My little girl’s not a little girl anymore, she’s now a young woman. And i feel irrationally sad about it. It seems like only yesterday she was this big.

If you’ve got youngsters, now matter how much they wind you up with their constant demands and babble and idiot behaviour, cherish every moment because they don’t stay little for long.

The day she was born i told my wife she didn’t belong to us, we only had her on loan until she was old enough to make her own way. I guess that day just got another step closer.

I agree with all you say, but how my daughter is acting now at 19 I sometimes wish she was not my offspring.

i feel irrationally sad

It’s not irrational. Those little fleshbags are biological clocks; the older they get, the less time you’ve got left 😉

we all have days like those. Make allowances when they’re little, they don’t know better.

When they’re older – they’ve all got the potential to be psychowitches.

I agree. My little girls turn 7 tomorrow and it seems only yesterday that I sat in bed (after a long night in the hospital) with a large Scotch watching the sun coming up thinking ‘shit, I’m a daddy’.

Now we are easily halfway to them being their own people.

She will alwyas be your little girl though mate. And she will always need her dad. In a different way. And soon enough you will have no time for riding as you will be baby sitting your grandchildren…. 😉

As my daughter (11 this month) says: “Don’t worry Dad, I’ll always be your first baby.”.

I say to my two ‘don’t grow up please’ and they tell me they have to. One of them already has :-/

My youngest girl (three and a bit) gave me a neck crushing hug, a big, wet, blackberry yoghurt smeared kiss and told me “don’t miss me too much Daddy!” before I left this morning. Man, I’m going to miss that sort of thing when they’re all older.

She will alwyas be your little girl though mate.

For sure, it’s just crossing this particular one of life’s rubicons has hit me more than i thought it would and more than any birthday / turning ten / going to secondary school.

Lighter note – I got caught in a storm last week and dived into a book shop out of the rain. nearest carousel had the ‘new’ Ladybird books on it (check them out, genius) and i picked up the Ladybird book of ‘The Dad’. This page is extra prescient….

My eldest just turned six.

I always remember the sage warning of my father-in-law when my brother-in-law’s sprogs turned six:
“You’ve already had a third of your time with them. And they’ll probably hate you for most of the last third. So make the most of it.”

i feel irrationally sad

That may be just the condition of your grass in the photo.

Despite coming home to a sofa with piss on it, a inconsolable three year old and a night of crying from our 5 month old, just a little smile this morning makes it all worth while.

Ha! My daughter is only 7 and a bit months old & she’s already growing up too fast!! 😆

I didn’t think I’d be bothered to be at work all day, but I come home & hear from my Wife about all the things they’ve been doing together & silly little steps of progress that show how quickly she’s developing.
Then I get maybe 45mins with her before I put her to bed, & then see her for about an hour in the morning before going back to work….. 😐

That may be just the condition of your grass in the photo.

Hmmm……

<boastful moment> that’s not my grass, that’s Antigua. When we had money to spend on decent holidays, before every last penny went on clubs and school trips and shoes and clothes and food (christ, the amount they eat) and petrol to get to all these activities

Thanks – what was originally meant as a hurtful comment has just made me feel better, I’m a day closer to them becoming self sufficient (or if they’re like my wife, dependant on someone other than me)

I’ve become a hopeless sap since my son arrived in the world. He’s the happiest bag of bones I’ve ever seen and sparked my emotions into life with his character, love and affection. His cheek and insolence, his bedtime hugs and joy in the smallest of things (a spider, clothes pegs, eating stones). And he’s the most handsome little fella!

Hope he knows I’ll always be there. Wee chap.

Every bit of growing they do gives you something new and great. How boring would it be to look after a 4 year old your whole life??!

I didn’t think I’d be bothered to be at work all day.. I get maybe 45mins with her before I put her to bed, & then see her for about an hour in the morning before going back to work….. 😐

Reduce your hours. Compress them and go part time if you can.

When number two came along I realised just how fast the early years with number one had gone and how much I missed. I made the decision to reduce my contracted hours from 39 hours Mon-Fri to 36 hours Mon-Thurs.

Best decision I ever made.

https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working/overview

GrahamS – Member

Reduce your hours. Compress them and go part time if you can.

