Having a Baby Changes Everything

Writing a Media Newsletter When You Have a New Human Person

This site - You’ve Got Media - is still very new. When I started it, my wife was already pregnant, but it didn’t occur to me that I’d soon have no time for any media consumption at all.

Actually, that’s not true, I consume lots of media, just not in any way that I intend.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Mindless Binges.

There are things I think I want to watch, like ‘The Day of the Jackal’ and ‘The Penguin’. But any rare free time I find - I opt for binge watching ‘Nothing to Declare,’ and old ‘Frasier’ episodes.

Not that I could tell you a single ‘Frasier’ storyline from the past month. It’s on in the background, I can hear Kelsey Grammer’s voice, but I’m not taking anything in.

’Nothing to Declare’ - every episode is the same. The Australian border force stop a British man from entering due to some concerns about his criminal history, and a Vietnamese family is refused entry due to smuggling in some fish. I watch so much of this show that me and my child are now fully qualified to work a night shift in any Australian airport.

*Note: When I search for clips of ‘Nothing to Declare’ I only seem to find the show ‘Border Security’. Maybe they’re the same show - renamed - or maybe they’re entirely different. Either way, I’m too tired to figure it out and they look like the same thing to me.

The Three P’s.

Whenever we have visitors, our baby sleeps soundly. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is the norm. But as soon as we’re alone - the baby begins his adventures. He can’t yet walk, crawl, or talk - yet he’s as busy as Josh Lyman in ‘The West Wing’, constantly forcing us on walk-and-talks through our home as we deal with endless domestic emergencies. Unlike ‘The West Wing’ - instead of foreign affairs, and passing legislation, we’re focused solely on the three P’s: poop, pee and puke.

I didn’t plan to write about being a Dad. It wasn’t a goal for You’ve Got Media. But right now, that’s all I have to offer.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched Man City V Tottenham Hotspur. 4-0 to Spurs, an incredible result. I don’t remember any of it. The only part I remember is when the baby screamed for 90 minutes (you can tell he’s a Spurs fan already.)

I watched the highlights again at 1am (when feeding him from a bottle) and again at 6am (just after a poop session), but again; I couldn’t tell you what any of the goals were like. My brain is on hiatus. I’ll probably forget I even wrote this article.

Staring Out of the Window.

A few weeks before our boy was born, a friend told me; “when you get a spare moment, you’ll find yourself staring out the window.” I didn’t understand at first, but now I do.

For two months now, I’ve been wanting to resume my career-mode save on EAFC 25, where I am leading Fulham FC to footballing domination. Pre-baby, I’d relax by playing the Xbox and listening to a podcast.

I’ve tried numerous times - during the periods when the baby sleeps - to play some EAFC 25 and listen to ‘Kill List,’ but my energy soon dissipates. I instead find myself - you’ve guessed it - staring out of the window.

Photo by Kaspars Eglitis on Unsplash

All Change Here

It’s no surprise to anyone that having a little human completely upends your life. It can be exhilaratingly fun, and outrageously tough. I am certainly not complaining. It’s a great problem to have.

The only issue is, I don’t know how to find time to write about media-related things. I could tell you about the Tom Petty song that seems to relax our son, I could tell you about a relationship issue where we debate whether the baby hearing a true crime documentary is traumatising, but honestly, none of these are quite enough fodder for a full post.

I guess why I’m writing now is to say; I’m here. I’m trying. But first, I need to do some laundry and get this lad to sleep.