Skewster

When this blog started way back in 2004, one of the reasons was that we’d (me and the missus) discovered that we were expecting another baby. Our third, and a complete surprise, as we’d been very careful not to invoke a third child.

Needless to say, we’re almost two years down the line and baby’s on his feet already, yet the vasectomy I’d requested has still not been done.

My last post about getting a vasectomy was well over a year ago, at which point I was considering paying for the necessary surgery. Well, we just couldn’t afford that, so we were extra extra careful.

Anyway, I went to my doctor about a month ago to try and move this ridiculously slow process on. Shortly afterward I got an appointment to see the consultant. That appointment was today.

Firstly, if you’re married or in a relationship, you can’t have one of these appointments without your wife or partner in attendance. Apparently they might want more babies, so they have to give their blessing to the vasectomy party procedure. Let me tell you, Mrs Levee was only too happy to agree!

Secondly, the appointment is unexpectedly short. The consultant went over the details of the vasectomy with me, even into the idiot-proof details like “the object of this is to render you permanently sterile”. Well, yipee! Sign me up!

Luckily, they seemed to recognise that the appointment had taken forever and told us that the procedure would be done within the next six weeks. After that, you’re advised to keep wearing the rubber johnnies until they’ve tested for the presence of sperm. They do that at three months and agains at four. If you get a clean report, your nappy changing days are over. Hooray!

The only question remaining: local or general anaesthetic? Take your pick.

Here’s a conversation I didn’t think I’d be having with my four-year-old daughter. At least not within the next two decades.

We were sitting in the kitchen this evening and Ray sauntered down from her room with a box of toy jewellry. “Mum, can you help me put on my necklaces?” she enquires in sugary tones. “No problem, pet,” comes the reply and soon both are busily covering the girl in plastic jewellry from top to toe.

After they’re finished, Ray swans around the kitchen playing the princess. We all tell her how pretty she looks and then she breaks the big news. She’s getting married! To a boy in her nursery class. The whole thing’s arranged it seems and nothing can stop the “big day”:

Me: “Ray, after you get married, you’ll be Brian’s wife. You’ll have to move into his house and live with him and his family….”

I trail off, waiting for the inevitable cries of protest. The smile on Ray’s face freezes for the briefest moment. Then she turns away and reaches for her plastic hairbrush.

“Alright, but only after I brush my hair….”

Mrs Levee knows I hate Valentine’s Day. What good is a day spent professing your undying love, spelt out in sickly cliches of chocolate and roses, when the other 364 days are spent barely tolerating each other.

No, Valentine’s Day is a load of crap, and anyone who pours money into insincere shows of affection should be dropped immediately by their significant other. If you’re not making the effort every day, then your paltry box of chocolates is nothing more than a tasty, hi-calorie insult.

I started thinking about Valentine’s Day about a month ago and decided not to honor the day. I thought, do I love my wife? Yes. Do I show her enough? Not nearly enough. Instead of a crappy card, I decided my gift this year would be to try harder and to always have at the front of my mind the reasons why we’re together. So, for Mrs Levee, and the rest of you:

• We’re a team. Not always the best team, especially when we’re tired, but we try hard. And that’s the main thing.
• She looks after me when I’m not well. After that recent episode with my back, I was amazed at how much she did for me, I could only watch her in awe.
• She ‘gets’ my jokes. In fact, the other night, she appluaded my impression of the wheelchair guy in Little Britain by choking on her tea and spraying it out her nose…
• Given the point above, she’s obviously a touch of class!
• She cares about people. Even when I think they don’t deserve it, she invests time in people.
• I can’t imagine spending my life with another person. Yeah, okay, there’s my Jennifer Aniston fixation, but I think she knows there’s no chance of that happening!
• Besides, who else in the world would dance around the kitchen to Van Halen with me?

So, despite my assurances that Valentine’s Day would not be observed Chez Levee, I’d like to (very publicly) wish my wife a happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you have a lovely day, sweetheart!

I love you.

Don’t panic! This is not a post about religion. I haven’t seen the light. I won’t be standing at the seafront this weekend with sombre-faced pensioners preaching at bemused passers-by.

I’m having a really strange time recently. Surreal. Bizarre.

While my work life is going steadily down the plughole, family life is improving in so many ways. Life in the Levee household really is pretty magical at the moment!

Heaven At Home

Ray – our eldest daughter – is becoming quite the social butterfly. She’s out visiting friends, being visited by friends, going to her little dance class, off to mother and toddler group and everything else. She’s got a more active social calendar than we do, the tinker! But whatever else she’s doing, she still has time for her old dad and we’ll sometimes sit on the kitchen sofa for one of our ‘wee chats’, or she’ll ask me to make up a story for her. The favourite at the moment is Ray’s Magical Flying Bike that takes her all over Northern Ireland.