When number two came along I realised just how fast the early years with number one had gone and how much I missed. I made the decision to reduce my contracted hours from 39 hours Mon-Fri to 36 hours Mon-Thurs.

Yeah, I’d love to but while my Wife isn’t working I don’t think we could afford it.
Once she’s back to work, I think I’ll look into it as that’s what two of the bloke’s here already do & it seems to work really well for them.

My commute doesn’t help (1hr each way) – but again, the nearer to home I get the lower the wages are, so I don’t think in our current situation it would work for us.
We really should sit down & do the maths on it all, because it would be great to free some time up!

We really should sit down & do the maths on it all

You do have to tighten your belts, but bear in mind:

a) you are cutting out hours from your highest tax band, so although in my case my pre-tax salary is 36/39ths of what it was, my actual take home hasn’t reduced that much.

b) if you get a day off then that’s one less day of child care you need to pay for (more relevant if/when your wife goes back to work).

c) there are a LOT of families out there surviving on a hell of a lot less. So look at them and realise it can be done – it just requires budgeting.

My commute doesn’t help (1hr each way)

Any option to work from home, even if it is just one day a week?

I’ve dropped to a 3 day week so my boy sees lots of me. Don’t care about the money, you can’t buy time

My eldest is five today. Cycling to school, she announced “I’m much quicker than when I was four you know”.

My daughter is 13 going on 18 at the minute – life’s a joy everyday! 😀

Thanks to a local government grant for stay at home parents, I took the first two years of fatherhood as a ‘sabbatical’ of sorts (though could have done the same with a very part-time job). The extra time I had also led to setting up as self employed so now I have a lot more time with the bairn than if I’d gone back to the job. Corny but true, nobody wishes they’d spent more Fridays at the office…

Following on from the Thothers pic above

From Hero to Zero

I heard that sage advice when my little girl was 6 months old and the following middle of the the night feed I had a big attitude change.

I realised in years to come, I’ll look back to the time that I could make her content with a warm bottle of milk and a cuddle, and wish it was still that easy

She was 8 last week and into her last term as a first year junior, time has indeed flown by… No warm milk anymore but her bday present from me was piggybacks at EVERY opportunity for a week … I’ve enjoyed it so much we’ve extended for another week 😀

As for the lad, not yet six…. we went to ACDC on Saturday night and furious air guitar was performed all evening.

It’s gone ever so dusty in here reading this thread…….

My kids are growing up fast, my lad will be 8 in a few weeks and my daughter is only 5 but it goes so quickly.

On the other hand though, I was 40 in April and I went with to Bruce Springsteen at the weekend with my mum, just me and her. It was great! 😀

Every bit of growing they do gives you something new and great. How boring would it be to look after a 4 year old your whole life??!

I am with Dez on this.
Tomorrow our youngest is off to work at Camp America (for 3 months).
So I am worried,happy,sad and proud in equal measures.
He will always be my wee boy,and no matter what,these open arms are always here.

ahh, my two girls are just entering into the ‘dormouse’ phase – we’re enjoying the weekend mornings being quiet until they can prise themselves out of bed @ 10am. Long gone are the days of being shaken awake at 4:30am by a bored child looking for a play companion. I’m not enjoying that one week of the month where everyone “feels a bit ‘motional” (as my youngest said, bursting into irrational, hormone-driven tears).

The dog and I are going to add a woodburning stove, fridge, tv and another couple of locks to the shed.

But yes, it flys past SCARILY fast. Not better or worse IMO, just different demands. (I can always avail myself of my brothers kids (between 2yrs and 9yrs) if I want a reminder of what it felt like to have little ones hanging off you)

Me and my 12 year old daughter still hold hands and skip everywhere, from the car to Asda etc 🙂

There may come a day when she doesn’t want to, hopefully it’s because my Zimmer frame trips us up!

My 14 year old son is turning into a young man and talks to me about anything. Last week after we dropped his sister off at Zoo school (Blackpool Zoo)he set me up with this…..
“Dad, you know how Zoo’s have exotic animals, why don’t they have domestic animals like dogs in there as well?”

