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....