The Birth Story

I am sitting on the sofa with the long suffering wife as she winces in pain trying to feed -well okay succeding to feed. So here we go, the birth story.

On monday morning I was woken by the wife to be told that she thought baby might be on the way she was getting 'niggles' i dutufully took the day of work and we waited..and waited..nothing much was happening but my wife decided we had an urgent need for things from the shops, so of we went to tescos (of course not before i had just popped into PC world for a browse). On reaching the supermarket i asked what it was we needed and the wife looked at me a little blankly before suggesting we needed crisps. 24 packets of crisps later and we ehaded home for an uneventual time. Finally we turned in at midnight

Tuesday Morning

On Tuesday morning at 3.30am the long suffering wife woke me to tell me she had been having contractions - 4 of them 8 mins apart. It was game on. I phoned our friend in london who wanted to see a birth and she jumped in her car, also phoned the hospital to let hem know we where in very early stages. At 7am she arrived as did the midwife who gave her a check over and left us to it. Contractions continued speradically with the wife deciding she felt she could live with it. When it got to lunch time we went to the local pub for a slap up meal and then back home to more struggling. At 5pm we had another visit from a midwife and all seemed okay, and another at 10pm. By midnight the wife really needed some pain relife and we where honoured with a visit from the head of midwifery who made her first home visit in 15 years and was superb, the brought with them gas and air, but the wife couldnt get on with it. She was however suffering and had started saying she just needed it to be over, and looking at me with pleading eyes begging me to help her.

Wednesday Morning
By wednesday morning we where back ont he go with regular contractions and had another visit from a midwife, by now the LSW was really struggling and eventually climbined into the bath. She was suffering now, and really just wanted things to be done, she kept asking how much longer. Midwives came and changed shift in a blurr of half drunk copes of coffee. I poured water over the wife and she struggled through the pain. At about 11am they decided the time had come for her to push. She did with all her might and screamed and screamed in pain. After 30 mins of this they examined her and established she was only 6cm dilate and was just brusing herself with the pushing. Back in the bath and falling to pieces with tierdness and pain she sucked dry canaster after canaster of gas and air. By the end of the labour five bottles.

Finally when the time arrived to push she had next to no strength left, and the soft part of babys head was trying to come out first, not providing the force needed. It was two and a half hours from there to get baby grace out, and the wife suffered every minute of it.

When baby was born the wife was just at a point of complete exhaustion 5.56pm on Wednsday evening. She had no strength left and so we went - or rather i went - for the injetion to bring on the delivery of the plasenta and with it a blood bath.

Laying against my legs my arms around her she held our beautful baby girl and the world seemed a better place. By the time first feed had happened it was 10pm and at last we where left alone wondering what it is you do with a baby.

I took a minute for air and found my legs giving, i cried for two hours, the shock kicking in and my body just shaking. At last we curled up in bed for our first night together as a family, and bless her heart she did not stir till 7am. She made up for that this morning of course by not sleeping till 7am..she has some remarkable lungs....oh yes indeed.

I somehow managed to put my shoulder and neck, and so am feeling grouchy, not really a birth scar, but of course i like to complain. The wfe escaped with stitches and is doing well.

They say she tore her stomic mussles during pregnancy and didnt have any to speak of during labour, The she found thes trength to push astonds me. They say she will need some physio to bring about some repair.

Enough for now it must be time for sleep

Yours alseep

The Broken Man

Update

I still haven't written the birth story out, i keep planning to, i start it, and i loose it.

Thank you all for your warm wishes it means the world. Well obviously not the whole world, that would be crazy, i mean how hard is it to post a comment (yes i havent done it for a while) but, the sentiment, the thingy expressed behind that other stuff, thats nice. Look i am trying to say i appreciate it and thats that, didnt want to get into this whole blah write up of dullness and make you all wish that in honesty you had stayed very clear.

Birth stuff - will write up soon promise - well no not promise - but will try ....It was 39 hours, and my beautiful baby was born weighing in at 9 pounds and half an ounce. She was delivered at home and mum and baby are doing well.

The first 24 hours we seemed to have the most placid baby in the world, however, it seems, she suffers somewhat from wind and is not a great fan of listening to her fathers advice that crying wont necessarily improve the situation. As such i seem to be rather lacking in sleep, something which has come as a bit of a shock to me. I mean really there is no need for all this crying buisness. There really isnt. And I have explained this to her, and she doesnt seem to take in my explanation at all. I know some people suggested that she might react in this way, but really for this to be the case seems untenable. Some major adjustments are required in the whole approach to this baby thing, and my Most Gorgeous Baby seems determined that its me that makes them not her.

The Long suffering wife is finding feeding difficult right now, and is unsurprisingly shattered. she did so well getting through the birth and is coping really well with the after effects on her body - more of that later maybe. She is however persevering which makes me very proud of her, i know how hard she finds it, but she is determined to do the best for baby.

As to birth plans etc, everything we wanted we managed to stick to except a natural third stage - she had the injection for the delivery of the plasenta on my instance as she had been at the pushing stage for 2 1/2 hours and was just wipped out, as it was the blood loss was higher than we had hoped for, but just low enough that we could still call it safe. I felt very guilty agreeing to the inhjection and pushing Long Suffering Wife into it, but she had just been going to long, and needed it to all be over. She earnt her name and made me so so proud - okay am crying now. Blah. Over emotional fathers, a very unattractive site.

More later - promise! Will post all info soon - just so tired right now - struggling with aching limbs, and the discovery that i might just have a heart.

And yes i know that complaining about aching limbs after LSW gave birth is crazy! Just telling it as it is.I can hear baby crying again so better go an retrieve her from the wife.

Proud and Broken.

as ever,
The Broken Man

grace..words later mum and baby wonderful

On being anonymous

If you had to picture me, and I can see no reason for you ever having the need, I wonder what mental image you would conjure up to go with my words.

Of late, my appearance has been subtly changing, I noticed it yesterday when I looked in my wardrobe. Some things I wore three or four years ago I wouldn’t wear now (okay they wouldn’t fit even if I wanted to).

Back in “the day” I wore ill-matched clothes brought from charity shops, I turned unfashionableness into an art and avoided even sitting in the traditional rebellion camps of goth and punk. As a very young boy I wore a bow tie and felt that braces were the way to go. As time went on make up was added to my arsnell and then briefly I flirted with the whole goth thing, although as my search through my old records revealed – I liked little of the music – I was to all intents and purposes, a lipstick goth. I did try the punk thing very briefly but the Mohican wasn’t a good look for me, and in honesty I found it all a little tiring. I didn’t feel angry at the world – I felt bored with it – and so the goth crowd seemed a far better home all be it one I didn’t belong to.

Next came my ultra camp phase, I wore full make up, and dungarees, androgyny was the order of the day, and I blushed with pride when people told me I looked like Boy George. I didn’t stop there though, I kept going wondering if, at heart, I was more girl than boy. With time, I abandoned my make up and grew a goatie beard to replace it. I wore velvet and stripy trousers, big fluffy coats and went for the ridiculous, if it made me smile it was to be worn. With a step into the world of burlesque I felt rather ungainly in my attire and matched my waist coats with crisp shirts. Now I have the appearance of a gentlemen, all be it one who has fallen on bad times. I love fine clothes – clothes that actually feel good on, and stiching that doesn’t fall apart. When I look back on my clothing phases the only one I would return to willingly was my teenage age years of androgyny, when I was thin enough and had the cheek bones to carry it off make up. As it is, I will take a seat in my leather arm chair, open up a copy of The Chap magazine and hope that someone brings me a stiff drink.

Yours in a suit,

The Broken Man

Awards and all that

Long suffering wife has still not given birth yet. we had managed to get a buyer for our flat (at less than we paid for it) discovered today it has all fallen through. Today is a low day.

MAbunny has given me an award, very kind - i have know idea what its meant to mean, and as with all such things it doesnt actually arrive it just sits in cyber space, still always nice to be awarded. Those who read regually will know that i dont pass on awards i am too selfish, there where some questions with it in sets of sevens, i suspect i will get bored before i go all the way through them but here is at least an attempt to answer them


Coffee Bean awarded me this really cute award and I am very flattered. It comes with a small meme attached and I am more than happy to oblige. At the end of this I am supposed to tag 7 others, so I have to think who hasn't gotten this one yet:


Seven things I did before:
1. worked as a bouncer
2. worked in a strip club
3. cheated at cards professionally
4. went by the name of sophie
5. spent one afternoon performing as an escapologist

you see this is all sounding seedy and i cant think of anything flufthy so am going to move on from that list

Seven things I do now:

seriously you know about my life, really really not that intresting!!



Seven things I would like to do:

be debt free,..you know thats intresting..my second thought was have a healthy baby...wow have i got my prioritys out of wack!




Seven things that attract me to my husband:

I am guessing i should answer this about my wife...as i am feeling low can i go for kidness and trust in her kidness to think the best of me if she reads this and not think i dont care for her you see i am rambling now and feeling upset and i want to say nice things and all but right now i just really want to sleep and this is why i avoide logging sometime i start to ramble and i dont cope well and i should be saying nice things and AGGGGGGGGG okay. this blog ends here.

