1st Time DaddyMy own experience of becoming a first time parent

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you have a great festive, filled with friends, family and good times!

If you are like me, you have an ever growing list of tasks to do around the house. I need to paint the windows, paint the fence, replace the grout in the shower, fix the light in the kitchen to stop it flickering. The list is endless. And my wife, god bless her, makes sure that for every one thing I stroke off the list, another two get added, just to keep me on my toes.

I write this post as a heads up, a warning if you will, to anyone like this who is about to become a dad for the first time.

Things are going to get worse.

Mothers to be typically go through a period of “nesting”. For me this kicked in at around 5-6 months through the pregnancy. This is when the mum to be has the need to get the house perfect for the arrival of the baby. I suppose it makes sense, no one wants to bring a baby into a shithole. So, be prepared to be busy getting the house in tip top shape before the baby arrives.

For me, some of the tasks I had to get done, under orders were:

• Fix the draft coming in through the baby bedroom window
• Powerwash front steps and path
• Fix hole in wall of our bedroom
• Put up various mirrors, pictures and shelves that have been lying around for months
• Buy new car / sell old piece of junk car
• Fix outside light
• Paint living room walls and skirting boards
• Put up new lights in bedrooms

The list was a lot longer than that, but you get the idea. Note I am not a joiner, electrician or anything practical, so each task took twice as long as someone whol knows what they are doing would take. In fact, I remember when I put up the bedroom lights I somehow knocked out power to half the lights in the house. It stayed like that for about a month befoer I managed to solve the problem! Thank goodness it was the summer so we could still see!

I don’t want this post to sound like I am moaning about this. It was tough to basically have no time off between my dodgy DIY efforts and working full time, while looking after a pregnant wife. However, looking back it was great I got all that done before the baby arrived, otherwise it would never have been done.

Notice there was no mention of painting the baby room. We did not know what the sex of the baby was going to be, so we left that job until he arrived. He was sleeping in our bedroom for the first six months anyway, so there was plenty of time to get the bedroom sorted.

So, if you are planning to enjoy some time off with your feet up before the baby arrives, you’re in for a shock! Or maybe not, maybe my wife just made up this whole “nesting” theory to get my ass in gear…