As we are Mamas & Papas we wanted something for all the dads out there. Our head office has a number of characters to draw from but it is our Design Manager, Mark Ashcroft who we thought would give a realistic and witty view on his experience of being a parent of one trying for number 2.
Mark & Zach
Its funny life isn’t it…how things don’t quite turn out as you expect or think they are going to.
So here I was, a single guy living in London, Bath, Bristol, wherever, who was having a lot of fun. I thought I was invincible and would never settle down, let alone have any children. Children were not for me at all, too tiring, too noisy, too messy, too disease ridden and too much responsibility.
Work was my baby, I worked from the age of 16 and hadn’t stopped since, I lOVED it and didn’t want anything to get in my way.
So its New Years, I go to a party. I go there expecting nothing but end up meeting everything I ever wanted who goes by the name of Sara Goddard. We hook up, we date, we buy a house, we get engaged, we get pregnant…..
When we found out we were pregnant, apart from being utterly horrified that somehow that wonderful thing called sex does after all produce a child, I slowly got used to the idea. It was an adventure but I was only going to have one. That was it. Just one. No more thank you very much.
WOW…
Zach & Murphy
Okay look at everything I wrote up until now and scrub most of it…
This is incredible, my beautiful son Zach is everything to me, only now do I realise how selfish my former life was. This kid is just the best thing I ever created, everyday I am excited to see what he will do next. He is almost 3 years old and I swear those have been the best 3 years of my life so far. 3 hard years but they have been completely worth it.
And that’s the crux, its addictive, I want more, I want more children, I want more fun, I want more love, I want more waking up at 3am, I want more crying, I want more tantrums…….I just want more!!!!
BUT, time is ticking, I’m getting older (nearly 36) and my partner is 38 so we need to get a hurry up!
So a couple of months back we started trying again……. a bit of a shock to the system would be an understatement.
I’m so knackered. Seriously I feel like I have been drained of all energy and bodily fluids. Having to perform on demand is hard work! I think sex is the only time during the process of having a child where men can try to argue that they are doing the hard work, after that we have no claims to any hardship whatsoever.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love sex, seriously what man doesn’t, but I sometimes I could quite happily have a sex amnesty for a month or two. If I could invent some kind of lockable pants and throw away the key I probably would do just that…this is hard work! My colleagues at work can even tell when its the right time for us to conceive. I go from fresh faced youngster to literally an aching 60 year old overnight…. As soon as I walk in you can see eyebrows going up! That and the fact that I am devoid of any kind of receptor in my brain that tells me not to discuss my breeding habits with my colleagues.
Some days we just get lazy and its very much a lets get it over with discussion but it never turns out that way, it feels wrong to do that. I want this baby to be born out of a loving, fun, exciting act…….not just a quick one two, lets just get it done.
So this is the start of my contribution to the blog.
I’m Mark, father of one trying for two………