Jay – our two-year-old boy – is coming along at a different pace, but no less affectionate than his sister. He’s taking advantage of his sister being out of the house by getting some quality time with his mum and dad.

It’s funny what a bit of special attention can do for a child. In the last few weeks (especially while I was off work), Jay’s come on in leaps and bounds. He’s chatting away with us, asking all sorts of questions. He’s helping around the house (never one of Ray’s fortes) and going for walks with us.

Little Dan – our youngest – is really starting to respond to us and loves nothing more than cuddles, tickles and the odd sing-song. In fact, last week, I was walking out of the kitchen when I looked back for a moment and saw my family sat around the table. Dan on Mrs Levee’s knee with Ray cooing and tickling him and Jay running around with a plastic guitar throwing ‘rock star’ poses. I think that’s a memory that’ll stay with me for a long time…

It seems Mrs L and I are always sharing a smile over some little thing the children have said or done recently. Yep, family life’s great at the moment.

Hell At Work

Isn’t it bizarre, then, that work’s such a pain? Since that sequence of events a few weeks ago that led to me doing the work of two people, I’ve been more and more stressed.

It hasn’t yet dawned on my illustrious employer that there’s no way in hell I can manage the workload alone. I’ve complained to my line manager about it, but it’s falling on deaf ears. Quality of work is falling. Projects small and large are lining up and my Helpdesk is filling up with support calls that I have less and less time to answer. Oh, and did I mention that there’s been no offer of a pay increase in light of this virtual doubling of work?

Moreover, my co-managers are bitching about this like crazy. Speculating about every tidbit that comes down from above. Talking about it all the time. But I’m tired of it, sick of mulling it all over and wondering why. And really sick of the conspiracy theories. Yawwwwnnnn…..

Oh, the CV’s out there folks. Dusted off, updated with the latest high-flying achievements and coming soon to an employment agency near you.

You should never stay in a job you hate. And I’m starting to hate this one with a passion. More importantly, you should never stay with an employer you hate. It’s not a one-way street. If your employer isn’t up to scratch, find a better one. I hope to be interviewing potential employers in the (very) near future!

All this could get me very depressed, but thanks to our little family, I can see the real priority for me right now. And it’s keeping me sane.

Baby D is coming along nicely since his arrival in August. He’s gone through many little phases to get where he is today and now there’s a smiley, giggling wee man living among us.

Except at naptimes.

When the normally amiable fella starts getting tired, he gets cranky. It’s a short jump from cranky to Banshee, let me tell you, and an unpleasant one at that. And being the caring parents we are, we try to soothe him to sleep, rocking him, singing to him, handstands, cartwheels, comedy routines. Tried them all.

On the odd occassion, when Mrs L was busy with the kids, she’d leave the baby on the sofa for a minute, but when she came back she found he’d gone to sleep on his own. So we tried a little experiment. Whenever baby was getting tired we swaddled him, wrapping him up tightly in a blanket with his arms by his sides and setting him down. It’s amazing how quickly he’s got used to this and how easily he now goes to sleep.

It’s certainly better than presevering with soothing him and getting more agitated the angrier he gets, which was terrible and left both of us emotionally shattered. The one thing to be careful of, though is keeping baby on his back. There’s a danger if he’s on his side that he might roll over onto his face.

Walking out of work this evening was like being released from prison for a few hours. Today was a hellish day in a fortnight of hellish days.

Here’s the craic: I work as a manager in Belfast. For the past 5-6 years, I’ve had a full-time assistant helping me run IT in a fairly large, often demanding office. My most recent prodigy handed in his notice just before Christmas – a bad time for seeking out replacement staff.

Regardless of the bad timing, we set out to recruit a replacement pretty sharpish. The market was piss-poor and full of graduate CVs with career shopping lists. “Oh, yes, I’m currently studying for my MCSE, CCNA, Cisco, PhD” Of course, they’re hoping you’ll bankroll the expensive training part of this before they move on to pastures new. Sceptical, Levee? You bet.

Things Get Bad

So, my car is in for servicing on Monday a couple of weeks ago. I decide (as a big important manager) to work from home on this day – after all, I have remote access. So, I arrange for my assistant to come in a bit earlier to cover my hours.

To cut a long story short, my superior went bonkers about not being notified in advance. Bizarre. I’ve done this before and it’s never been a problem. In fact, I can work better without interruptions. But on this day I receive one very nasty email.