Blah

Yours Broke,

The Broken Man

How to Annoy Medical Personnel, Waiting, and No Smoke Without Fire.

How to annoy Medical Personnel

1)When getting blood results back, ask for the actual results not the doctors interpretations of them.
2)Inform the doctor that the slight elevation they believe exists is in your opinion within normal parameters, and is not significant enough to require a repeat of the same test a week later.
3)Refuse to attend an additional check up
4)Repeat when pregnant
5)Insist that the hospital doctors etc only speak to your partner and have them follow steps 1-3.


Waiting

Waiting for the baby to be born is very like waiting for a train to arrive while carrying a heavy bag. You don’t want to put the bag down if you are going to step on the train in a moment, but if its going to be a while you would like to go and get a coffee and a paper. Uncertain of whether it will arrive on time, early, or late, you find yourself standing paralysed on the platform, aware that in the time you have spent making the decision as to whether to get coffee you could have actually got it, and arrived back, but that now you are not sure if this will repeat itself or whether you really still do have time for coffee.

Of course, this is a bad analogy as I am eating antacids which I am washing down with coffee and there is nothing I have to actually put off, however the sense of uncertain anticipation is really exquisitely unpleasant. I know, I know, I should be going "yippy oh its all exciting", but I am so, so bored. You have read me whinging about this once already – you will, I know, be bored by this second blog on the same topic. Well, that’s how I feel, only more.

I don’t queue. I don’t wait. If people are late for a meeting I leave. If I am early for a meeting and would need to wait I will leave 8/10 times. I rarely meet people. I don’t do waiting.

I am so, so, so annoyed and cross and fed up and want to cry.

In case it isn’t clear – I have given up smoking. Not that it's having any affect on my mood. At all. ‘They’ say "no smoke without fire" – at last I understand. Not smoking makes you want to shoot people. No smoke – you want to fire a gun. This morning someone said ‘how are you?’ to me – foolish foolish reckless person…..

Yours as impatiently,

The Broken Man

Panic, Post boxes and Re-adjusting my life

The long-suffering wife's hands and feet were itching yesterday. Big time. In an attempt to keep everything in the highest level of panic possible we refered to the medical books and diagnosed obstetric cholostatis, and the need for an induction. This resulted in a rush to hospital for a blood test, the result of which arrived a very leisurely 8 hours later. Hospitals are among the dullest places in the world. Blood tests seem okay; panic over.

With time to kill the wife dropped the bomb shell. She doesn’t want me to talk about post-boxes with our baby. Ever. She is somewhat concerned that I will explain why I don’t “do” postboxes and that this will be adopted by our child. Let me explain – first of all post boxes in England are red. They sit on the corner of roads, and are locked. Big red metal locked boxes. Into these boxes, people put cards, letters, cheques, communications, thoughts. Around collection time the metal box is full of thoughts, of half conversations, all just sitting there waiting. I don’t understand how someone can walk past one and not feel a little uneasy. The thought of metal red boxes, safes for people's ideas and hopes and dreams and fears – and gas bills, just sitting around innocently is a very odd thing. I feel a sense of awe to see people just walk past them as if it wasn’t strange. The thought of putting my thoughts in one, even protected by an envelope, of letting it sit there in the jumble of other people's ideas, is just to much for me.

Along with the fast approaching birth of our child is, of course, New Years Eve. More to the point, there is party on, an event, oh what an event, a London bash which makes me want to cry with joy, an invitation to a night of excess. So I think to myself – "why not go, it will be great." Okay I confess I won't be able to take the wife and baby – but I am sure she won't mind me going... and then I pause and I know she will, I know she will mind a lot and with that realisation I am deeply aware that a part of my life has ended as surely as another one is beginning.

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

BOOORRRREEEEEDDDDD!

I am sorry to have to tell you this, dear readers. It will shock you to hear it. My wife is lazy. There, i have said it, its out in the open. She seems to be insisting on taking the *whole* gestation period of an average women before giving birth. I mean, seriously folks, do i look like someone with a long attention span?

Apparently it is not appropriate for me to attempt to "unwrap" my new baby early. I feel like my life is in a very strange kind of Christmas Eve twilight zone in which I get myself briefly over excited at the thought of presents and then feel worn out and drift off to sleep, waking to discover not that Christmas Day has arrived but that I have succeded in sleeping for a full two minutes.

In other baby news, we had a vistiation from the Head of Midwifery the other day to discuss our "particular issues". Despite fears that we were going to have to do battle with a dragon over a whole range of issues (e.g. in an emergency, if wife had to be sliced, i would not leave her alone in the hospital as she would then panic - hence if hospital insisted that i could not stay outside visiting hours we would discharge her) they were brillant! They accepted each and every one of our issues, and even gave us the top lady's mobile number in case we encountered any problems and needed her to tell people that she has agreed to meet our requirments. Hopefully of course it won't come to that. I am, at any rate, planning a pain free birth (for me, if not the long suffering wife) at home, where i can surf the net and read books in comfort whilst throwing in the odd soothing comment such as "there, there dear" and "ohhh that's got to smart".

In other news I did a web search today to see if I could find some more information on the problem of evil - the topic result for my search criteria was indeed an interesting starting point to any approach to the topic - unfortunatly however it didn't move my thinking on substantially as it was my own blog post!!

yours as ever,

Bored and Broke,

the Broken Man

A Broken Blog

HI, this is Broken Man's Wife. Sorry for the long absence - I usually update the blog with Broken Man's scribblings, but for some reason I haven't been able to access it for a while, and Broken Man has only just had the time to fix it so that I can.

So, this is his last blog entry - it is from a few days ago, but hopefully normal service will now be resumed!

A Broken Blog

Today my neck hurts, a lot.
Today work has been hard..
Today I am trying to answer Epicurus paradox without success.

Excuse my silence, when things look black I retreat,
I could pretend it’s to regroup – its not.
I just can't face the world right now

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Remembering and Forgetting

Today is remembrance day in England, and it has got me thinking. One of the people on my course is a pacifist, I am not. I have always believed that there are occasions when force is required to address an issue. The age old questions which have been used such as would you shoot someone about to press the button on a bomb which will blow up a school have never seen like much of a dilemma to me, i would pull the trigger.
The question is why do we spend a day a year in which we think of those who have died “serving their countries in wars, having laid down there lives”. Why do we value this more highly than, for example, people who have worked to build infrastructure, or people who take our rubbish away? What is it about dying that makes someone’s contribution worth so much more? And is that someone has is prepared to die that really means so much to us, or rather, that because they are prepared to pull the trigger we don’t have to?
I don’t believe that most people signing up for the Army do so in the thought that they may day, particularly the young believe themselves immortal, but they do sign up believing they may have to kill. It is the scares from that which i think are the hardest to heal. While i would pull the trigger- or rather believe i would, i don’t know if i could live with having done so. This brings me back to the cross, was Jesus death on the cross a bigger sacrifice than someone who will pull a trigger? What is it about the cross that makes it so incredible?
In honesty i find it hard to get my head around crucifixion. It is so outside anything i have ever experienced. However the whipping he received before hand that cuts to the core if you will excuse the phrase. The inner strength it takes not to cry out take him not me, stop, anything if you stop. The thing that makes the cross so incredible, that makes the passion so meaningful, is that there was a supreme choice. For every moment of pain on the cross, Jesus could have stepped down, he could have saved himself, he could have ended his suffering. What kept him there was his love for us. As much as we try to understand what those who have served in wars have felt, it those who have given up there lives protecting colleagues, a solder who jumps in front of a friend, someone who makes a choice that says no, take me not them. It is that beyond all else we remember, and with Jesus, we remember that he repeated again and again for every second that he was beaten, every moment he was on the cross, take me, not them.

Cohen, long babies, tutorials and essays

For my birthday I was given a ticket to see Leonard Cohen. I am not one to get excited. A wry smile once in a while normally suffices. Yet I confess I am rather pleased about this forthcoming event (next week).It does however collide with a meeting of my tutorial group, and so on Tuesday evening just gone I phoned up my tutor and apologised in advance for my absence. I was informed that normally they would move the date if one of us couldn’t make it, but I had really not given enough notice. I am of course less than convinced about this, and more to the point, the tutorials really are not earth shattering events – while the chance to hear Leonard Cohen sing live – well that happens once in a life time!

Some examination of baby sites reveals that at birth my baby (well, all babies) are expected to be around 19-21 inches long. It’s a sentance that trips off the tongue fairly happily. It seems a reasonable length. Some people might even nod on hearing that figure and think to themselves, "yes, that sounds about right". To put this into perspective, however, a measurement can be made from the waist band of your trousers to your collar bone – on me this is 20 inches. So if I had a baby standing up inside me, it would in fact take up all the space in my stomach and chest. I would need to remove such things as my rib cage and my heart. Now I know its curled up, I am aware that its not standing up in the long suffering wife's stomach. I know it can't. Walking will take a while. It is however a little odd to think about, isn’t it? I mean.... If you had 20 inches of baby standing inside you it would have to kill you wouldn’t it? I know it can't. Look I'm not crazy. But seriously. If it could stand up….

