why a blog and why now?

Ok, so this blog is taking a little longer to get going then I had initially planned, mostly due to the holidays and having relatives visiting. I'm hoping to get things moving along soon, but with a trip down south to the in-laws (due to the wife's work) it may not be as soon as I had hoped. However, before I get in to the general content of the blog, (of which the ideas are piling up) here is a little bit on why I have chosen to blog.

I touched briefly on this in the first post, but I thought I would expand things a little here. I've written a bit about my life in the page above, but I wanted to add some more thoughts here and explain a few things before we got to far along.

Since I met my wife, some 8 years ago, we've had pretty similar ideas on raising children, i.e. one parent to stay at home, and as I mentioned, I never thought it would be me. When they started making redundancies in the company I worked at, my department was the only one who didn't have any redundancies, although a couple of contract staff didn't get their contracts renewed. So, it was fairly evident that we were next and as it turned out, they made several redundancies and also went down to a 4 day week! My wife on the other hand had just finished her training and was contracted to 2 years work. So we chose the 2 years of pretty much guaranteed work over possibly no work, not a particularly hard choice. So started my time as a househusband.

Once the little man came along it was just natural that we would continue on the same path, I would continue at home and the wife would continue at work. I seemed natural and sensible, rather than me having to try and find a job the could support us. I have worked several times during my stint as a househusband/father, working evenings or weekends around the children and wife, but it always cuts in to family time, mostly as working usually occurs at weekends or evenings, the two times when were all together or time when the wife and I get to have some quality time.

With the arrival of the young lady, time has become even more precious. These days I find there is never enough time, even with the little man being at nursery, to get all the chores done and get time to relax and enjoy my hobbies. DIY work pretty much takes up most of my evenings. So your probably wondering why I started this blog? Well, mostly because I though it might be a good idea, as a platform for many different things, either for me to moan, to ask questions (and maybe get answers), to see what others out there are experiencing, (mostly other full time dads, as there doesn't seem to be many blogs dedicated to us), to ponder the universe and the meaning of life. Ok, maybe not the last two, but you get the idea.

I hope that in some small way this may bring others full time dads together. I personally don't know any other full time dads, there are a few dads who take a leading role in childcare, but none that I know who are full time dads. I think in my wildest dreams I see this blog becoming the centre of full time dad universe, but in reality, I guess it'll probably just be me shouting at the internet, a lot.

So, hopefully there will be some actual content up soon!

introduction

Well, its taken a while longer to get this post together than I hoped, probably something to do with trying to start a blog during half term! Who thought that would be a good idea! Oh well, the little man is back at nursery and the young lady is asleep, so with out further delay, here it is;

So, I thought that I would write a little about myself, my family and my life, just so you know what I have to deal with on a daily basis. There will be a more in depth version in the tab above, but I thought I'd give you the basics here.

So, currently we live on an island in the north sea, just about as far north as you can get and still be part of the UK. It's a wonderful place to live, full of beautiful scenery, stunning coastline and friendly people, you just have to put up with the wind and rain, the dark winters and the fact that sometimes you can't get the things you want (but there's tons of the things you don't!). Personally I could stay here forever, but life may not allow that.

When I say we, I mean myself and the dear wife, who works far to hard but it supports us all and our lifestyle, then there are the little ones, the little man, 4, and the young lady, 1. Then there is the horse, a recent acquisition and my wife's hobby, and shortly there will be two cats.

We came to live on this island due to my wife's job, a promotion opportunity that she couldn't pass up, even if that meant cutting short her maternity leave. It is our second trip up here and even though our first trip lasted only 6 months, we were quite happy to return.

I started on the journey of stay at home parent as a result of circumstances, nothing more. While we had talked about a stay at home parent, I never even thought it would be me at home, stereotypical I know. As it happens thought, I think I'm better suited to the life (and so does the wife), even if my housework skills aren't always up to scratch!

Most of the time its a great life, full of joy and happiness, most of the time anyway, some of the time I wouldn't mind trading the pair of them in for a quieter model (or ones that slept!), but it never lasts long. With the end of the holidays  in sight, I'm looking forward to having a few hours of peace and quiet when the little man is at nursery and the young lady is having a nap, just enough time to catch up on all the housework I've been ignoring over the holidays.

First post

Well, here we are. I've finally decided to do this and write a parenting blog. There are many reasons for this, stretching back over several years, from my time as a globe trotting daddy of one to a full time stay at home daddy of two. If you are interested in my life history for some reason check out the pages tab above ( about me ), I can't imagine why you would be though as my life is no more exceptional than anyone else's.

So, why start this blog now? I've been blogging about my hobby for a while now, a childhood hobby that I've failed to put down, and I've recently started reading another blog, the unmumsy mum (I will post a link at some point), a truly great blog I recommend reading. I've often looked at parenting blogs but its always the same, the story of supermum X and her wonderful kids and a whole bunch of product reviews. But reading the unmumsy mum has shown me there are other blogs, and while I've found a few, none were male orientated. And further research has lead me to the same conclusion about dad blogs, the story of super dad X and their product reviews. I'm sure there are other good blogs out there, I just haven't found them yet and if you know of any, let me know.

So the idea is to start a blog, fill it with tales of my parenting, adventures, and General thoughts on life and children. It is going to be a basic, no thrills types of affair, mostly As I don't really do anything else. K.I.S.S. as they say, keep it simple stupid, no point making things more compex then they need to be. As to whether the blog will be any good, time will tell, that and if anybody actually reads it!

P.S. I'll apologise for the spelling now, yes it is terrible.

New blog

Ok, this blogs been going about half an hour so as yet there is no content to show, but don't worry there's plenty on the way, whether its any good is another issue all together!