So nasty, in fact, that I almost flamed back. But Mrs L pinned me down and sedated me before I had a chance to speak my mind. I don’t know what those injections were, but they worked….

On the Friday, I met with said superior and talked this issue out. Mentioned how offended I’d been. Not just about that, but about a number of things including a salary raise request that was blatantly ignored by the firm last year. Left the meeting and felt relieved that I’d gotten my grievances off my chest. And the boss seemed to acknowledge most of my points and seemed determined to address a number of the issues I raised.

Things Get Worse. Much Worse

The weekend passed, and I trotted into work on Monday morning looking forward to meeting a potential candidate for the assistant’s job. We had the meeting, were impressed with the person we saw, little birds twittered on the office windowsills, and all seemed well. Until after lunchtime.

My boss came into my office to see me straight after lunch with a bombshell – we’ve decided not to hire a replacement, says she. As if this wasn’t going to turn my working life upside down! Do the work of two people? WTF? Think of all the money we’ll save – that’s a substantial saving to the company. Oh yeah? Will I be getting my cut in luncheon vouchers, while my hair is falling out with stress?

The more this sank in, the more traumatised I became, the more questions this raised. I stewed over it all night. So did Mrs L. A revelation like this raises so much uncertainty, not just at work, but for the family life too.

I didn’t realise just how much this was affecting me until I got up the next morning. My jaw was killing me. I knew straight away that I’d been grinding my teeth in my sleep. The good wife confirmed this later on with a phone call. Every morning since, I’ve woken up with a throbbing jaw any pro-boxer would be proud of.

What Next?

Well, as you can see, the stress of this job has been having a wearing effect on me for the last few years. I feel like I’ve aged prematurely! Seriously though, the stress of this situation has actually hit me quite hard and I’m (even now) flittering between bouts of uncontrollable rage at this decision and helplessness and just plain upset.

Anyway, folks, there’s no sense complaining. When you’re stuck in this sort of mire, there’s only one way out, and that’s to move on. I’m not going to stay and fight – there are better opportunities out there and given that the New Year has just begun, maybe it’s time for a good ol’ fresh start. We’ll see.

For now, though, it’s back to the prison tomorrow. Good thing the JobFinder’s out on Fridays! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening!

Consider this post an open letter to the customers of the Sainsbury’s restaurant at Forestside in Belfast on Saturday.

The family had just popped in for a quick bite while we decided what to do for the rest of the day. We were all in mostly good spirits and ready for a good feed, but it was perilously past Jay’s nap-time and he hadn’t slept in the car.

The Rage

As we ushered the kids into Forestside, Jay took a hissy fit because we were guiding him past a guy in a rabbit costume. He wanted to stop. We wanted food. So, as the adults in the group, we overruled him and started to move forward. That’s when the tantrum began in earnest.

He threw himself on the ground, did the kicking and screaming thing, so I let him be for a moment. Knowing that he’s usually fairly agreeable and expecting him to calm down quite quickly. After a minute or so, I picked him up and we moved toward the restaurant, Jay still grumbling and shouting. We manage to place our order and head off to sit down.

No. Jay didn’t want to sit down, he didn’t want to sit in the pram, and he didn’t want to be carried. And he didn’t want to do any of this in THE LOUDEST VOICE POSSIBLE! I tried restraining him, making him sit on a seat, but he got much worse.

The Outrage

Can I tell you something, though? Worse than the nastiness of this tantrum was the sense of utter embarrassment, the unashamed hostility of our fellow diners. Evil glances from old women, cast in our direction, but not brave enough to make eye contact or offer sympathy. Nope, no kindly looks or friendly nods today.

As I wrestled Jay back to the car to calm down, I was still raging at the biddies and – bizarrely – other families who were visibly irritated by our presence.

Are we the only family to have ever suffered an embarrassing public tantrum? When I see folk struggling with their kids in shopping centres, I feel their pain. I know their kid doesn’t want to be dragged around the shops, and nor does the parent. But shopping is a necessity, and children need to learn that sometimes we have to do boring stuff.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the next time you see a parent dealing with a tantrum, try and empathise. Chances are you’ve been there before or you’ll be there one day. Then either mind your own business or give them a sympathetic smile.

I’ve been feeling a little bit under the weather lately, folks. Been forced to use up my holiday leave before the end of the year, so I took a lot of time off work this last couple of weeks.

The problem is, this messes up my routine completely. I instantly got sick, and haven’t been feeling on top of things ever since. Being sick with kids is terrible – no exaggeration. Before the kids, I could take the day off and relax, watch a DVD and recover. These days the family steamroller doesn’t stop for sickness, which is depressing because it seems to last forever.