In other news I have an essay due in on the 15th November. I have started it…just not done much on it. Now that I have started it I am realising that its not one I can just knock out in an afternoon. Hmm. If I don’t make it to the deadline – do you think they will accept an explanation of "I was busy thinking about babies standing up?"

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Happy Birthday to Me

Birthdays are odd things, and I have been silent for a few days. Yesterday I went to the British Museum and spent my day looking at ancient artifacts – always a good way to feel younger – stand in front of something 3600 years old. It was all very nice -but - I am not sure it was magical. I was interested in the Museum, but I forget to put on a silly voice and do impressions of what the statues were saying to each other. I didn't take delight. I saw, I studied, I found things interesting. But I forget to be a child and just enjoy the magic.

The day got me thinking about the birthdays of my childhood and the birthdays of children I know today. Today, and in fact even when my younger brothers were “that age”, a move had been made towards bowling and films for parties. Now it seems not unusal for a whole gaggle of kids to head for the cinema or a fast food outlet to celebrate the passing of another year. The parties become increasingly competitive and who is and isn’t invited a cruel weapon in a war of friendships and who is “in” and who is “out”.

My family was not a rich one, and my mother wisely adopted what is now considered an old fashioned approach. We played musical chairs, and pass the parcel; we ate jelly and ice cream. Even at the age of 13-14. My mother carefully and cleverly spotted that retro held a lot of appeal,and as long as you knew it was a joke you allowed yourself to enjoy it.

I would far prefer to celebrate my child-to-be’s birthdays with childhood games than with tournaments on the wii or even the ever-popular bouncy castle. As ever, though, I wonder how much of what I wish for for my child is about what I wish for me. Maybe I will have a child who will want to spend their birthday staring at the stars, or ice skating, how much will I shape their desires and dreams, and how much will they change my views on the world?

In the next 6-9 weeks I am going to be a father, and as such I have resolved that it is important that I don’t grow up. It's important that I don’t become too responsible and let fun drain out of my life, because if I do, I might give the impression that being an adult means taking life seriously, that play is for young children, and that being an adult is about be respectable and dull. So for my next birthday, I will make sure I have time to skip, and I will have jelly and ice cream for tea.

Yours, older but no wiser,

The Broken Man

Some Days

Some days the world seems so dark. Work seems so hard, and even getting
out of bed feels almost impossible. Sitting at my desk surrounded by
sheets of paper and things to do, the work backlog building up, and
essays sat undone I just want to cry. Its my birthday soon. 33 years
old. Soon to be bankrupt. Today everything seems to much. Some days its
like that.

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Soften (and Brighten) my World

I went Christmas shopping today - I'm trying to get most of it done before the baby is born, as I suspect there won't be much time afterwards. I didn't actually manage to find much, but I never do first time out.

However, as a by-product of the Christmas shopping, I continued my long-running search for soft baby socks. We have been given loads of clothes by people who have had children, but socks are the one thing we are short of. Personally, I prefer to be barefoot, and certainly wouldn't go down the pram-shoes/crawlers route, but being practical, this baby is going to be born in the depths of winter, and probably will need some form of sock to keep warm.

I have got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about things being soft and lovely next to the baby's skin - it's part sentimental, I admit, but part practical; Broken Man and I both have allergies, and I can't help thinking soft against delicate skin must be better than crunchy. So began the hunt for soft socks. I can't find any anywhere - maybe cotton does soften up after a few washes, but what if it doesn't? The terry towelling ones start off *really* hard and quite horrible. I found some today which were velour, and thought that, at last, my search was over - but, no, the insides were terry.

Broken Man has some gloriously soft bamboo socks, but I can't find any for babies. I was given some lovely "feather-feel" socks for Christmas last year which would be perfect - but they don't make them for babies.

I was getting very confused. I now have sleepsuits and babygrows in fluffy fleece, buttery organic cotton, silky soft velour and the most amazing furry material, so what's the problem with socks? I had a revelation when I got home and started hanging out some latest batch of baby clothes I had washed. Some of them were inside out, and I realised that (with the exception of the organic cotton) the insides felt nothing like the outside!

The whole thing is a vicious marketing scam. The shops know that we want our babies to feel soft and lovely, and they have made the outsides of their garments wonderfully tactile - without a thought for the baby inside them. It's purely for the benefit of the adult!

It's the same with colour. I know that babies don't really see colour very effectively - I believe they can see black, white and red, but I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, so why are all baby clothes (as Broken Man puts it) "offensively pastel"?

I thought perhaps it was the choice of the lovely people who gave us the clothes, so I thought we might treat ourselves to one set of clothes in some nice bright shades that *we* like (as the baby clearly won't have a preferance!). Perhaps some nice bright purples, reds, turquoise....

Again it appears that the shops have decided that people like to see babies in pastels (or white), and the only places you can buy bright baby clothes are from designer and specialist websites, where you could happily pay upwards of £20 for one babygrow. My sister has swapped her designer handbag obsession for a designer babygrow obsession and has very kindly bought us a few - but I object to anyone wasting so much money on something the baby will wear for maybe a month!

I think I will start dying my own - I'm not going to be dictated to by Mothercare! :) And on the sock front, my lovely mother-in-law foolishly offered to knit some things for the baby, so I have bought some feather-feel "wool" and will be setting her to work!

Broken Man's Wife

Manners Maketh the Man?

Broken Man sent me a blog for today, in which he (apparently) tells you that I will be guest blogging tomorrow. Unfortunately he sent it to my work email and as I haven't been at work today, you will have to put up with me guest blogging twice! Sorry about that.

With Broken Man's "learning difficulties" (I'm still not sure why they call it that - he has no problem learning at all; in fact he's rather skilled at it, it's just the vaguaries of the education system which cause problems!) I am now used to living in a highly logical house. I always think the easiest way to describe the difficulties Broken Man has to new people is to suggest that until they know him better they treat him as a Vulcan. It seems to work, both for them and for him.

Anyway, today's topic of debate was "please" and "thank you". The fact that these are social niceties which oil the wheels of conversation is not enough for Broken Man. "Thank you" was pretty easily dealt with - his conclusion is that we are grateful for someone doing something for us, and "thank you" expresses that to them. But "why does the use of one word ("please") mean that someone has manners? Particularly since the word is clearly constructed *just* to show that someone has manners" That was an altogether trickier concept for us.

I had to agree - "please" really doesn't *mean* anything. It really is just something we have made up to show that we have manners. On the other hand, always with one eye on bringing up baby, I was getting more and more uneasy at the prospect of having to justify having a "rude" child because Broken Man was able to explain away the use of a social norm!

Eventually, after a long conversation with himself (and me, but I really didn't submit anything useful to the mix!) Broken Man came up with a way of making it work. "Please" offers an element of choice. It recognises that someone has the right to say "no", and is therefore a request, not a command. It's purpose is to differentiate between a request and a command.

I breathed a sigh of relief. We have an explanation we can offer the baby when it gets as far as talking. We have a reason for saying "please" and "thank you", because in our house, EVERYTHING must have a reason. I have some concerns about other people's "inconsistances" with this theory - quite how I am going to explain that when the teacher says "please put on your coat", she is actually issuing a command, not making a request, is something to worry about for the future.

For now, though, social disaster has been averted, and actually I quite like the idea of saying to a child something like "are you happy that X has given you/done this for you? If you are, the short way we say that is thank you" I think it's far better than the usual prompt of "what do you say?", which seems to require no understanding of the principle behind the word.

I have no doubt that we will come on to "sorry" another day - that's a whole new can of worms!

Broken Man's Wife

Spin me right round, Baby, right round

With a lack of other things to worry about right now (well other than essay deadlines, and debt) it seems that we have found ourselves in the baby direction game. For those who haven't played along before let me explain the basic rules.

For a “standard” delivery of a baby it is desirable to have the head come out first. If, for example, you tried to put the baby length wise…well it wouldn’t fit! Now babies move about a fair bit prior to birth, and some don’t get into the desirable position until a few hours before birth, however if they don’t get in the right position it’s a worry. And we do like to worry. As such, this opens up a whole world of fun in the form of "can you identify which way around the baby is?" Far more fun than any competition in which contestants get to guess how many sweeties are in a jam jar, this involves careful examination of your chosen pregnant lady's stomach, lots of proding and the occasional exclamantion of “hummm, that could be a foot…or hand…or maybe a head”. Prizes are awarded for both creativity in description of baby lumps, and sounding confident when identifying various body parts.

If you don’t have a pregnant lady of your own, may I suggest getting a doll, putting it in a black sack, filling the sack to bursting point with porridge, shaking the sack and then trying this identification process. To make the experience realistic I suggest that once in a while you get a friend to say “Ow” as you poke the sack, and to look panicked when you fail to declare confidently "yes, yes, its definitely pointing in the right direction!"

I wonder if I could make my fortune by making this as a game? Bonus points could be awarded for statements such as “its laying to the left so it must be a boy” or “you are carrying it low - got to be a girl”.

Do you think “Toys are Us” will be interested in the idea? Just remember – you knew me before I was a world renowned toy maker.


