Hey everyone, hope you all had a great Easter, and all had as much chocolate as I did!

We had my folks up to visit over the Easter Weekend, lots of spoiling of the only grandson occurred, and I don't think Henry complained once...


The little guy is 9 months old now, and has learned how to crawl, so he's mobile. Gone are the days of putting him down on his play mat for five minutes to get something done, knowing he'll be happy playing with his toys. If I try that now, the next half an hour will be spent searching our flat trying to figure out where the heck the little speed demon has got to!!

So for the last few weeks little Henry has been going for baby swim lessons with his mum. I was told he loves the water and all the splashing. There's a whole other baby bag that has to be taken along on swim lessons, with baby swim trunks, a baby wetsuit, and even special swimming diapers. It seems if you put a baby in a regular diaper into a body of water, they very quickly soak it all up like a sponge!

Apparently, this is an activity that most of the fathers do with their babies, but since I usually work weekends, I've never been able to go. Then this week I FINALLY got a whole weekend off, and got to take my son for his swim lesson. He enjoyed himself thoroughly.....for about 15 minutes, then he realized that I was not his mum and went berserk cos he wanted her in the pool instead of me!! Oh well, by some twist of rostering fate I have NEXT weekend off as well, so we'll try again next week.

Just before the Easter weekend I managed to tweak something in my back pretty badly. I couldn't turn my neck, or move around much for a few days. I think it happened in the gym while trying to lift more weight than I probably should have....I know, stupid me.

So because I don't wanna hurt my back again, I tweaked the workout program I'm doing to involve more bodyweight stuff (which also means I can do it anywhere), and switched to circuit training so I get more bang for my buck in the gym without spending more time in there. I'll post the details soon once I've ironed out a few kinks in the plan.

I've also been getting healthy eating tips from my friend Nikki over at www.chequeredleopard.wordpress.com, check it out. And I REALLY recommend you check out these amazing recipes she just posted......YUM!!

Stay tuned...

~ Ryan

Photo Credit: Me!     Cartoon Credit: Mark Anderson at www.andertoons.com

The little guy has started learning to use his voice. Check out the video's below for some examples...   

If you listen very carefully, you can here Henry say his first word....Dada!!

Ok, he may have been saying it to his Baby Elmo, or the pot plant, but whatever, it still counts...

I managed to capture this on video. Think it's going to come in handy at the little man's 21st birthday party!

I know we probably shouldn't have been laughing, but it was just so adorable!! He wasn't even actually upset about anything, he just decided, for whatever reason, that he needed to have a bit of a scream, and then play with his toys.

His nickname is now Henry the Hulk.

Early on his only noises were his Hulk impressions, but he's also learned to do them on command!

This is his impression of a Harley Davidson....

It's AMAZING how much he's learned in only 8 & a half months, I wonder what he'll be doing next?

Stay tuned

~ Ryan

Hey guys,

Well, it's been 3 weeks since most people made their New Year's Resolutions, and just like last year, and the year before that, most people won't follow through on them because for the most part New Year's Resolutions SUCK!!

And here's why.

Most people wake up on January 1st, and make out a list of AAAAAAALL the things they're going to do/change/fix for the year. Things like "This year I'm going to get fit", "I'll do better at work and get that promotion", "Dammit, I'm gonna quit smoking this year!"

You plow ahead, making NUMEROUS changes to your life all at the same time, and for a few weeks things are going great. And then LIFE starts to get in the way. You find you aren't making as much progress as you thought you would working out. Work is piling up and taking up all your time. And all that stress, it's making you crazy, surely ONE little cigarette won't hurt....

The problem that most people have when it comes to sticking to their resolutions and goals for the year is that:

1. They try to make TOO MANY changes all at once
2. They are no where near SPECIFIC enough when it comes to setting their goals.

So in today's post I'd like to tell you about a simple strategy I use for setting and more importantly STICKING to goals.

Hey Everyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Ok, that needed to be done, it's out of my system now.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Year's and is starting off 2013 right. I just got back from 4 weeks off, having spent my holiday in Sweden with my wife and son, visiting his Sveeedish grandparents. It was the little guy's first ever Christmas, and I'm glad it was in a cold country, cos Christmas in Australia in 38 degree heat just doesn't feel quite right.

I was hoping for snow while we were there…..well, we got snow. Wow, did we get snow. It started snowing on our third day there, and just didn't stop. Now I'm happy to pitch in and shovel paths and driveways and stuff, but even I was getting a little sick of that job by the end of my holiday.

My father-in-law has a pretty cool snow blower machine…..it's funny how the right machine can make even the most boring, back-breaking job fun. I learned an important lesson while using the snow blower - always make sure the spout is pointing AWAY from the neighbour's car before you try clearing the driveway!

Hey guys,

Ok, so I haven't been very active in this blog lately. I have been INSANELY busy with work recently, and also my family and I have been away spending an early Christmas in gorgeous snowy Sweden, early Christmas because I have had to work over proper Christmas (hence the "insanely busy" thing) and have only just got back in front of my laptop.

I just wanted to do a quick post to say that Adventures in Fatherhood will be back to having regular posts very soon....well, regular by my definition anyway!

I have some stories to tell...

 - Surviving a 30 hour plane ride with a 5 month old
 - Baby's first Christmas...and it was a white Christmas at that!
 - The Great Christmas Tree Robbery
 - The first of many Dad Skills posts

So I'll be back soon.

In the mean time, here is a pic of the cutest Santa in the history of Christmas...true story.

Stay tuned

~ Ryan

To all the new Dads out there...

...I came across the video below, and I think it provides the perfect motivation for all of us to get off our butts and start getting healthy for our kids. We're their role models, lets start setting a good example.

Please check out the website too, www.designedtomove.org

~ Ryan

THINGS I LOOK FORWARD TO AS A NEW FATHER

We've had Henry in our lives for 2 and a half months now, and he just gets better and better everyday! I've been working on a list of the things I look forward to doing with him as he grows up, and you can read about them below:

  Reading to my son

       For as long as I can remember I have had a great love of books and of reading. It started when my mum would read to me at bedtime as a child, I can still remember the stories from books like Aesop's Fables to this day.

I also always loved getting her to read to me from the Asterix books (I had almost every one!), and laughing when she'd get the pronunciation of the characters names wrong!

We already have a full collection of the Peter Rabbit books and Thomas the Tank Engine to read to Henry, so he's off to a good start.

Hello again...

Little Henry has been with us for 8 weeks now, and has totally changed our world, for the better of course! One of the things I've found that has changed the most is that I no longer have any time to blog!! Well, yes I do, just not as much as before. So because of that, this post has been shortened from what I originally intended into a couple of paragraphs, I hope you enjoy it

THE BIRTH
    It all started very early in the morning on Monday June 11th. I was supposed to work that day, and woke up to find my wife Maddi wasn't in bed, and the bathroom light was on...and for some reason my first thought was "I bet her water's broke"....and they had! Cue the mad dash to the hospital, after informing work I wouldn't be there for a few days. Actually, it was quite a relaxed drive, my wife is freakishly calm and collected in what should be high pressure situations! I wasn't a complete cliche, but I was close!

_To all soon-to-be father and new fathers who want to be prepared for the little bundle of joy about to enter your lives, I offer a little piece of advice…Knowledge is Power!!

A lot of guys have this idea that when it comes to raising their newborn baby's, it'll be ok to just "wing it"

Well, it ain't!

Do yourselves a favour, get down to your local bookstore or onto Amazon, and start reading up on whats about to happen.
Trust me, this is one of those situations in life where a little knowledge goes a LONG way!

So with that in mind, I've compiled a short list of what I consider recommended reading for new dads. Most of these books I have read myself, or my wife has read and then passed on the important bits to me…..which is usually the whole book! There are one or two books listed that I haven't read myself YET, but have been recommended to me by other parents whose opinions I trust, so I have no issues about passing on those recommendations to you.  I hope you find these helpful!

This is just a quick unplanned post…

Today is my 32nd birthday, and I have been thoroughly spoiled all weekend by my gorgeous wife! To top it all off I'm getting the best present ever in a couple of weeks too!

It's gonna be a GREAT year!