Classes

Oj, what a week. Which is Swedish for 'Oy, vhat a veek'.

Things are fine, pretty much. Not much has really happened. F is bigger and stronger, V has been a bit flu-ey, I've been up earlier and to bed later than is probably ideal for me. But it works well for the others. Up early as F likes to get up and play at 0600, and V is not a great lover of mornings right now. Late bed times so that I can potter about by myself once the ladies are asleep, and do nerdy things like paint tiny plastic men or write blogs.

Parenthood is very much a wall that keeps hitting, really. A few weeks back I reached a sort of exhausted state entirely unfamiliar to me. Even when I was a junior doctor and obliged to get up at 0300 to attempt to deal with things like massive post-surgical blood loss or maniacs who needed grappling until a nurse could sedate them, I don't remember getting as tired as this. I got days off, after all.

We went to our first parenting class a few days ago. I understood less than usual, I kept zoning out. V kindly poked me awake at one point and gave me a growl and hard stare, which I felt rather aggrieved at. She pointed out afterwards that I'd zoned out whilst stroking my beard and staring directly at the breasts of the young mother next to me as she feeding, so fair enough, I clearly looked like a massive perv. Hopefully the young mother in question was also fairly zoned out and didn't notice.

All of us seemed to be, though. A room of eight new parents, three couples and five babies, all of us sat in bemused silence that was either exhaustion or the infamous Swedish Polite Reserve. Swedish people often ask me 'don't you find Swedes really unfriendly?' I don't, actually, just fanatically polite. Too polite to give you more than an austere nod and some muttered coughing by way of an introduction, but I'm English. If anything I find the coughing uncomfortably forward and demonstrative. Most Swedes are very friendly and talkative if you get things going, I think.

Not so at parent class. For an hour and a half we sat with forced expressions of interest as the midwife showed us conversation provoking videos of child psychologists explaining how not to care for your tiny baby. It all seemed fairly sensible stuff. Not too much stimulation was the only one that made me feel guilty, as I remembered F at the Universeum.

But the conversations were feeble, stilted things. The other two dads present both looked bored and annoyed, and one left early with a jaunty spring in his step. The kids either slept or yelled or smiled at the nice strangers, the midwife got increasingly jittery as her planned topics fell flat.

Until she left, and then we all started comparing notes on how little sleep we had. "How can I get her to sleep longer?" asked the lady I'd been ogling in my sleep. "She only sleeps for four hours at a time!" We tried to make our laughter sound supportive rather than scornful.

What else, what else? Not much. I've learnt one cannot complete one's first Swedish tax return one-handed whilst cradling a squalling baby. Also that holding a loaded baby over your head for an aeroplane ride is tempting fate to turn the aeroplane into a bomber. I hummed the Dambusters' March cheerfully to myself as I mopped the vomit out of my beard.