Yours as ever,


The Broken Man

Ring a Ring a Roses

I have been married twice, and have had three wedding rings. The first was a second hand ring, which was selected as a result of lack of finance. I quickly developed a rash on my finger, and abandoned wearing it. Shortly after, I replaced it with an eight strand silver puzzle ring, which caused the same problem. In addition to the problem of my reaction to it was that they both scratched easily and hindered my dexterity when attempting card manipulation (I am a hobby magican).


On getting married to the current long suffering wife, I got the ring I had longed for. No gold for me, this is the real deal. A thick platinum band that cost – well a lot. And no off the shelf number either. Oh no, this was made for me. The same jeweller made my wife's engagement and wedding ring. We looked for a long time for an engagement ring, and with her deep dislike of big sparkly diamonds, the task was not easy. At last, in the window of an expensive jewellry shop my wife spotted a ring that she fell in love with. The price tag? A snip at £2000. We took a photo of the ring, and visited a jeweller who made rings to measure and he priced up the ring at a tenth of the cost. He got a selection of stones in and we picked together the ones we wanted. The ring is beautiful.


As I have continued to eat my fingers have become slightly bigger and soon my ring became unwearable. My wife, however, takes her's off only if showering or washing up. It was then somewhat of a distressing thought to her that her fingers might swell a little in pregnancy and that she would need to remove her rings, and so she resisted. And resisted. Till yesterday her finger was swollen and the rings wouldn’t come off. With tears streaming down her face we went to the local fire station and had them cut her rings off her. All is not lost, our jeweller will be able to repair them, but it got me thinking. What do we value and why? I value my marriage very highly, and would like to say the ring really isn’t a big deal to me. Yet even with it sitting in a ring box, it matters. It’s a symbol of the promises we exchanged, and so even though I don’t wear it, I would not willingly part with it.


We often watch a TV show in which people come have antiques valued and discovering they're great value are very keen to sell them. I look around my flat and realise I really haven't got anything that would fetch a high price; most of the things I own are things that other people didn’t want anymore, but they all have a significance, a value. They make me think of the people I got them from, or remind me of events that have happened around them. It's as if each item has a life of its own, that it is in some way soaked in the atmosphere and events it has witnessed. It comes as no surprise that some items are considered by some people magical. It is, then, all the more impressive, that for all the silver goblets, all the fine robes of Christendom, the sacred symbols; the items that contain the greatest value of all are water for baptism, bread, and wine. Maybe it is only through investing meaning and significance in such transient things that there is enough space left for them to contain all the meaning and significance we place on them. The simpler the item the more space left for significance. A simple band of precious metal, able to hold far more meaning for the individual than the most beautiful of paintings or well worded sonnet.


Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

To Smack

Eagle's Wings kindly provided me a link in response to my “Being a Dad” post. Arwen then responded to the content of the site the link was to, and as I don’t have anything else sensible to blog about today I thought I would take up the issue in a post!

For me personally, the theories of parenting that seem to make the most sense are those dealing with “attachment parenting.” How this works out in practice for me...well, we will have to wait and see but I will keep you informed!!

I think the link to the particular site that Eagle's Wings sent me is clearly trying very hard to find the right path in parenting, and address the question, "how can we parent in a godly manner?" I believe however, that the answers it comes up with are wrong. For example, here is an extract from the site:

Eileen wrote in concerned about a problem she felt that she was having with her childs behaviour in church:

"I am unable to find any specific advice on how to get a young child (ours is 18 months) to sit still in church. We would so like to have him in the service with us instead of the nursery, but that is completely unrealistic right now. You wouldn't advocate spanking him right in the middle of church, would you? He is otherwise a fairly well-behaved, happy little boy who has responded well to your training techniques."

The response to this given by the web site is :

“Please don't do that! Don't disrupt the entire church to spank your child. When you train at home you will not have to train in public. Go home and train. Set up a training session each day, duplicating as closely as possible the church service. Sit in uncomfortable chairs and play some hymns on the stereo. Then play teaching or preaching tapes while the family sits quietly and listens. Or you can sit beside him and read the Bible in a monotone voice. Better yet, if you don’t have the electronic media and you are able to induce your spouse to assist you, let your husband pretend he is the preacher and carry on for a little while, saying nothing interesting. Keep your switch handy, but not visible during this session. Speak in a whisper or use sign language as you would in church. If the child offends at a level that would be inappropriate in church, then swat him while making your sign language or while whispering your correction. "


I am involved in the leadership of church service, and find this description of church deeply disturbing. I am more than happy to have children being children in church! And I at least attempt to make sure that it provides them with some stimulation and sense of the presence of God. I could rant on that for hours alone, but I want to address the issue I consider far more important and disturbing: the idea of using a switch on an 18 mnth old child.


The issue of smacking has raged strongly in the UK as it has in many other parts of the world. The recommendations (to punish a child with a "rod" or "whip") of the website in question would be considered illegal in England, and in my opinion rightly so.

For this reason (and only this reason) I have taken the unusual step of removing the comments of both Eagle's Wings and Arwen, as they contain links to this website, and I am not comfortable providing links to a webpage which advocates something which is illegal in this county.


My attitude to smacking children is very much based on the kind of person I would like my child to become. My hope is that my child will be able to,with time, have a reasoned conversation about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Until that time I hope that the tone of my voice, and the way I respond to my child will show what is and isn’t okay. My hope is that as they grow older they will not feel the need to use physical force to convince someone of their belief, or to “get their own way” and that they will, as much as possible,be able to avoid situations in which others use physical force to coheres them.

I realise that we live in a society where this is not always possible, and on rare occasions I have had to use physical force to restrain someone. I worked for a while as a bouncer, and for a while in a hostel and over a period of two years I found a few occasions where force was required to prevent someone hurting themselves or someone else. I did not however, even in these situations find it necessary to hit them, instead I used the minimum force required to safely restrain them and then only at times where drink or drugs had made them incapable of reason, or I felt it was best to remove an iron bar from someones hand before talking through the issues surrounding attempting to beat someone to death with it.

I find it hard then to visualise a situation where a baby or child would be able to behave in a manner which would require me to strike them. If I can handle a 18 stone drunk man who is swearing and aggressive without slapping him, why should I need to slap a child? Both are fairly incapable of reason, yet in both cases, a potentially dangerous situations can be made safe, (by removing an iron bar from a drunk man, or lifting a baby away from a plug socket). In most cases I have found the tone of my voice and my physical presence are sufficient to convey that I am taking control of the situation, and that it will be alright.

In my youth work I have come across a lot of very broken people. Never have I felt the need to break a “hard case”. Instead I have tried to show people that they are cared for and valued, that their lives have meaning, and there is hope for them, and so, again, I can't subscribe to a style of parenting that suggests you have to “break a child” and let them know you are in charge. They can, I believe,know that you are indeed the parent, without you having to instil fear. As a broken man, I have no desire to break my child. Instead I hope, I pray, I will be able to be a parent who can help guide a child into becoming the person they are capable of being, whole, fulfilled, and loved.

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Being A Dad

In the next 2-3 months I am going to be a dad. It seems like a normal sentence, one which could have been written by any of several billion people over human history. Yet as every expectant father knows, there is nothing in all that shared experience and knowledge that helps you feel even a little bit more capable or prepared for the task.

I have often “joked” here that we won't be doing the whole crying thing – I will have a chat. I will explain acceptable behaviour. Tantrums? No. That will not happen. This will be a civilised parenting experience. My world is a rational one. It has a methodology. It takes me from one point to another.

The emotional side of things I have never been great with in honesty. After saying “there, there” I am, in honesty, done. There is a set quantity (small) of responding to emotions that I consider to be unavoidable. I don’t want to sound cold...really…but people crying…it's all a bit dull in honesty…and loud crying..well that’s just bad manners.

So I picture myself at 3 am with a crying baby not knowing how to settle it..and I feel very, very lost and, well.... really rather broken.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am very excited by it all too, really I am. Just also terrified.

With every bit of breath in my body, with all that I am, I ask that God might guide me and transform me into a person who won't completely screw up my childs life.

Yours in fear,

The Broken Man

In Search of Poo

One of the most interesting things about having a blog hit counter is that it can tell you how people have found out about your blog. Most people come to it through another blog, but there are a number of people who find me through Google.

"What searches do people put in to come up with this blog?" I hear you cry….(please do play along). The answer you are probably anticipating is “charming man”, “wry and rather intelligent individual”, or perhaps “perfect father”. You will, no doubt, be as shocked as me to discover then that searches of my blog have included “different types of baby poo and what they mean”, “man wearing nappy”, and of course, the old classic “man covered in poo”.

It seems that my few posts on the topic of poo have, in fact, propelled this blog to the leading place for people to turn in times of desperate need for poo information. Even writing this entry will I fear, result in yet more hit results for the poo searchers out there.

So this is a note to all those who have come looking for poo. This is now declared a poo free zone. You will have to find it elsewhere.

Yours in constipation,

The Broken Man

Your all lovely

Just reading through the comments from you all over the last few days..well long than that even...just wanted to say thank you.