“Well Son, that would be a Shih Tzu”
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself

He’s never going to speak to me again 😀

My eldest boy is 8 and my youngest 6. Seems like yesterday they were tiny.

They are very very different which is ace. Eldest likes his rugby, youngest likes his cooking. But both like bikes!

The eldest is becoming a mini-me, we seem to do most things together whereas the youngest (who has some sensory processing issues) tends to cling to the wife more. Youngest is ace when it’s just me and him though. He’s a complicated character. The eldest one is much simpler.

I work a bog standard 9-5 but as their school and my work is in the village in which we live, I can drop them off at school and be in work for 9 and home by 5 past 5, so I get to see quite a lot of them compared to a lot of dads.

I don’t do too badly with work, I used to work a four day week but now they are both at school I drop them off on a friday and go in for a few hours then finish early and pick them up. In school holidays I revert to a four day week again.
My Wife still does a four day week and also does another drop off and pick up.

Works well and we still have decent wages coming in.

I am a stay at home dad, twins have just turned 3 and i have an 8 yr old. Time hasnt really flown by or certainly doesnt feel like it but i guess being with the kids almost 24/7 has a lot to do with that. I realised my 8 yr old was growing up when she didnt really care for animated films anymore, cartoons or similar are too childish for her, sadly these have now been replaced with mainly american sh1t!

They do and they don’t.

My lads are 11 and 8 now, and it hardly seems like any time since the eldest refused to go anywhere without his small wooden hammer and Mr Dinosaur ate half their dinners by way of encouragement. Now the wee one is a genuine comedian and the big one is the person I want to ride my mountain bike with more than anyone else.

Life on the whole is short, don’t forget to enjoy it wherever you can.

I have a 5yr old and a 3 week old. I am very happy and I do cherish every single moment. I walk my eldest to school while she sccots and I love watching her scoot away with her little legs and wait for me at the corner. She’s always telling me she loves me so I guess I’m doing something right and it’s very rewarding. My youngest just needed her nappy changing, it was filled with watery poo, whilst I was sorting it out she had another watery poo on the change mat and then to mix things up a bit she decided to have a wee as well. So the change mat was covered in wee and watery poo and she needed changing her clothes. Lovely!

Thought Springstein would be a bit more popular than that :wink@

Yes they do grow up I realise I have only a few years left f getting the out riding before the teenage years set in and they might be more interested in other things

Glad I gave up work for my time with them.

Really not ready for the day they think I am a tosser

They already do, they just haven’t worked out how to articulate it yet.

Thought Springstein would be a bit more popular than that

😀

Boy1 will be no longer “boy” from next week. He turns 18 in a few days and it feels like 5 minutes ago he was a little thing in my arms.

I’m so immensely proud of the man he’s become.

* Bit dusty in here.

MrLugzJr has 5 schooldays left. Currently going through the ‘father is an inconvenience’ phase.
MiniLugz has just turned 9, is bike daft and still loves dad cuddles. I’ll be treasuring the next few years. (until he gets faster than me anyway)

Mine are 20 and 18. They are still both at home and generally happy to be there. I dont know how I will cope when one of them decides to leave. If I hear the Beatles song “she’s leaving home” I cant help but cry. I think the adaption process is gradual so when it happens you are almost ready plus they become so challenging an independent if either of them stayed at a friends for a a day or 2 I would hardly notice.

My two boys are 4 & 2.

The big one is bonkers, mad for anything with wheels on it and can be a huffy little sod when he wants to be (takes after his mother in that respect), can’t stand being by himself and is just a boy.

The little one is a totally different character, can happily play on his own for hours, wanders round in his own little world and tantrums last all of 2 minutes before you see that look in his eyes of “balls to this, I’m not getting anywhere or proving anything. Pretty much a mirror image of my personality.

Funniest thing is the big one has skin that tans like me and dark blonde hair, we obviously share the affection for things on wheels and the general gung-ho attitude to stuff. The little one on the other hand looks like the wife, with his incredibly pale (burn at the sight of bright sky) skin and very light blonde hair with a dash of ginge.

One of the best things is when I get in from work and they leg it through the house to jump up and cuddle me the minute I walk in.

They’re about to be joined by another one, God only knows how this one will turn out.