Ari on the web

Naming a child is one of the greatest responsibilities a parent has. Short of some dramatic action by its bearer, a person is stuck with a name for life and all the nominative determinist consequences that flow from it. While opening it up to the whims of the democratic process was one option ( Baby McBabyface? ) and engaging the services of a baby name consultant was another, Melanie and I opted to take on the responsibility ourselves. Our criteria? We wanted a name that suited a child as well as the adult she will become. We wanted a name that conveyed both warmth and gravitas. We wanted a name that carried some broader meaning, within our family and beyond it. We wanted a name that was easy to say and easy to spell. And we wanted a name that sounded good, in its entirety and when each part stood on its own. For us, it wasn’t just the given names that needed to be chosen. With Melanie and I each keeping our family names when we got married, our daughter’s family name also ...

As I sit writing this post my soundscape is filled with the contented murmurings of my daughter as she sleeps in the bassinet beside my bed. During a point in each sleep cycle she becomes quite animated, her breathing quick and irregular, her little palms flailing in front of her face and her lips letting out wordless utterances of agony or ecstasy. Such is the way with the dreams of a newborn child, where the realness of the experience manifests itself in the physiology of the dreamer. Just what a newborn dreams about is hard to imagine - perhaps a pleasant dream about the cosiness of the womb or a nightmare about her sudden exit from it. My daughter Amelia entered the world just two weeks ago. Every moment since then has been one of bliss for my wife Melanie and I, even the moments when Amelia's contented murmurings metamorphosise into pained screams from deep in her lungs. As parents of a newborn we can quite happily while away the hours with Amelia, cuddling up and talk...

Since my diagnosis last year I've shared my reflections on this blog. Now it's time for Melanie, the woman who has been by my side throughout, to have her say. October 2015 was a memorable month in our household. We were in the early stages of a much-anticipated pregnancy and digesting the news of a possible job offer overseas. And Ari was rapidly becoming unwell with what turned out to be a primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma. Fast forward six months and with treatment over it seems like the right time to look back on the experience of being a cancer spouse.   1. Listen when other people say it's more important to be at the hospital than in the office. There are always going to be other people who can write articulate and persuasive documents (although usually not the people who assert that this is their skill set), but not many people can hug your husband before surgery. I deeply appreciated having a boss who supported me using my accumulated carer's leave and ...

I have a theory. The amount of gear a person needs in order to get through their day is inversely proportional to their age. A person in their twilight years can while away the hours with a crossword puzzle, a trilby hat and a flat white, all put to good use while perched on a stool. A person in the throes of middle age carries a brief-case, dons a suit and gets around in their car, all of which they deem essential. A teenager is lost without a mobile phone, a bad hair-cut, a student debt and a giant chip on their shoulder. And a toddler goes nowhere without a bag of nappies, several changes of clothes, a hand-knitted blanket and the complete works of Eric Carle, lest it spend a moment bored or soiled. Then you get to newborns. Just days into its life a newborn needs such an enormous collection of things, amounting to many times its own body weight, that just being transported from the maternity ward to home resembles the holiday of a minor member of the royal family. With...