Brighton 🇬🇧 ➡️ Portland, OR 🇺🇸 // 👨👩👧👦 // 👷🏻 & 👨💻 // 🌿 💪🏼 🚶🏻♂️ // ❤️
You can’t pick them, but you’ve got to love them. Luckily, loving mine is fairly easy
Six months after Jack was born and almost as long since our last photo shoot with Sarah Wood, we decided we needed to get some new photos done for our Christmas card.
We were so happy with how our photos came out and it’s weird to see how much they’ve both grown in 6 months (especially Jack, who was just a baby last time).
A few days ago I went and got my first tattoo. I’ve wanted a tattoo for the past four or five years, but could never settle on something that I knew I wanted on my body for the rest of my life.
However, in an article that Martina and I read in New York Magazine lately, the author introduced a phrase that I hadn’t heard before:
Ya’aburnee (Arabic) [ya-BOR-nay] – approximately translates to “you bury me”, meaning that you hope your lover buries you because the idea of living without them is unbearable.
I think that most people would agree that it’s important for them to feel safe in their relationships by knowing that they will be treated with dignity and respect and that any wrong can be reconciled amicably. This is chiefly seen in marriages and close friendships and I don’t know why we don’t treat our children the same way.
Most people seem to think that using phrases like “because I said so” are normal and acceptable, but I question that. Such phrases imply that there’s a servant and a master, rather than a level playing field. As for me and my wife, we think that our children are little humans with feelings and ideas. While we have a responsibility to protect them from the dangers that they may face, they can make their own decisions and we try to allow them to do so at every opportunity possible. We empower them to be responsible for and to themselves.
In a couple of weeks, Ellie will celebrate her 2nd birthday. As part of the invitation we have specifically requested that birthday party attendees do not bring gifts. Here’s a few thoughts on why we chose to do that:
Following the arrival of Jack, my family is now complete. My beautiful wife Martina, my daughter Ellie and my son Jack now make up our little family unit of four, with no more room at the inn.
Jack will be the last of our children so these pictures are the first of our whole family. Even though I’m well aware of the fact that I have a wife and a daughter and a son, to see our family together in a photo somehow makes it seem that much more surreal. I actually have a complete family; it might seem weird for me to say that, but it really hits home that we’re now a whole independent unit responsible to and for one another. And we’ve got another couple of decades like this before we start to divide and multiply.
When you find out that you’re pregnant, one of the first pieces of “wisdom” that you’ll hear is to keep it to yourselves until about 12 or 13 weeks, as the first trimester is when the bulk of miscarriages occur. Once you’ve cleared that hurdle, you’re much more likely to go to term the theory goes.
I personally disagree and it was nice to see that a client of mine agreed. She became pregnant recently and became aware at about 5 weeks. However she didn’t want to let the fear of what might happen to the baby stop her from enjoying the moment.
She wanted people to share in her joy, and rightly so. She put it better than I possibly could, but I would encourage you to share your happy moments with the ones you love, not least because if the worst should happen, you’d want to be surrounded by the love, compassion and comfort of your friends rather than suffering in silence.
With my love of John Oliver made well-known, his recent piece on maternity leave which he chose to air on Mother’s Day made me love him even more.
I was sickened to learn about maternity leave in the States when my wife became pregnant. Legally, a company doesn’t have to give you a single paid day off after you force a human being out of your vagina. The only law currently protecting mothers is the FMLA act which affords individuals up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for certain medical events (including birth) during which time your job is protected assuming you and your company meet all of the prerequisite conditions.
I haven’t posted anything here for a couple of weeks now. And for good reason: on the 5th of May, I became a father again.
Jack William Clements was born at home in the water (as planned) at 7.05pm into the loving arms of his mother. He was 9lbs 11oz and measured 22 ¼” long.
A few months ago, my wife sent me a link to a podcast episode, because it featured a guest that I knew and she thought I might enjoy it. His name was Justin Stumvoll and he and the two hosts Wes and Ryan spoke intelligently for an hour about men, our sexuality, the fact that we’re emotional creatures and that real masculinity is not found in bravado, but in your confidence and humility.
It was an excellent episode that really engaged me, got me thinking and more importantly wasn’t a dull repeat of oft-repeated clichés: it was out-of-the-box thinking that challenged the status quo, dared to ask the questions that people shy away from and invited discussion, disagreement and debate.
It took me listening to this episode to realise how much I miss conversation like this. I’ve discussed previously how objectivity is so absent in America and how dearly I miss it.
The way in which we talk to and about pregnant women (and their husbands/boyfriends) is a little bizarre as far as I’m concerned.
Just yesterday, we met with our midwife who made a good point that there comes a point in a woman’s pregnancy where she is now undeniably pregnant (maybe at 5 or 6 months in) where people feel her body is now an acceptable conversation piece.
Aside from just being plain awkward, there are certain things which make the expectant mother feel bad. This is by no means exhaustive, but it’s just some of the things that we’ve experienced over the past 2 years that have caused irritation:
