Finding What's Really Important

I was wondering tonight exactly how it is that a five month old girl can get two 30+ adults to dance around the kitchen in the hope of a smile.

I just have to repeat that because I don't really think I believe what I'm writing. I've trudged home after a 12 hour day at work, ready for the welcome embrace of the couch. Then I see my daughter and go from feeling like collapsing to getting the urge to dance around the kitchen for a smile.

Now dancing is not our forte, and so we have to be fairly desparate to start something like that, especially in a kitchen the size of ours, especially when there's no music on and we're trying to avoid the squeaky floor boards to keep on the good side of our neighbour below.

Dancing is meant to be fun, and I only realise how seriously I'm taking it when Sophie doesn't smile. The feeling of disapointment actually hurts (though when I add a bit of singing to go along with the dancing the smile comes - even if it looks more like one of pity than genuine enjoyment on her part).

Thinking about this makes me realise again that the value I get from Sophie is greater than anything I get from work. All the busy running around of the day is what success is supposed to be like, but while 12 hours of that might bring in something for the company, for me it doesn't bring the same satisfaction of 30 second dance for a smile.

I guess that's because Sophie isn't work, she's what I'm working for.

Babies and the Modern Workplace

My imagination hasn't run so far as to think about bringing a baby into work, but I stumbled across an article from The Guardian (not my usual choice of red blooded male reading material) today that had a journalist go ahead and do just that, with predictable results.

Apparently the US has a lot of advocates for a child-friendly workplace, but if a newspaper like The Guardian can't make it work, there's no chance for it happening in London.

Some great descriptions of the attempt though, like

... checking emails, now that's proper work. Technically, you can do this with a baby on your knee, but there are flaws in this plan. Mine likes to thump the keyboard repeatedly, or until he has found "select all" plus delete, whichever is the sooner. Then he likes to stand up, and sit down again, and wriggle and grunt, and all this makes it really hard to think. When I'm at home, I have a whole battery of baby-pleasing techniques - I can sing songs and dance about, I have an elaborate mime that I can do with a monkey, which pleases him so much he almost always needs a snooze afterwards. But for some reason - call me crazy - I feel inhibited in an open-plan office, so it is a bit of a grey day, from his point of view.

Read the full thing here.

The one time Sophie came in to the office see my workmates we forgot to "prefeed" her. This meant that as soon as she got in the building she decided it was time to feed, and that means about a 10 second window before the crying starts.

Of course my desk was in the corner of the office that was furthest from any toilet we could use to feed her. The result - I got to show off my screaming baby to the whole office as head after head popped up to see what the heck was going on.

From proud father to chastened father in a very short time - my daughter is already starting to making a habit of that!