Monday 3 February 2014

"Poop it out already!"

I know its been a long time since I posted, but, fear not, you haven't missed potty training. Just in case you read the title and thought, perhaps, these words encapsulated  the kind of tactics Mrs T and I are employing to encourage our son to either get over a nasty bought of constipation or shorten his contemplative moments upon the 'throne.' Relax, SJ's only 7 months old!

I'm great at procrastination. If you asked many of my closest and oldest friends they'd all tell you just how much I like a good faff. I'm sure, therefore, that there are many people out there who innocently assumed that I'd simply had a spectacularly elongated faff and thus not gotten around to blogging in the last couple of months.

The truth is I've been dreading this post, avoiding it for what is now stretching to months. I've mentioned this 'writers' block' to a few people. A common response has been 'you don't have to write it' - can't argue with that! Except I can. Indeed, the fact that I'm persisting with this post owes much to my dear friend (we'll call him AL -for those are his initials). He helped me clarify in my own mind why I feel its important that I write this post and deal honestly with the difficulties it will discuss. I write this blog, in large part, because I hope that it can find an audience for whom it can be both illuminating and somehow useful.

A long while ago I mentioned that I was excited to find that being a father was helping me be more anal, more productive, more goal-oriented, able to get baby-care jobs done, succeeding in finding time for them. Sadly this initial surge, proved to be just that. Probably helped by the fact that, at the time, becoming a father was my sole focus. Being a dad was the only thing I was thinking about, it wasn't competing for space in my head.

Cerebral Palsy is described as a physical disability but in a certain sense, as the name suggests it is much more. In my case, CP  encompasses, amongst other things, a processing issue that makes multi-tasking a challenge, writing a  30% more time-consuming process than for able-bodied folk and my time-management and self-organization skills can be about as refined as the mental image I have of the 44 hippos crammed into a house as they 'GO BERSERK!' in one of SJ's favourite bedtime stories.

Throughout my life these are challenges I've had to learn to manage. Nothing prepared me for how constantly parenting would be difficult, frustrating and frankly upsetting, not due to my physical limitations, but because of the combination of these, less immediately noticeable, aspects of my disability.

I've made reference here before about how I have a tendency to be  both overly focused on a task and at the same time inefficient. This combines with regularity so that I end up procrastinating my way through  the one task I set out to do, unable to focus on another task at the same time.

Lets take today as a perfect example- I'm at home writing this blog post. SJ and Mrs T are out with friends. They are due back at 4. Clearly as soon as they are at home my focus will have to change to taking care of SJ. If they are early and thus I am not done with this post, I know from experience that my frustration from 1) not finishing and 2) finding it difficult to switch focus- will spill over into my behaviour. It's not that I wont do my share of helping with the baby- but I'll do it grumpily. This grumpiness is interpreted as lack of gratitude and resentment by Mrs T who then feels that I am neglecting my end of parenting, forcing her to pick up the slack and feeling as if I don't appreciate the fact that she took the baby out, sacrificing her own productivity, so that I could be at home and get things done uninterrupted.

This combination can be toxic. This is not the kind of father I want to be. This is not the husband I want to be.

There are established elements in SJ's day that are specifically my responsibility- getting him up, dressing him, taking him for his weekend morning walk, his night time story- these  I know are coming and can factor into my time. It's the frustration and annoyance that I feel when I'm trying to attend to something 'non-baby' and suddenly I have to feed him, change him, rock him in the swing, fill his bag etc that irks me. Often my sullen reaction means that Mrs T will take my apparent reticence as a cue to do the  baby care task instead- a recipe for increased resentment.

As I reflect on why this happens so often, I find myself recalling the description in an earlier post I gave of what success looks like for me. Since most tasks big or small require effort, success is getting the job done. How it gets done- the aesthetics or efficiency involved-  are irrelevant. This is, I think, why I commit so much emotional energy into getting the tasks I've committed to in my head done. Done to the exclusion and sometimes detriment of other tasks that are not necessarily any less important, that is. In the past this was an ok paradigm because there was only me to worry about, as long as I got what needed to get done completed, it didnt matter how time or effort consuming getting something done was. I could allow myself the time I needed to get it done and work later and longer to make up for it.

This is no longer a workable paradigm.It's no longer just about me.

I want to be a proactive father, able to prioritize my child's needs over my own.

Sounds simple, doesn't it...?

Not wanting to leave things on either a cliff hanger or a downer, let me take a moment on how I'm trying to be proactive about this situation.

1 - I took the initiative to get a referral to a neurological occupational therapy assistant at an out patients unit at a Boston Hospital. I did this in November. The inital appointment isn't until next month (sound fimilar, British readers)? Sigh.

2- We've also been  trying to do more of something we've always needed to do more of. That is talking through tomorrow's schedule at dinner time. This way. less elements of a day come as a surprise. As I said earlier, when a baby- care task can be pre-factored into my day, it becomes expected, its time accounted and often times eagerly anticipated.

3. I think in general, despite all I've said here, I am getting better at being more available for baby care. I think this is because the longer that SJ has a routine, the easier it is becoming for me to think ahead and predict what baby care will be needed, when.

Phew, there you go, I got it all out. What a relief, now on to the so many other entries I've been looking forward to writing but have had to take their place in line until after I got this one done.

Back soon!







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