I know i am not getting to your blogs enough at pressent, and i dont always reply to your lovely comments, but they do mean the world to me. Well obviously not the whole world. If i had a choice between your comments and owning the whole world, well i would pick the world. Would be stupid not to. Or comments v's a small country. Or a house without mortgage. Hmm okay..let me try again.. i am fairly sure that if i had to choose between your comments or a cake,i would pick your comments. Not all cake ever note..we are talking about a particular specific cake. I dont want to raise your hopes. Right so to clarify your comments mean more to me than a cake. Okay that might not sound big but it is. I am not being stingy hear just wanted to be honest about quantifying things. When down cake can be good..cake does make you happy..good comfort food. But also makes me fat. You are better for me than cake. Well most of you. One of you..you know who you are..you send sweets. Okay not to me..to the wife...but of course i eat them... I will stop now.


Thank you. Thats what i was trying to say

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

I could be anyone..and so could you

People seem to talk a lot right now about the fact that you don’t really know who you are talking to on the net. Something particually relevent as a subject of an annoymus blog I guess. You see on this blog I am in some ways more me than in other places. I tell you things because I don’t know you. Although in fairness I am very open about my life most of the time – some would say more than I should be!



So are we ourselves here? Let me take this on a few stages. If Two people fall in love on the internet, two strangers connected only by words on a screen. If he says he is 6 ft 1 and has a jaw line to die for, and if she says she is slim and has hair so red it makes you think of a setting sun, if for two years they talk and then at last arrange to meet, only to discover he is 5’4 and has four chins, and she is actually a he..then where they ever in love? Did they just fall in love with a fantasy or did in those two years the pictures they paint represent something inside. Let me go a stage further. Two people meet in real life, she pretends to be adventurous, a can do kind of girl, and he he makes out he loves the arts. They fall in love at the opera, and over time become what they pretended to be. Have they fallen in love with each other? What is it that defines us? Am I more me here or in “real life” and how about you?



We all edit. We pick the parts of our life to display to others. When you meet someone in a bar and they say they are called brain and work for a bank we don’t question this – why should we? We believe what people tell us, we accept the parts of there lives they want to share and we mostly avoid looking in there closest. For me this blog is often that closet. It’s the dirty washing. So I wonder..even with all the self editing, even with the careful selection of what to tell you about my day…is this actually more real?



Yours truly



The Broken Man

Lost....

Boken Man has asked me to blog today, as he has gone into "hermit mode" and is struggling a little. Unfortunatly, I've had a pretty distasterous morning with broken down cars etc, and really won't have time....

He has written a little about yesterday, and it is below. I would just like to say though, that despite his slightly gloomy post, he did measure in the top 2% in Verbal Reasoning, and the tests yesterday were primarily trying to find out the problems he had, rather than his level of intellegence. His scores place him in the "gifted" catagory. Doesn't stop him feeling low about it, but I wanted someone to blow his trumpet, because he won't.....

(sorry, haven't corrected any spellings either!)

Broken Man's Wife



So yesterday..

I have asked the long suffering wife to blog for me today, she was nagging me last night about blogging and I couldn’t face it. Not that I don’t love you all (Not that I do….I don’t know you..hmm…will come back to that thought tomorrow….) Sometimes its easy to write about things, words fall of my fingers onto the pc without effort, other times thinking about a particually subject makes my ears bleed. The tests yesterday where okay. Really they where. They did however show what I have known all along – I am not as clever as I would like to be. I stand in the shadow of the greats knowing I will never attain greatness, that my mind just isn’t up to the job. I know we can achive beyond our skill levels etc, but well..sinking right now. I do okay in essays because I work very hard and spend money I havent got on books that no one else wants to read. Actual ability though? Raw thinking power? The kind of mind need to actually work things out – to move a discussion forward? No. I have a mind just good enough to know the questions but not good enough to get to the answers. I am ranting now. I will stop. I will as with all my blogs – almost (you know the ones I don’t do it with they are the terribly spelt ones) send this to my long suffering wife, she will add her comments, I am trying to encourage her to do a blog – and if not – at least appear regually here.

Yours as ever,

Lacking in all originality,

The Broken Man

So, What's Wrong With Him?

I don’t feel too bad posting twice in a day (although I tend to avoid it) as I have been bad at posting lately.

I am going for an assessment for Dyslexia/Dyspraxia tomorrow. And I am scared. I have always considered myself clever. Okay, I know that makes me arrogant, but I have generally considered myself as having a brain the size of a planet. Don’t worry – I don’t like me either – I think it’s a terrible way to see myself.

The point is that I have had a counter balance. Dyspraxia. I have argued that while I might be clever, I also have some issues outside my control. I have ways of coping with them, for sure, but my lack of achievement is because I have "issues". I talk too loud, not because I am rude, but because I have problems modulating my voice. I walk away when bored, not because I am insensitive, but because sometimes things are so dull they actually hurt my head.

So I am being tested. Poked. Prodded. They will tell me if they can find a label to fit. They will put my IQ on a graph. At the end of it all they will make their assessment. I am not sure which worries me most. Being told that I haven't got a problem or that I have. My wife has done a long list of all the things that are wrong with me. It’s a rare opportunity for any long suffering wife. I look at it and think – but I am just me. Yes, I break a few glasses, and sure, I can't remember names...and well, okay, I get lost in the bathroom but...

Wanting to curl up into a ball

Yours as ever

The very broken man

Apologetics

Standing at a family party with a cousin of the long suffering wife, I was asked what I am currently doing with my life. It's small talk, no one cares. I tell him I am training to be a priest. I quickly add; "it's okay, I don’t like Christians. Or church." I joke about the outfits that go with the job. It's a routine that I have become well accustomed to. I apologise, not for my faith, but the version of the chirstian faith I think most people think of when they hear the word "Christian". It all sounds so uncool, and I know that doesn’t matter, I know it's not what really counts. But I also believe, so deeply, and maybe so incorrectly that if you found out the person you were talking to was a Zen Master, or Rabbi, or .. well anything but a Christian you would think "wow, interesting" instead of "wow, I have to go now."

I wish I could find a way of explaning without the silly jokes that no-one laughs at and without the apologetic look, that I believe in a God who is incredible, who isn’t trapped in the pages of a book or chained to a church pew. Even the word "God" seems to lack something - it's musty and worn out. I don’t think I have come to terms with being a Christian yet – never mind becoming a priest one day. I am aware, really I am, that my spiel isn’t helping and that I need to find someway to be real – and I know some will say "you just need to be you, just need to tell it as it is, just need to....." but it's no little "just" – its not like there is a perfectly formed me somewhere I just need to let come out, it's (to go to the old images) like I am a stone covered in rubbish that needs grinding down till at last something more shapely is found, that deep within it all is the person I am meant to be but that it will take years – a life time under the hand of a crafts man to find the precious stone!

Oh, this entry is sickly. If I was reading this I would throw up.

Shudders

Yours as ever

In self disgust

The Broken Man

Training

I apologise for my lack of blogs of late; life has been somewhat frantic. As if my work load wasn't significant enough, I have been forced to endure two training courses which have attempted to explain to me the wonders of our new IT system at work. I realise I hide well my impatience, and that most readers of this blog would describe me as a placid, happy-go-lucky fellow who gets on with everyone, and is rarely annoyed. You will no doubt then be shocked to learn that my training course irritated me somewhat.

I accept the need to recive training on a new IT systems. It is one of life great miseries for sure, but I accept that, to tick the training box, I must be herded into an overheated room to be told why I can't use the programs I am used to and we must move to a "new, improved" version. What raises my blood pressure, however, is a “trainer” who says 26 times “this is self explainatory” and then goes on to explain something. A trainer who insists on reading every word on the screen for us...who painfully and laboriously makes us go through information which is of no interest to man or beast. I quote: “To send feedback, click on the feedback button. It's self explainatory really, but let me talk you through it. Where it says "name", put in your name……………” I could go on – he did. But I won't.

The one small pleasure I recive from suffering through this is the feedback form at the end; the opportunity to, in a few small boxes, attempt to sum up a world of dissatisfaction. It was then, with horror, that I noted that the people on either side of me had ticked all the "satisfactory" boxes on the feedback form. At one point the person next to me had actually fallen into a coma. It was touch-and-go whether he would survive, such were his boredom levels, yet he ticked "satisfactory". As we filed out, I calmly enquired as to why he had given positive feedback, whether he had indeed enjoyed the training. “Bloody terrible” he replied. SO WHY, OH WHY, SAY IT WAS GOOD?? "Well", he explained, "I’m English." Dear reader, it took all my will power not to poke his eyes out with my pencil. I guess that means I am not,after all, an English Gentlemen.

Yours,

Calmly

The Broken Man

Toys

In the various bag loads of baby clothes and other items we have recived from friends, there was a bag of toys. Items of bright colours and plastic that make noises at the slightest provication. We are trying to avoid plastic - the research on it tells us to - yet surrounded by this multi-coloured junk i cant help but think we are depriving our child. What toys should we have is the question? Does our child need these brillently colour monstroserties? IT was the biggest argument the long suffering wife and i have had in a long time - i felt that to just hand them on - free cycle them - was a bit much. It felt cruel to decide that no these are not the toys that our baby will have. I am lost folks...HELP!

