Zenellasdaddy

Here's a thing that whenever I see it, I think, you should have resisted that urge: you use babysdaddy as your handle, or the first part of your email addy (hey, slow readers, you replace "baby" with the name of your baby). Do you not realise that we are all astonished by our children when they first happen, this side of CroMagnon man? We all cannot believe how cute they are. Even the mother of that gorilla baby that scares old ladies when they look into its pram. And we all have that sinking feeling that we have lost our identity, ceased to be Zen and started to become Zenellasdaddy. Which passes once you start to have more sleep and are able to focus on other things a little better. If you do. Some people, I know, become mommybots: they stop being able even to think about themselves, the world round them and the things in it they used to delight in. But this is a disorder, not something to celebrate in your screen name.

I received some good advice about blogging about my kids: don't journalise them. Damned good advice, which I've fairly religiously followed. Because I am an average man and I have an average life. My kids do more or less what anyone else's kids do. Sure, Zenita is cute and has a mop of curly blonde hair that looks like the icing on the bun; Naughtyman has a ladykilling smile and a loping run that would make him perfect for a George Romero film; and Zenella can knock the world entirely sideways with an expression of love or generosity that is unexpected. I'm not saying they are not wonderful, individual, special children. Far from it. They are far more interesting than anyone else's and twice as good-looking.

And of course they teach me lessons about myself and about life. But they are probably lessons we all learn. Quite banal. And I think the problem about journalising your kids is going to be that you start shoehorning lessons into everything. Everything becomes a learning experience, but life is resolutely not like that. Much of it is dreary stuff that you have to drag your sorry arse through with gritted teeth. Trust me, a four-hour car journey with twin year-olds and a woman who has not had a night's sleep in fifteen months teaches you only not to do it again.

What would be worth blogging about them is almost unwriteable and, in any case, not necessarily something that you can share (because, although many forget this, when you write about someone in an intimate tone, your writing belongs in some way to them too -- you are trading in your intimacy with them). But mostly just unreachable with words. I think I am a good writer, who can spin most things into readable prose, but I cannot begin to find words to touch the feeling of watching your child sleep on a warm night, their face lit up by the moon, the feeling that the world boils down to your moment, right here, and if you could pull everything to a stop right now, you could cease. And you lean over to touch them and they smile, gently, in their sleep, because even asleep they know and trust your touch. You cannot put that into words because words are not enough to journalise love and never will be.

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:48 am