Change is Inevitable..

..except from a vending machine.

I know I’m not breaking news when I say that having kids changes your life. It’s just funny how much it changes it and how it very often creeps up on you.
Sleeping habits take a big hit straight away. In fact, if sleeping can still be described as a habit when you have a new-born baby or babies in the house, then you are doing pretty well. This doesn’t sneak up on you. It walks straight up to you, announces itself loudly while wearing day glo yellow and slaps you in the face. I never used to get up in the middle of the night unless I’d had too much coffee and needed to empty my bladder. As soon as the boys were born I quickly got into the habit of waking up to change nappies and help with the night feed without complaint. Well, I complained a lot but I got on with it all the same. The more subtle change is that one day, you realise that you are ok with the lack of sleep. There used to be a time when early on a Saturday morning meant dragging myself out of bed at 10am. A lie in could stretch well into the afternoon. A few months back the boys slept until after nine in the morning. It was cause for celebration. It became my facebook status for a week. My friends with children congratulated me on this happy occasion [while suppressing their jealousy].
It doesn’t stop there. I have been cultivating a reputation for being grumpy in the mornings before I have my coffee for years. Something strange happened the other morning. I was in the kitchen getting the boys breakfast when the Black Eyed Peas came on the radio. I’m not a huge fan but you have to give them credit for knowing how to write a good party tune. Monkey Boy, being the music lover he is, started shaking his little booty. He doesn’t know what coffee is or what it does yet but he does know how to make his dad smile. I got the idea for this post when I found myself dancing with my son just after seven am. When Hannah came down the stairs with Fat Chops she thought that someone had broken in and was impersonating the curmudgeon she was used to dealing with.
Hannah has changed too. It’s a long held Irish tradition that, as a nation, we aren’t touchy feely and we don’t talk about our emotions unless our blood alcohol level is dangerously high. Anything other than a drunken “you’re my best friend, I love you” can put you in danger of having your passport revoked. Having children has broken down some of those barriers for Hannah. We were watching X-Factor the other night. Every year, I rant on about how it is manipulating the contestants and the viewers and how it is killing music. Every year, I end up watching it and arguing about who should be kicked out and hating myself a little bit for it. I always try to put on a brave face and maintain a respectable cynicism. I turned to Hannah the other night after one of the contestants had blown her audition and was about to make a cutting [and incredibly witty] comment. I stopped when I saw the tears in her eyes. Simon Cowell, how dare you make my wife cry!