Yours as ever

Surronded in plastic,

The Broken Man

Money, Money, Money

I spoke to the relevant people about my debt at the weekend. I have been told that even if I need to go bankrupt, as long as the bankruptcy is discharged before I reach the stage of being ordained it will be okay. Obviously I don’t want to go down that particularly road, but I feel a huge weight lifted from my shoulders now that my situation is known and I havent been kicked of the course. Was going to leave this to go with a bigger write up on the weekend, but don’t know when or if I will get around to doing that and so many people have been praying about this, and asking about it, I felt I should tell you as soon as possible!

I am not much one for joy..but…just on this one occasion..I will offer a “Yippie”.

Yippie.

I realise that was an undignified outburst, but I feel it was called for. Just this once mind you.

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Gas

It appears that the long suffering wife has done a very good job of entertaining you in my absence. I will come to the details of the weekend soon, I am sure, but I felt today I should concentrate on the all-important topic of gas.

Our Gas Company wants to change our gas meter. It is due for renewel. Whether this is just an age vs safety thing, or they want to meter us in a new way I don’t know. Our current meter seems to do exactly what its meant to. It meters our gas and lets the company provide us with huge bills. This seems to work well. However, if the Gas company wish to change it then that’s fine by us. Its in the porch. They can do so whenever they wish...you would think. They sent us out a letter asking us to arrange a time they could change the meter. "Any time at all" we said. They require us to be in when they do so. They don't need us in so that they can access it, but they would just like us around. They can't say what time of day they will be there, so they want us to be in all day. In anticipation of this great gas meter change.

It should not come as a shock that we have not felt the need to take a day off work to accommodate them. They don’t “do” evenings or weekends. So, now, every few weeks they send us a letter telling us when they will arrive. We ignore it. They arrive, leave a letter saying "we came to change your meter, but as you were not in, we didn’t. Please rebook."

These letters have begun to give a sense of rhythm to our lives. It feels nice to recive non-bill-related post. Sure, they say the same thing every two weeks. Yes, ultimately, the relationship is stuck in a rut. Yet despite all this, I feel it’s a relationship that I know where I am with. I would actually feel very sad if they did give in and come by one evening. It would change the relationship. I think we have a good thing going now. I am actually becoming attached to the gas meter. I didn’t care about it before. But now I am starting to get attached, starting to think, "well, I like this meter, it's never done me any harm...I don’t think it should be just discarded; cast aside on the scrapheap of used meters." No, this gas meter has become part of the family. I should defend it's right to service; I should keep it. Refuse to let the barbarians take it away.

Then I remember it’s a gas meter, and remind myself I don’t care.

Your as ever,

The broken man

Living On My Own...

I always thought of myself as a fairly solitary person - not really made for communal living. My family life was pretty isolated; we lived in the same house, but mostly tried to keep out of each others' way, and I loathed University, where I first had to live in Halls of Residence, and than in a large, noisy shared house.

I don't sleep well, you see. I have very sensitive hearing (seriously, I can hear the guy in the flat downstairs when he snores), and the merest chink of light wakes me up.

I did have some trepidation when I got married - not about the man I was marrying, but about the general logistics of living in such close proximity to someone else. I worried that the little things would drive me slowly insane, and I would end up hating the person I had once loved so much.

Broken Man's snoring *does* drive me insane, and often drives me to the (comparative) silence of the living room (once I have switched off the buzz of all the electrical equipment) but the fact that every night, he takes a spray to minimise the snoring, just so that I can sleep better, more than makes up for it.

It makes me so cross that he *still* smokes, even though our baby is due in less than three months, but I remember that in trying to quit, he has taken up knitting (briefly), used patches which gave him awful execema, and currently uses a slightly odd looking inhaler. How can I stay cross when he is trying so hard?

So, I'm getting used to not being a solitary person any more. This weekend is showing me just how much I have become accustomed to actually sharing my life with someone else, as opposed to simply sharing space with them.

This weekend I haven't woken at 2 or 3am, to remind Broken Man to come to bed. I haven't worried about having the TV on at night, to drown out the downstairs snoring. I haven't crept into the living room at 5am to sleep and I haven't checked the label of everything I eat for garlic (he's allergic). However, I have locked the front door before I go to sleep. I have (bizarrely) slept on my side of the bed, even though it's all available to me (although he'll tell you I don't do that when he is there!) and I have carefully avoided watching the TV programmes he might want to see when he gets home.

In short, I miss Broken Man. I know that 2 nights is not exactly a long time, and that many people have to live without their partners for much longer, but it came as a bit of a shock to me really. I miss Broken Man, and life is better when we're together.

Sorry for not posting the usual Saturday theology session - I am certainly not up to Broken Man's level, and will leave the theology to him!

Thanks for being such lovely readers during my "guest blog" slots!

Broken Man's Wife

The Long-Suffering Wife?

Hi!

Broken Man is away at a training weekend for the next couple of days, so he has asked me to "guest blog" for him. I've never done this before, so please don't all desert his blog while he is away, or I will look very bad! On the other hand, don't give me more comments than him, or he will feel very bad. Not that we are competative, or anything!

In case you hadn't guessed, I am Broken Man's "long-suffering wife", although I have to say that I don't feel very "long-suffering". It's something I've been thinking about over the last couple of days. As most of you know, Broken Man is dyspraxic. This manifests itself in what most people expect, the clumsiness, but in many other ways as well - above average intellegence, very logical thought progressions and very poor memory.

We have learnt to cope with these issues pretty well; they are just part of our lives now, so we don't even realise that we are "coping", to us we are simply living. It didn't occur to me how alien the way we live is to others until a small incident with a forgotten laptop today.

Broken Man left the house for his training weekend today after I did. Normally, if I'm not around I would leave a checklist of things to remember to put in the car, but this morning I forgot. When I got home, I realised that he had forgotten his laptop. I was due to visit a friend, but, as she has a son who is dyspraxic too, I was able to call her up, and just simply say that Broken Man had forgotten his laptop and I needed to take it to him, so I would be late. She understood exactly why I needed to go.

I only realised how relieved I was that it had been this particular friend I had been letting down in the car on the way home. I have been in this situation before, and have received a torent of well-meaning "advice" and comments from other friends. People say things like "it was up to him to remember, I wouldn't be chasing after him" or "surely he can manage just for a weekend", or "you do far too much for him".

I have got to the stage where I nod politely and move on. It doesn't seem to change anyone's opinion when I try to explain how panicked Broken Man would be if he had to try to make hand-written notes, and how he would invariably lose the notes at some point, or why it really isn't his fault that he forgets things, or the style in which he writes, which *requires* the use of "cut-and-paste", necessitating a computer.

Many people seem to feel a sense of indignation for what I "have to do for" Broken Man. I wish they wouldn't. I don't. He has his difficulties, and I have mine. No-one seems to feel indignant on his behalf because I have such bad panic attacks when I go near a dentist or a hospital that he has to take time off work to accompany me, so why do they feel that way about me helping him out when he needs it?

Dyspraxia is a very hidden disability. I'm sure that no-one would think it odd if I helped my blind husband cross the road, but they do think it's odd that I will go out of my way to help Broken Man in the areas he finds difficult (in the same way that he helps me in areas I find difficult - it's a 50/50 thing!). Our relationship works - I just wonder why so many people feel the need to fix it!

So, I will sign off as "the long-suffering wife", as long as you don't think I really am! :)

Tutorial

Tonight will be my first tutorial, my first chance to meet a couple of the people I will be training with for the next three years. We are expected to have completed unit 1 of the course by this weekend, yet we have been told to bring nothing with us to the tutorial, "it's just a chance to get to know each other…"

It will not come as a surprise to you to learn that I have read through the first five weeks of the course already and done the first essay. Hopefully, this will give me a chance to kick back a little bit and concentrate on the new module of my MA for the next four weeks, and then to flip back to the degree again. I do, however, have a sense of impending panic and doom about whether I will manage the time demands. I really want to get the most out of the degree, and the training; I want it to transform me, to make me into a better person. I would love to go in to one end of the priest-training-grinder as I am and come out the other side shiny, holy, loving, peaceful and wise. Thus far, every other sentence I have read in the study materials has made me want to stab someone to death with a rusty spoon. I really don’t feel cut out for this being a vicar lark. It's barking mad.

The plan tonight is calm..peaceful.. reserved...no sarcasm. Listen respectfully. Learn from those in my group. Think nice thoughts. Don’t become centre of attention. Don’t speak to much. Take other's points of view seriously. I can do this…I can!!

– just in case..i will take a spoon with me.

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

Stories for my Baby

A friend recently objected to our desire to avoid "children's bibles" for our baby. I can't stand them. Everything about them winds me up, and yet, as my friend pointed out, possibly having made sure that their christening present is an interlinear Bible (one that shows the Hebrew, Greek and English translation) might be going to far. The thing is – for me, that’s the whole point – I don’t want to present something watered down – but I do want to tell the great stories – to bring them to life, and I think sometimes we try very hard to avoid doing that with children; the Bible is full of blood and gore, and so we steer clear of certain passages.

