Let the games begin

Having a new baby around over the last 6 months has made things more difficult in terms of parenting our eldest, who is still under 2 years old himself. It's been a challenge juggling time and attention levels to make sure that our developing toddler still feels loved, without neglecting the demands of a newborn. The other obstacle to throw into the mix is that my job involves working an ever changing 24/7 shift pattern. All children have growth spurts and periods where they seem to develop overnight and at times I feel like I come home from work and the children have changed dramatically. It's easy to become quite down, feeling like I'm missing out on their upbringing even though I know that I'm incredibly active and spend as much time as I physically can with my family. Something along those lines has been happening recently. Almost overnight, Alice seems to have gone from a eat and sleep baby to a wide eyed attention seeker that needs to be on the move. At the same time, Clayton has really come a long way since the turn of the new year and his personality is blossoming every day and that's been really apparent to me. In the past when these milestones have crept up on me, I've been overly negative about them; focusing on what I may have missed whilst earning the bread as opposed to being pleased about how well our children are progressing. This time it's different. This time, I'm over the moon at the sudden realisation that Clayton inparticular is growing up and becoming his own little person. His personality is proving to be amazing! He is already my favourite person to be around (tantrums, whinging, moaning, crying, shouting, stropping, refusing to eat, choosing to spend an entire day focusing on pushing me to my very limits excluded of course). Clayton has gone from being all dependant to wanting to do things for himself to playful and I love it. His sense of humour is magical and it seems like the perfect opportunity to bring something new to the blog - video. If this short experiment works, and his personality continues to blossom then you can expect much more of the following at Dad Creek...!