Dalmatian Hounds – Diary of a Gay Dad. I am a full time dad to five young children.

Taking Control of your Wellness (Guest Post from Laura Pearson)

Want to Take Control of Your Wellness? Here Are 5 Tips for Health Advocacy Today

Advocating for your health is one of the most important things you can do. It will help you lead a happier, healthier life, but you’ll also find that your confidence skyrockets as you learn to speak up for yourself. If you’ve been looking to become your very own wellness ambassador, keep reading as Diary of a Gay Dad shares 5 essential tips for doing so today.

1. Stay Informed about Your Health

Read up on health and wellness topics that interest you, and ensure you understand any medical information or instructions from your doctor or health care team. If there’s something you don’t understand, don’t hesitate to ask questions. After all, the more you know about your health, the better equipped you’ll be to make informed decisions about your care.

2. Find the Right Support

A big part of being your health advocate is referring to the right professionals. Taking advantage of free preventative care under the Affordable Care Act is an excellent place to start. You should also find the right healthcare professional for your health goals and needs. LGBTQ+ families often have unique needs in healthcare and advocacy, and finding a professional who respects and supports your wellness will be critical to achieving your health goals.

3. Take Care of Your Mind and Emotional Wellbeing

Physical health is closely intertwined with mental and emotional health, so taking care of all aspects of ourselves is essential. Make sure to schedule time for activities that make you happy and help you relax, such as spending time with friends and family, reading, listening to music, or getting outside in nature. According to Everyday Health, taking care of your mental health will help you be your best self and better able to advocate for your own physical health.

4. Prioritize Prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. So, in addition to staying informed and speaking up for yourself, another essential way to be an advocate for your own health is to prioritize prevention. This means making lifestyle choices that will help you stay healthy, such as eating a nutritious diet, regularly exercising, and getting enough sleep. It also means being proactive about your health by getting regular check-ups and screenings and taking steps to prevent injuries and illness, such as wearing a seatbelt and sunscreen.

5. Manage Your Records

Finally, being aware of your rights as a patient is essential. According to HIV Legal Network, this involves knowing your rights to privacy and confidentiality, understanding your right to informed consent, and being aware of your right to access your own medical records. It would help if you also were constantly maintaining your documents. This way, they will be ready for easy access and can be reviewed for errors after a visit or prescription. In addition, saving your health records as a PDF to your iPhone is a great way to access important files and documents on the go. When you do so, you won’t have to rely on WiFi to access your documents – just remember where you saved it, and you’ll be good to go!

Advocating for your health can seem daunting, but it’s important to remember that you have the right to be involved in your own care. By staying informed, speaking up, and taking care of yourself, you can be your best advocate and ensure you get the care and treatment you need.

Getting ‘Up to Date’

Well, this diary was predominantly written way before covid hit us. The children were still quite young. So where are we now in their development?

Amritsar and Tara were 9 years old back in March. They are both happy, beautiful girls. And yes, they do fight often… Tara is a bit of a Tomboy, but we can still get Amritsar into a dress on occasion!

Thor (now 7) is a little charmer, and a bit of a dude! They like that word – dude! Then we have Aaliyah, who loves pink, rainbows and unicorns! And she happily gets into a dress at any opportune moment. Then there’s finally Caleb, a good looking chap as it happens, a little too prone to tantrums for my liking however.

Caleb has a few learning and socialising difficulties. We are working out a plan for his future needs with his school at present. The others all seem to be excelling at school, especially sports! Aaliyah would like to return to gymnastics. She gave it up before covid hit, falling out with the coach, who seemingly made a rude comment about her hair of all things!

Amritsar loves netball, Tara football (obviously) and Caleb is undecided on his chosen sport! It’ll come, though they all ran well on their sports day at school last week. I’m not sure about Thor’s chosen sport! He did start football club, like Tara, but doesn’t really know what to do with the ball!

The children’s summer fete was held last weekend and today’s photo is of Thor with his snakey looking face paint! Fun was had by all.

I will remind you that I am known as Dadda in the family, and my partner John is Daddy. Daddy’s work keeps him busy, and home life seems to keep me busy enough! Daddy and Dadda’s Dinner is still a thing! We do eat rather well for sure.

We are at present looking to move house. The children are all growing so fast. Their two rooms on the top floor just don’t seem to be big enough. Amritsar definitely wants her own room, as does Aaliyah. Tara would definitely be happy to kip in with the boys. Though that’s not going to happen. She does get a bit boisterous at times! And definitely leads the two boys astray.

That’s it for now. Oh! I didn’t mention Aaliyah and Caleb’s age. They will be 7 next week on 5th July. Though their party will be held the following weekend. More on that for sure.