For me, I can't think of a more exciting story – I want to tell my child the stories of our ancestors, the story of the people of God. I want to paint pictures in the air of the King who ran naked down the street, and the man who set lions on yobs, and the God who walked upon the earth. I want it vivid and vibrant and full of life, but, in that, I don’t want the point to get lost, I don’t want it dumbed down. I want it told as the sages of old told tales.

And so...while a story needs speaking not writing, I am going to write as a starting point. Saturday has been my traditional day for theology on this blog, and so I am going to stick with it, using Saturdays on here to tell each week a different story – a taste of the bible. If I manage it I will get them together with time, and bind them together, but, more importantly, I will try my best to let them loose - to let them sing, dance, twist and turn through the air; stories of selfish brothers, of wicked uncles, of love and romance, and yes even lust! Stories of peeping toms, and murders, of tent pegs through the head, and a God who screams out from creation "I love you", and then whispers it in our ear on the darkest night as a crown of thorns is pressed onto our God.

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

And For Tonight's Entertainment

The long-suffering wife asked me a few days ago whether I was “up for” going to a homebirth meeting, so I said "sure"; it's always good to get some extra info as we are heading down that avenue, so to speak. So, tonight we are heading off to a stranger's house, with a group of other people who have had or are planning to have homebirths. The couple will show us their homebirth pool, the video of the delivery, and we will all have tea and maybe even biscuits.

If you just managed to read that sentence without stopping half way through and screaming "NO!! WHY??? WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT???" then you have done better than me! Let me draw your attention again to that line...at stranger's house watching a video of them giving birth while they ask if I would like another biscuit.. I am very afraid..in fact the only thing which bothered me more was when, many years ago, a female friend put on a hard core video with her in the starring...position and asked me what I thought of it (I nearly choked on my tea!). I mean, maybe..maybe it will all be tastefully filmed from the head end (the mother's – not baby's) but – okay – I am being pathetic? Squeemish?

And when I get nervous I make jokes…I try not to … but, even now, I am thinking of lines like “OUCH, that must sting", "hey, I bet that put your man off sex for ever", "I mean, wow, that’s not pretty” “are all babies that ugly when born?” “may I say, I love what you have done with your hair..”

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Dedication

We have decided to go for a dedication instead of a christening for our as-yet-unborn baby, and so with incredible organisation skills – absent in our lives up until this point, the service has been planned, booked, and even the liturgy has been written. The invitations have been created, debated, sent back and forth and finally settled on, and all is organised for the 1st Febuary. This seems a little ridiculous with the baby not due till December – but with December comes Christmas, and then holidays, and then we are into the start of January – and suddenly there is only four weeks before the service. So it was today, that the long suffering wife and I bashed out the last bit of text and felt that at last we had completed the necessary arrangements.

And that’s it. You see, at this point, I feel I owe you a witty explanation, a description of how this reveals something profound and meaningful in my life, or how this may indicate something about a change in the way in which my life is organised – but I don’t think it does – it's just what has happened today in amongst the work, and study, and life.

Today – everything is normal

Your as ever,

Dully, The Broken Man

Selling....

As some of you know, I am trying to sell my flat (which is in negative equity) as I can't make the mortgage repayments. We spent weeks decorating, decluttering, cleaning – and finally three weeks ago the "for sale" sign went up. I know the market is slow – I know it’s the worse time to sell – but there really isn’t a choice. So far we have not had a single viewing.

It's not that I am panicking, you understand – what’s the worst that can happen? We will be repossessed... it's not a great thought – something's got to give. But there are also rays of hope – I got a letter this morning from my work saying they have given me a bonus for a project I worked on. We get to eat for another month!! Sometimes it's so hard to trust that things will come right..but I am trying.


Yours as ever

The Broke and Broken Man

I Made This For You......

Many moons ago, when love hurt so much I couldn’t eat, and I was sure that wearing bangles made me look oh so impressive (until that day when I sat for an hour by a fire not noticing that one side of the bangles had got red hot – and stood up, only discover that they spin around your wrist when you move your hand – and it's not easy to remove red-hot bangles when screaming), when I had a waist line that let me scrape my body into drain pipes – and thought this looked good on a man (because at 15 I was so sure I was a man), back in the "summer of cider" as we named it then – I spent many hours – days even, making compilation tapes.

It was an art form; the careful selection of music which you had recorded from the radio, other tapes, and records, with lyrics that told someone how you felt about – given to a friend, but carrying the message loud and clear – "I can't live without you – I will die if you don’t love me as much as I love you – please love me back."

It is said that reminiscing is never what it was – and maybe this age was not so golden, but it had something to be said for it.


As regular readers will know, the long suffering wife and I have been putting together a CD (Well, okay, two CDs - one loud and one peaceful) of music that we like to play to the as-yet-unborn baby. A small testimony to our lives up to this point, sung by strangers who feel like they have become best friends. While we expected arguments to rage and battle lines to be drawn, in actual fact it was a short process, we agreed quickly, dragged and dropped our play list on ITUNES and clicked "burn"...and that was it – out popped a shiny CD with the music we consider to describe us, and our hopes and dreams for our baby. Of course, this needed to be repeated after we had listened to it again and realised that some of the lyrics might be considered a little blue....

So here I am staring at this CD. It's content matters – but somehow I am not satisfied. This doesn’t mean the same as compilation tapes of old. It was just too easy. I didn’t have to lay down in front of my cassette player waiting for a song to end, click stop, take the tape out, wind it back just a few mm so that the click wouldn’t show up on the final recording and then put the tape in for the next track...i didn’t have to carefully write out the track listing by hand..i just clicked a button.


When I was a teenager (which really wasn’t that long ago!) giving someone a compilation tape was a big deal. It showed a serious level of commitment to a friendship or relationship. You knew, when you got one, that the person making it had sat for hours, patiently fast-forwarding or rewinding tapes to find the perfect song, or even worse, trying to put the needle on the vinyl at just the right place – rewinding and taping over bits when the first chords were missed, as they inevitably were. Even when you had a song on CD, you still had to transfer it to tape, and get all the gaps between the songs just the right length. It really meant something, and I still have many of those tapes which people made for me.

I am a technophile – I am more than happy with new technology, but I miss the old compilation tape – sometimes – just sometimes – the effort counts more than the end result – I don’t care if it's perfect..i care that it shows that someone cares.


Yours in the past, as now,

The Broken Man

It's A Man Thing

Men don’t talk. We don’t, not really. Not since the tribal councils of centuries ago. Men might compare notes on football but that seems to be about it. You sometimes see a few of them scurrying about after church service struggling to find anything to say to each other or anyone else; and so it was in an attempt to provide a forum for communication, that a year ago, I set up the Men's Breakfasts at my church. We now have a turn-out of about 20 men aged from 12-85 once every six weeks who get together for a fry up and chat on the topic of the day. So it was, on Saturday morning, that the alarm clock went off at 5 past stupid o’clock and I crawled out of bed.

I need to make this very, very clear – I do not like mornings. Hate them. I am not someone who wakes up with a spring in my step – I wake up wanting to go back to sleep. Why, oh why, did the idea of Men's Breakfasts seem so sensible? I thought of it on an afternoon. Not first thing in the morning. That was part of the problem.

It should be noted that I had been to only one such thing before – many years previousy..and hated it..so why I thought I would enjoy it by running it I don’t know. Despite the ridiculous hour though, I really do. I tend to speak for a few mins on a topic and then throw it open for discussion, and with a clear topic to discuss we find ourselves talking, challenging each other, revealing our past to each other, and then on Sunday, there seems to be less scuttling; we seem to, at last, recognise each other.


So the next topic is... "Is God a Man?" (I want to call it "Has God got a Penis", but may have to tone it down a little!!)

So many books, articles, writers – talk about demascalising God – or rather showing the feminine of God, and yet although it's an issue that I have discussed with lots of women, I have never discussed with men. So much of the Bible is written by men for men (I can hear the cries already – "INSPIRED BY GOD!!! INSPIRED BY GOD!!") but when it comes down to it – whenever we describe God, we limit God – God is the great I AM. Anything more we say; any description we find is to small to contain God.

So we will see..but here and now, at midday, it seems worth getting up early in the morning to sit around with menfolk and put the world to rights…

The Conference and my Studies

fI was trying to work out what to blog about today, and the long suffering wife has suggested that my write-up about the conference might be seen as somewhat...well "lacking" is the expression she used.

The difficulty with trying to talk about the conference is – that let's be honest – you don’t care. Do you really want to know about a lecture I attended given by the very brilliant Dr Hannah Holtschneider of the University of Edinburgh ‘Regarding the Pain of Others reflections on the use of photography in Holocaust musems.’? No, if you were that fussed, you would have been there, or have all ready done some reading on the subject. Even if you did decide from my description of it that this is a topic you want to know more about, I wouldn’t necessarily be the best person to ask...she would.

I suspect then my wife is suggesting that I talk about the room I was sleeping in – (it had a bed and sink) or about how wonderful Cambridge is as a city (very) ..or… you see, the problem is, I really am not sure what small talk I can make from all this, and even how worth while doing so would be.

