Three Positive Things

To say that the radio work hasn’t been flowing in since I was binned by Viking FM last Christmas is no slight understatement. I am indebted to West Yorkshire’s Pulse 1 for the cover work they have thrown my way and the regular weekend shows but other radio stations seem to be slightly less giving in the employment stakes. Until now.

This week I’m covering the Breakfast Show on Pulse 1, bizarrely deputising for my old Viking partner in crime Rosie, I’m also presenting Drive on Stray FM, a lovely station with great people and not far from my house. For all of those reasons plus the usual financial and career-based ones I had to take it even though I’ll leave the house at 4:45am and not return until 7:30pm. With bath time at 6pm and then straight to bed it means no Elsa time for Daddy and, with that in mind, Jill has decided it’s a good time to catch up on visiting friends around the country.

I’ve been spoilt with plenty of baby time up until now so it’s going to be a tough old week without her, so much so that I’m scrabbling around for pluses. Thus, in the style of those lists that have become so popular on Facebook, here are three positive things about the week ahead (other than being paid to mess about on the wireless):

Elsa has a dairy intolerance and, seeing as she’s feeding from Jill and when she isn’t she’s eating essentially what we eat too, we’re all off the lactose. I will be eating pizza this week, a massive pizza all to myself and I can’t flaming wait. I also intend to become the first man to ever fall into a Camembert coma.

When Elsa goes to sleep we generally want her to stay that way for as long as possible. As a parent you soon work out where all the squeaky floorboards are in the house and, it turns out, we have quite a lot. As a clumsy man with an annoying tendency for knocking over only the noisiest items in the house I am on constant tenterhooks when moving about after 6:30pm.

For a week, therefore, I can stomp about the house in a one man band outfit if I wish. It’s unlikely I’ll get round to it but it’s good to know the opportunity is there. I also don’t have to worry about the kids on our road that make so much noise the people who run Leeds Bradford airport (seven miles from our house) have complained that they are drowning out the sound of their jet engines. Judging by the volume these children achieve it seems like the most fun is to be had right outside Elsa’s open window. Not ideal.

Yes, even with a planned 4:30am wake up it will be novel to sleep through the night with no interruptions. Elsa’s actually a good sleeper when she’s not teething but there’ll quite often be at least one wake up in the middle of the night which breaks up our sleep patterns. Even if she doesn’t wake there are the odd bizarre sleep noises that she occasionally makes and, when you’re on edge and ready to comfort her should she become upset, that’s often enough to wake us up even if she turns over and drifts off back to the land of nod.

It will just be novel to wake up to something other than a baby for a change. In the eight months in which she has been alive I think I’ve been woken twice by my alarm. Her new found love for waking at 5:30 means that function of my mobile phone has become pretty much redundant. I may be waking up early but at least it’ll be on my own terms.

So that’s a little positivity but, you know what? I’m going to miss that little mite, not to mention her mum too. I just need to remember that I’m doing it for her. Those mushed up papayas that she loves so much don’t buy themselves, trust me. Ever get the feeling you’ve made a middle class rod for your own back?