A Happy Medium!

I was going to name this post ‘Instagram vs Blogging’, but I have settled on ‘A Happy Medium’!

Yesterday, quite randomly, I decided to ‘Google’ myself and was surprised at a little memory that I found… once upon a time my name, ‘Andi Webb’ would have uncovered someone else with this very same name! One lady working for the US department of Education, or maybe an artist who produced a style of art that wasn’t really me!

But yesterday I ‘Googled’ my name and I, yes me, I came up! Well, a couple of the others alongside, but predominantly me. And that made me smile.

Several mentions down, way past my Instagram, my Worldpress, my book, or rather books on Amazon, there is a mention on IMDb, the movie information site, with my name, and that brought back a happy memory! A time when I designed clothes and costume, and worked on wardrobe for a couple of productions. I even made clothing for a few major celebs…

As you know, I tend to go visual nowadays, using Instagram as my main interaction within social media. But today I thought that I would reminisce about my experience yesterday here, on my blog, at Worldpress.

I smiled as my Instagram account Instagram.com/mybigcrazyfamilylife came up first on the search, but then my blog, showing me, that it is relevant, somehow it means something! Then thirdly came my books, as mentioned, on the Amazon platform.

My audiobook of Eighteen Moons came next, then the IMDb mention…

I did enjoy designing clothes. I actually talk about this period of my life in my third book released by ‘My Life Publishing’ in January of this year. The title being ‘Many Moons Before’, the prequel to parenting. You know, I even made clothing for ‘Slash’ of Guns and Roses fame, back in ‘The Day’!

So back to the title of this post, a ‘Happy Medium’? I could not really have relayed what I am saying right now on Instagram! I forget this… I am a writer, a man with a diary… haha, predictive text has just shown me the word diarrhoea! You gotta smile…

I have made many friends on Instagram, several have purchased and reviewed my first book ‘Eighteen Moons’. And for that, I am grateful. But then again, I have made several friends over the years on Worldpress too. I hope you know who you are?

So, I have realised that I truly do want to write, and to do this with any effect, Twitter and Instagram are just not the right medium!

Lol and I can post photos on here too! that’s simply amazing. I’m sorry if they are mostly square…

So, ‘My Big Crazy Family Life’ continues, here at andiwebb.net / diaryofagaydad.net

Right, ‘A Happy Medium’ has indeed been struck! So, what about those photos I have been talking about!

I just realised!

Being back to blogging, albeit not daily, I just realised that I had reacquainted myself to you lovely people! But I have done very little by way of actually filling this diary with the day to day happenings within my family space!

Well, Aaliyah has only just hugged Remus, our Dalmatian and told him that she loves him. She is now skipping around the living room with Tara.

We are planning on going out shortly! To a local retail park to buy some ‘stuff’ at Pound Land! More, Chinese made, plastic tat, that will inevitably find its way to the bin. Especially if Caleb gets his hands on it!

A couple of Christmases ago he ripped the heads off of all 5 animal ‘squishies’ they had been given, over a 24hr period! He is still so very bad when it comes to breaking things. He makes it his mission to fidget with something until it gives / breaks.

He is presently watching ‘Siren Head’ on YouTube, on the television, with Thor! I’m not really sure if it is age appropriate! We will wait and see on that score.

Daddy has just gathered wood and kindling for a log fire that we shall light on our return home.

Tara and Amritsar are presently hugging daddy, or have they actually taken over playing daddy’s iPad? Hmmmh…

Aaliyah now doing art in the kitchen, and I? Well, I am resting on the sofa after having just served up a lunch of Sausage, mash and peas! I think that we are ordering ‘Chinese’ tonight! We only order takeaways about once a month! Last time it was Indian. Tandoori King Prawns… heaven, though a little too red looking I remember! Why do they do that?

I might give you an update on Thursday as it is my Birthday! Hoorah. I am not making a birthday cake this year, rather a pile of chocolate brownies with embedded Oreo cookies and roasted hazelnuts! Damn those hazelnuts took ages to blanch, peel and roast! Note to oneself! Buy pre done in the future! Like dressing a crab! I have learned that life is too short!

Happy Valentine’s all for tomorrow! If you celebrate it, that is! I think we are doing cards and a nice dinner of Alaskan Spider Crab and homemade triple cooked Chips / Fries… bliss!

Earlier in the day Daddy and Dadda are watching Tara play football for the school team. They are in the county quarter finals you know! Last week they won in all 4 matches they played to qualify! Fingers crossed that they are triumphant.

