Love / Hate

Three things I love about being a Dad
1. When he looks into my eyes and laughs. Priceless.
2. Watching him enjoy new things, especially when they are the sorts of things that we take for granted, like sunlight through leaves on the trees.
3. Coming home to my family at the end of the working day.

Three things I hate about being a Dad
1. When he cries and cries and cries and nothing I do seems to console him. He has big tears in his eyes or running down his face and it's heartbraking. I don't know what is wrong with him, what is frustrating, annoying or upsetting him. And I can't communicate with him to find out. He might have a headache or earache but how can I tell!

2. Conflicting advice. At one extreme you have the "baby comes first" approach where it seems that it is impossible to give him too much attention. At the other there is the near boot-camp style regime of "The Contented Baby" book. This lack of clear direction drives me crazy.

3. Every once in a while the lack of one-to-one time with Hayley really gets me down, especially because the cumulative lack of sleep sometimes causes us to be a bit snappy with each other. It's not the end of the world and we always knew it came with the territory, but it is a pet hate nonetheless.