Letter to Father Christmas
It’s been a pretty intense run-up to the end of the year with work keeping my anxiety levels pretty high and an ever-increasing to-do list seeming to get ever further away. But we did manage to sit down at the weekend and write our letters to Father Christmas, and I thought I’d share mine with…
The dreaded dropped nap…
I’ll start with a leveler. Three kids is hard. It’s wonderful and rewarding and beautiful and fulfilling. But it is also exhausting, draining, intense, and tough. I sort of joked when the third one (Griffin, for the sake of a moniker) came along that I now had more children than hands. I didn’t realise that…
IKEA: the wander-full, everyday…
I’m not usually one to do this but we had a frustrating allergy experience the other day which I think is worth drawing attention to. So you’ll have to forgive me for indulging in a bit of a rant. We decided upon a family outing to IKEA. Having the house so regularly being viewed whilst…
In Dorset? I’d recommend it to anyone…
Well that was quite a week… I think it’s fair to say that 2023 has been quite the year so far. The arrival of a third child and all of the madness that ensues; the highs and lows of thinking we’ve found a new house, loosing it, and then trying to sell our house again…
Party of Five
It has been quite a week! Baby number three arrived in remarkable circumstances at the beginning of the week. Born at home, a handful of millimetres away from where Piglet was born just over 7 years ago, baby Griffin entered the world in the middle of the night. On one hand it was the perfect…
Birth Plan
We’re up to that point. Baby #3 needs their own birth plan. I’m finally getting my head around the idea that we’re going to have 3 kids. Yes, one more kid than I have hands! A lot of the focus over the last few months has been on getting ready for the arrival. From trying…
Three’s a charm
Here’s to sharing… I got quite a surprising piece of good news the other day. Turns out we’re adding another Piglet or Dragon to the family. By next summer, we will be a family of 5! I say surprise… …I probably shouldn’t be entirely surprised; I know enough biology to know how these things work.…
Little people in paradise
It’s been a while… Things change so quickly at the moment that it’s difficult to keep up! But there have been a few events in the Allergen Dad household that are worth giving an update on. So, quick check list: Moving house? Not yet. Mrs Allergen Dad starting her new career? In progress but reliant…
9-bar, finely ground bean water
Sounds nice doesn’t it? No? How about medium-dark roasted coffee beans grown at high altitude, finely but consistently ground into a light powder, tamped tightly into a ~18g ‘puck’, pre infused with near-boiling water and then perfectly extracted by (optimally) high pressure water for roughly 30 seconds to make a tiger-striped, aromatic, crema-topped velvety 40g…
New Job
Thoughts on a first day Well… not quite the start to my first day in a new job I was hoping for. I arrived at Slough train station in plenty of time only to find that all trains running between London Paddington and Reading were suspended. Roughly 90 mins later I was finally on a…
All change please!
Change I’m not sure I’ve ever been particularly good at it. I remember (or have reconstructed the memory from having it recounted to me) that we were meant to move house when I was little. In ways I can entirely relate to now, we had, then, outgrown our Victorian terrace home and needed something with…
2022: Two too
Well it’s been a long time! Apparently May was my last blog post but in truth I haven’t been that active as Allergen Dad across 2021 at all. There are multiple reasons for this but actually I’m much more interested in looking forwards at this point than looking back. There are some big things to…
Sleep, oh how I miss you…
It’s going to get worse… That’s the sad truth of the matter! We have a second child coming in August and although I have blocked out any memory of the sleep deprivation that comes with a newborn child, I am painfully aware of the fact I will be a walking zombie by the end of…
A little news…
August 2021: Freedom from lockdown, socialising in pubs and restaurants, vegan ice-creams in the unpredictable British sunshine, and (hopefully) a little brother or sister for Piglet. Yes, as quite a surprise to us, it seems that we are going to have a second child! For those who of you who have followed our story closely,…
Lockdown v2.0
Here we are again… A country-wide lock down enforced across England until the 2nd December. Although, lets be honest, that feels like a slightly plucked-out-of-the-air date at the moment. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it right now; a little overwhelmed if I’m honest: I’m hoping the following paragraphs will give me a…
Bored? Board Games!
I am absolutely loving playing board games with Piglet now that the clocks are going back and our daylight is shrinking. We’ve played things like Ludo and Snakes and Ladders for a while but he used to struggle to stay with the game and, while keen to start, would often get distracted. Since he’s started…
And so to bed…
The bedtime routine, or lack of it, is an intensely personal part of parenthood. For many it’s an exquisite coordination of intimate down time; for others it’s the gathering of the herd. I think we’re pretty lucky in that bedtime for us is generally a happy and shared experience but it’s also a time of…
And so to school
It starts! My little Piglet, the little smiling boy who only a few weeks ago (in my chronologically muddled daddy mind) was a giggling bouncing little baby, has only gone and started school. He turned four earlier this year, it’s now September and so, with all the predictability of a small child forgetting to cover…
Mortality
*Trigger Warning* I’ve never felt the need to write one of these before but I can see why this might be a difficult blog post for some to read. Unsurprisingly, given the title, this contains discussions about death. Well… That was not the lunchtime I’d expected… Piglet has been really enjoying two of the great…
The Hike
A gentle stroll in the park. Well, actually a pretty long stroll for a 4-year old who did remarkably well – all things considered. We planted the idea a few weeks ago. I can’t remember what got us talking about it but I mentioned how much I loved walking in hills and mountains. I guess…