More from the ‘Diary of a Gay Dad’ soon…

The Dogs Dinner

In a couple of my earlier diary entries, I’ve told you all about our 2 Dalmatian dogs, Remus and Gracie. They really are part of our family, our first born.

Quite ironically, the fact that Remus had fathered Gracie (with a little coercion), was one of the elements that led John and I to the decision ourselves, to become parents! If Remus could manage it, why on earth couldn’t we (with a little coercion)?

Well, It didn’t take me too long in my return to diary writing to plug my now, first book, Eighteen Moons. You know, I have written three books at this stage. This first story is the story of how two blokes (John and me) went about becoming a family of seven, nine if you include Remus and Gracie. Available through Amazon, simply by searching Andi Webb, that’s Andi with an ‘I’… it really is the most amazing story, filled with a whole myriad of emotions! But we persevered against huge odds, and here we are, several years on, living my big crazy family life!

So, Now is the time to reacquaint you with our two rapscallion hounds! Both a little crazy, and both act like they are still pups of 6 months old. Especially Remus, he has a very dear heart and is 100% devoted to me, and the family.

He has always been my constant, my shadow. Always there, always beside me, always needing to know that I am there for him. And Gracie applies the same tactic more or less! A dog really is for life, aren’t they?

Right, back to the dogs dinner!

I have previously explained that our dogs are on a 23 and a half hour day. Their dinnertime was 4pm around 3 years ago. But given that they would whine for an hour before they got their food, daily. After a few months their dinner would be brought forward by 30 minutes… a few months would pass, and again, given the sheer amount of whining, another jump forward of 30 minutes.

When I stopped my regular diary updates in October of 2020, Remus and Gracie’s dinner was at midday, no longer 4pm!

Well, in this more recent time, they did whine, whine, whine!

Now guess when their dinner is, these spotty dogs of mine?

A month just past, it had settled at nine…

Okay, no more rhyming, I promise!

Today the dogs dinner is in fact as soon as I get up, be that 7am or 7.30 – unbearable really as they whine at the bedroom door for the longest time!

At present, they are snuggled up beside me on the sofa. Tara watching the television, Thor, Amritsar and Aaliyah drawing at the kitchen table and Caleb, well, Caleb is running around like a headless chicken as he often does!

Just a small story today, to ease myself back into the rhythm of diary writing. Thank you for reading, and wishing you all a lovely evening.

I wonder what the weekend has in store!

Many Moons Before

It has been a while since I have put pen to paper at andiwebb.net! But this month is certainly one to celebrate! My third book release has just happened on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1739754638/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1643550765&sr=8-6

This memoir is the prequel to my previous 2 books. You may remember that the first book, Eighteen Moons, was the story of how John and I became ‘Gay Dads’, and the second book is a year taken from this actual diary, ‘Thirteen Moons More’.

Many Moons Before takes you on a journey through my adult life, lived in London Town, taking us up to the moment that ‘Eighteen Moons’ begins. At very least, check out the book blurb via the link.

If you are not in the U.K. just search ‘Many Moons Before’ in your countries Amazon browser. Or ‘Andi Webb’ of course, to bring up all three book titles. All are an amazing read I’ve been told! Just look at the reviews…

Some of you may remember that I had been considering a project to write a Jam Making, recipes and lifestyle book Dadda Gets Jammin’ and this will be undertaken in 2022. A recipe book quite unlike any other!

But for new, do check out ‘Many Moons Before’ you’ll be happy that you did. The Trilogy now complete…

And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram. Instagram.com/mybigcrazyfamilylife

My Final Diary Entry, At Least For Now!

It is with some regret that on the 2nd anniversary of my diary blog diaryofagaydad.net, I have to explain, that after these past 24 months of sharing the ups and downs of parenthood, my musings on this forum have (for now) come to an end. I will of course leave the archive online and intact if you ever chose to relive the ups and the downs of 2 years of parenting five small children?

A message from a fellow blogger tonight that ‘I am bored’, has lead me to the conclusion that it is now time to step away!

No pictures, no finale, no fanfare, just goodbye for now my friends…

On other social media such as Facebook, I do not post often. But if you found any part of my blog something positive to muse over (btw predictive text just flashed up ‘pissup’ lol) just search ‘Andi Webb London’ and I will surely follow you back!

The other option is Instagram of course! http://www.instagram.com/mybigcrazyfamilylife

I am certainly considering ‘Diary of a a gay Dad, the teenage years’ though 4+ years away at this point! Another time altogether, maybe it will be a great time for us both to catchup once again.

Thank you for listening these last 2 years, thank you for being there and ultimately thank you for caring. I am very happy to know you.

And for those that I am not connected to on other social media platforms, good bye and take care.