. What has been less expected is the realization that as long as I am doing as much as I can to help with the baby, just because I can perform a task successfully (like carry the car seat up the stairs), it doesn't mean that I have to be doing it every time. There are times when it makes sense for Mrs T to hold the baby or change him without me or carry him in the car seat. The key seems to be finding the right balance.

In short, being a father is great, an experience I am really enjoying! At this moment, our boy is asleep and dinner is on the table, if I've learnt anything so far in being a father its sleep and eat when you get the chance, so excuse whilst I make a stealthy exit to the dinner table....

Initial reflections on becoming a father (or 'yes it finally happened') Part 1

Recent I said this to Mrs T while washing dishes and or tiding something up around the house:

'Love, did you ever think about how anal I would be if I didn't have a disability?'

If your reading this and you don't know me, take it from me, the idea of yours truly being anal about tidiness or housework would seem hilariously far-fetched to most people that ever saw, for instance, the flat in which I lived before Mrs T came along and insisted upon de-clutter, fumigation and shock-horror even things to put on my erstwhile bare-white-bacheleor-walls, y'know, pictures and stuff- that kind of thing! Chores or getting mundane tasks have just never come naturally to me.

There are a number of elements that contribute to this situation. First, the combination of being an architypal Man and the impact of CP mean that I have next to no ability to be neat or organized. Add to this the inherent challenge of multitasking. Multitasking is difficult because it requires quick,orderly thinking in many directions at once and part of my disability includes the cognitive processing issue discussed in the previous post. By way of example, the following scenario is not uncommon - I very easily get sucked into whatever task is my number one priority on my to do list and cannot complete another, by definition for the time being less important task, until the one at hand is complete. In practice this means that I might procrastinate unsuccessful through the task I have set myself without being able to change to focus on a new task. Thus while I labor to get one thing done inefficiently other important tasks go by the wayside. Adding to frustration and decreasing productivity.

There is one final component that combines to produce the perfect-storm of non-anal virtual inability to get chores and little jobs around the house done to what most other people (ok, really when I say 'most other people I mean Mrs T) consider an acceptable standard. Let me be clear (he said defensively), it is not that I dont care about getting a job done, its just that my barometer for getting something done is exactly that. Very often living with my disability means showing the resourcefulness to figure out how to get the job done, whether it be it get my shoes on, get my cup of hot tea or coffee across the apartment unaided. As long as I can successfully complete what I need to do,  the aesthetics of the situation are irrelevant. 

Put simply in my life nothing has to be beautiful, it has to be functional.

Yet despite all this, lurking in a very repressed corner of my being - is someone who is overwhelmed by a desire to be clean, tidy and orderly- to be anal! This 'someone', may be a stranger even to those who know me well, but he does come to the fore occasionally.

All that went before is essentially a very lengthy preamble to which the headline is: Our son was born on the morning of July 1. Since then my orderly, efficient, productive alter-ego has come to the fore in a way that I have found both satisfying and surprising. 

My initial plan was to write all my reflections in one post. However, this now a much longer entry than intended, I have much more to mention and its already late, oh and also there's a nappy that needs changing urgently.

Basically, we'll speak again tomorrow....

The story so far...

The story so far...

 I've finally caved. Of course, if you're reading this hopefully not to rambling beginning, you're also doing your little bit in vindicating my wife's gentle badgering over the last several months. “Your perspective will be a useful resource to other parents and parents to be,” she's been saying to me. Time, of course, will no doubt tell.

“So,” I hear you collectively cry, “what is your story? What are the goals of this blog, how do you hope it will be useful?”

My Story
Lets start with first things first: me. I'm a British-born resident of Boston who was “imported” by his American wife in September 2012. We are expecting our first child, a boy, imminently (in late June 2013). My wife is incredibly lovely and has many fine qualities that I would be happy to share in another forum, but for the purposes of this blog (we'll call her Mrs. T. from here on) the relevant information is that she is able-bodied. I, on the other hand, am not.

Nearly 34 years ago, I surprised my parents by arriving into this world 2 months early, encouraged, according to family tradition, by the wafts of homemade chicken soup that I could no longer resist. Some amount of birth trauma ensued and the combination of being under-developed and deprived of oxygen for a period left me with Cerebral Palsy (CP).

In my case the CP is relatively mild.

In practice, that means that I walk with the aid of two walking sticks. Beyond that, my fine motor skills are not great, (for example my writing is messy rather than completely illegible and things like tying ties, doing up buttons and tying shoe laces are all challenging).  My spatial perception is also all out of whack (I have difficulty accurately judging the relative distance between objects), and my organizational skills are nothing to write home about- meaning, for instance, that time management is a perennial issue. I also have a processing issue which means that, in essence, it takes longer for messages to get from my brain to wherever they are going. This makes the performance of everyday tasks such as writing something like 25% more time consuming than average able-bodied folks. Whilst that gives you a sense of my challenges you'll also find at the bottom of this post various videos taken recently of me in preparation for Daddying, intended to give you a visual sense of my physical capabilities.

Goals
In terms of the goals of this blog . . . I intend to cover many of the issues I -- and we as a couple -- have faced and will continue to face in adaptive parenting.  I hope that our challenges, reflections, resources, and possible solutions will be of some use to you or people you know. I also intend for this blog to be an open forum where people feel welcomed and safe to share comments, insights, anecdotes, frustrations, ideas, solutions, and anything else that seems appropriate. I truly hope that together, we can create a resource that parents and parents to be will find helpful. My wife and I (clearly) have never done this before; we have no pretense of presuming that we have the answers. Perhaps the maxim of this blog ought to be knowledge shared is knowledge increased.

To keep things orderly, I intend to deal in my coming posts with one particular issue per post. Some upcoming topics will be as follows: carrying, transporting, and transitioning the baby between locations; diapering choices and diaper-changing; room set-up to maximize effectiveness and minimize transitions; and, bathing the baby. It goes without saying that more topics will be covered once the baby actually arrives and I move from the hypothetical and theoretical to the realities of adaptive parenting. Interspersed among all of this will be my own ramblings on reflection on life the universe and being a disabled father.

This whole process feels like an adventure. Here's to our adventure....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzl2Vm7uDis - Enjoy