Having returned – panic still high about money, working 8.30-6pm in a 9-5 job (so to speak), I am ever more certain that this is not where I want to be – that I would love to be studying full time, that I would love to be learning and with that learning, hopefully, changing. This brings me onto my new Degree course. This is a course which approaches theology not as just an academic discipline in which one can develop an ever better argument, and attempt to answer the question, for example “”Is there a God?”, or “What does God require of humanity”, but rather “How will I become what God requires me to be”. This is a substantial shift for me – not because I don’t look for the application of knowledge, but, up to this point, if I was to submit a paper which revealed a “faith biais” I would have been dragged over burning coals while academics pointed at me while murmuring “shame”. My new course is designed to consider the application of learning not in the presentation of a compelling paper (although that is gladly recived) but in the application of these principles.

This raises an interesting question about the course in my mind as a “Degree”. Please don’t get me wrong – I believe that the focous is a good and positive one – it is training for ministry that the course aims to provide after all – but should training of this type – which requires a particular religious belief within the practical ministrial modules – be termed as an academic degree?

Yours as ever,

Studiously, the broken man

Cry Baby

The wife is currently in tears - she has just read that babys show crying behaviours and startle responces in the womb at this stage! Baby is not even born and it may be crying...and now i have a crying wife...i suspect it will only get worse when its born.. scared yet?

The last few days..

I have spent the last few days at a symposium on Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge , an event which was attended by some people with intellects and levels of experience which completely dazzle me. The subject for the conference was “Memory in a Memory-less age” and involved scholars from a huge range of fields. It was truly humbling to be walking the corridors of Cambridge , and very scary for someone as unlearned as me to be in the presence of so much greatness.

The conversations which had the most significance for me were those in the bar after papers had been presented. I have made some contacts which I hope will be sustained, as some of those I spoke with are addressing areas that I find fascinating and challenging.

I was also very pleased to be the receipt of The Steinberg Award. This is given to the most promising student each year in the field of Jewish-Christian relations. Note – not the best student – but the most promising. I really am very chuffed indeed.


Yours as ever,


The humbled Broken Man

Hi Hun..I'm home

Right! I am back..oh so much to talk about..but not tonight if you will excuse me?

Thank you to everyone who is commenting on the discussion on "Is it 'cause I'm Gay" your input is greatly appreciated.

I will try and do a post tommorow bringing you upto date on my last few days..but tonight..I need to sleep!

Going Away..

I will be away for a few days at a conference, so have lest tommorows post to auto appear..I might post when i am away if i have internet access and there is time between lecturers!

Sorry to keep it so brief - but when you have nothing to say - i tis soemtimes better to say nothing!

For A Friend....

The discussion yesterday about pregnancy got me thinking again. One of the big issues with teenage pregnancy is it is often the “good kids” who get pregnant. The reason for this is that they are not expecting to have sex, and so are less likely to be carrying protection.

One of the ways we attempt to combat this with our young people is by asking people to “carry for a friend”. By carrying, we tell them that if a friend finds themselves in a situation they will be able to say "here is some protection". Because they are not carrying it for themselves – and we encourage people to talk it through with parents – the embarrassment of carrying it is gone – and yet if it's needed it's there.


In other News:

Finance:
We can take on a debt management plan which would help – a lot – the problem is when we do this we will have no access to credit cards etc anymore, and when we sell we will need to pay the soliciters (as in negative equity that money won't be there where we sell). As such we can't go on a debt management plan yet. Things are, however, improving. We have taken the money we need out the bank for food etc (we take it out at the start of the month so that if things bounce it's not the food bill that suffers) – and we have only just run out of money this month. Last month it was the 1st when the bank was over overdraft – and this month that hasn’t hit in till the 4th.


A book I was looking at yesterday asked me to look at the Lord’s prayer and how it speaks to my personal situation right now. It will come as no shock that in tears I prayed over and over again – "Lord God, forgive me my debts".


It Moves
When I crawled into bed last night and wrapped my arm around my wife and baby, the baby's kicking seemed more pronounced than ever; this is one energetic baby! The midwife at the last appointment was apparently surprised at how active the baby is – apparently the more active they are in the womb the more active they are in life. Yes, folks, it seems we have a hyperactive baby. "Surely not", I hear you say, "you will have a baby who would prefer to sit and read a good book than cause mayhem – surely – your child will be born with a taste for sitting and having a bit of a think…"


If I Were a Rich Man

"Dear God, you made many, many poor people.
I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.
But it's no great honor either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?"

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.

I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
Squawking just as noisily as they can.
And each loud "cheep" and "swaqwk" and "honk" and "quack"
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say "Here lives a wealthy man."

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

I see my wife, my Golde, looking like a rich man's wife
With a proper double-chin.
Supervising meals to her heart's delight.
I see her putting on airs and strutting like a peacock.
Oy, what a happy mood she's in.
Screaming at the servants, day and night.

The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know!

If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray.
And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.
And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.
Lord who made the lion and the lamb,
You decreed I should be what I am.
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan?
If I were a wealthy man.



Maybe..its a God thing that I am not a rich man

Yours as ever

The Broke and Broken Man

Things that go Bump

Sarah Palin and her Situation

I have seen lots of posts on people's blogs over the last couple of days regarding Sarah Palin (the American Republican Vice-President nominee) and the situation she and her daughter have found themselves in. For those who don't know, her 17 year old daughter has found herself pregnant, and is planning on marrying the father of her child. Lots of the blogs have asked people to comment on the situation, and whenever I tried my comments were so long that I have given up, and decided to post on it myself!

My take on the situation is this:

I hope that the young people concerned are of the mature variety (and no, getting pregnant doesn't preclude that) and that their marriage and family life will be happy. I think that it is a personal and private decision and one which only this young woman and her partner (with the help and support of her family) can make.

I don't think that having a pregnant daughter is always a reflection on the parent - actually *most* teenagers end up having sex, however much we hope they won't, and many of them have unprotected sex - often because they are "good kids" and didn't intend to have sex outside marriage, so when the emotions and desires overtook them they were unprepared. Most parents are lucky that their kids don't come home pregnant. It sounds like this mum was one of the unlucky ones.

I realise that by even discussing this at all, I am fueling the belief that there is a right to discuss other people's lives in this way – and I really don’t think there is. My main feeling about this story is moral outrage – how dare people publish details relating to the daughter of someone standing for public office?

I am aware that at this stage that some people might want to bring up the Bible passage that talks about church leaders being people who have well-ordered families. Just as a point of clarifaction, this specifically refers to children under the age of 12/13, as this was the age at which the Israelites reached adulthood. It was also written about a situation in which a parent had the right to put their child to death for disobedience! When such sanctions were possible (I note, *possible*, not desirable!) having unruly children was seen in a very negative manner. I don’t see that this law can be applied to this situation.

So I ask myself – will my child lie to me? Will they always be honest with me – always respect me? I doubt it... I suspect there will be times when my child will behave in ways that they know I wouldn’t approve of, and so will try to hide this behaviour from me. I hope that they won't...I hope they will always feel they can come and talk to me...but experience of youth work has shown me that no parent knows everything their child gets up to. As a parent, our task is to equip our children to make the choices they need to, to be able to deal with the situations they face and, above all, to know that they are loved unconditionally.

If this story tells me anything at all – it's that a lass has got pregnant before she intended – probably to the “surprise” of her parents – and they are supporting her. Whatever your political affliation (and believe me, I have none when it comes to American Elections!) surely that is a positive outcome and the parents should be commended for it?

On a lighter note, I let my memory card reader at work last night, so won't be able to post the latest pics of the bump until this evening. Apologies if you tuned in just for that!

Yours Outrageously,

The Broken Man

Baby Fears

I have been looking up stage of developments on the web...as one does... I am told that my baby now weighs 1.7 pounds, and is 14 inches long, retinas are forming and brain wave activity is detectable. Its incredible!

Okay, maybe more so if you are expecting a baby!

I will add a picture this evening – I note someone suggested I put a pic of me up as well.…on an anonymous blog this would seem difficult. I could put a pic of my stomach up as well as my wifes...i look fairly pregnant myself...but trust me...that, you don’t want to see!


The sister of one of my wife's collegues has just had a still birth. She was at about the same stage we are now. I don’t know how I would cope if that happened to us – it makes me want to cry just to think about it – what she must be going through. I can't begin to imagine – and a part of me doesn’t want to – I realise a part of me just doesn’t want to think about it


I am so scared; scared for my baby, scared for my wife, scared for the kind of father I am meant to be – as much as I joke about the perfect baby, perfect father bit – well I am sure you all know, I am scared stupid about getting it all wrong, and I am not sure I could bear losing either one of them.


Yours,


The Broken man

Boxes and Pain

Much of the weekend was used taking more boxs over to my mums from my loft, with the long suffering wife pregnant and having syndromes and me with my back gone this meant that we need to call in help. My young brother and a couple of our group members came and gave a hand and did a sterling job as we supervicsed.

I think supervising is a far better suited role for me when it comes to physical exertion.

The wife - while in a bit of pain this moring is heading of to Thorpe Park - or Alton Towers - well one of those kidns of places anyway (I was listning honest) with her work..she is finding it painful to walk this morning - what she thinks she is doing going there i really dont know!

She is looking glorious pregnant right now. Will have to post a new photo!

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man