Both the missus and I are at such a low ebb at the moment, and nothing seems to perk us up. We’re permanently tired, it seems and at the moment quite irritable with the children. You know you’re making a mess of it when the kids start getting irritable back at you. Ray, in particular, has been letting us know how frustrated she is with us. It’s hard to admit, but she’s learning that from us.

You’re Not Alone

I found some solidarity this afternoon at The Reign Of Ellen. In particular, she’s tapped into some of the feelings of inadequacy we as parents get from time to time. The fallout from this is apathy (Ellen says laziness), negativity, insecurity and irritability.

I am lazy. Actually I don’t think that’s totally true. I feel like I am busy from morning til night, piddling around on projects and such. That’s not lazy. I’m never sitting around eating bon-bons. However, when it comes to the non-fun stuff (ironing, cooking, cleaning), I lose all my energy. I walk in to the kitchen to make dinner, and my mind goes fuzzy. It just seems like too much effort to think about it. So I don’t. We go get nasty fast food.

This is the Levee household circa December 2005. If I sit down for a moment I will fall asleep. Narcolepsy rules when I’m stressed….

I don’t want to paint a negative picture for people, but this is the sometime reality of parenting. It’s burnout, pure and simple. Some people handle it better than others. It takes me a while to recognise when I’m floundering and actually do something about it. Left to fester, however, this kind of fatigue can develop into really bad parenting habits, and that ain’t good!

Lifting The Spirits

Sometimes the children provide a moment of clarity. I’ll get a spontaneous hug, or maybe a sudden “Love you, Daddy” and the priorities come into sharp focus. Family comes first.

Sometimes you have to sit back and recognise that you’re burning the candle at both ends and you need to slow things down. Get some sleep. Get organised. Eat better – that junk food cycle is a real killer!

I had a wee meeting with my GP recently, to see what could be done about the year-long waiting list for a vasectomy consultation. Depressing news from the snip front – they cannot influence the timing except possibly in extreme cases.

Alright, so we’re starting to panic here – baby #3 is due in 4-5 weeks and I’m just a ticking spermbomb waiting to go off….

“So, Doctor, how can we move this along?” I asked, considering bribery among my options.

“Er, well you could try phoning around some of the local hospital’s surgical departments. If their waiting lists are shorter, we could consider writing a referral to those instead.” was the reply. “Alternatively, you could consider having it done privately.”

So, on Wednesday I began Operation Get A Quick Snip in the hope of getting a vasectomy sooner!

Option #1: Join The NHS Vasectomy Queue

I phoned the Royal Victoria Hospital and Lagan Valley Hospital to enquire about waiting lists for vasectomy procedures. The staff in surgical at The Royal were unavailable, so I called Lagan Valley. A very helpful lady there explained that they had two consultants and another one starting shortly. They were working to clear a backlog from 2003 at a rate of 2-3 patients per week. The receptionist was reluctant to predict whether the wait would be less than a year, and said it was uncertain how long the consultants would be staying for.

Basic result: You’re welcome to submit a referral, but don’t hold your breath. . .

Option #2: Pay For Your Own Snip

How refreshing speaking to a private hospital. The staff are so much less indifferent to your plight. After drawing a blank with the NHS, I called the Ulster Independent Clinic. After initially explaining my circumstances, I was put through to a nice lady who talked me through the options for the consultancy, the procedure and the aftercare.

Of course, all this polite attention comes at a price: The initial consultation would be approximately ?150.00. The operation would be either ?500.00 using a local anasthetic or ?1000+ with a general anasthetic. There was also an additional charge for a check-up afterward to determine if the operation has been successful.

Basic result: Will that be credit card or cheque, sir?

Option #3: The Home Improvement Method

With so much information and technical diagrams available on the Internet today, might have a stab (ouch) at DIY surgery! Only joking!

Since I posted my original note about deciding on a vasectomy, I still hadn’t heard back from the hospital about the initial consultation that would get the ball rolling (ouch!).

Mrs Levee made a quick call to our GP yesterday morning to find out what was going on, why we hadn’t heard. The very candid response was that there’s a year’s waiting list just for the consultation never mind the operation.

While I should be glad that this delays the process, I’m a little worried. I’m just walking around with a loaded gun here! Think of the damage I could do with this thing!

Well, I must persue this to see if we can move things on a little faster. If a vasectomy is a simple outpatient procedure, how many operations will take place before I get mine? Is every male in Northern Ireland going to be snipped before me?