A view from the other side

I remember when I first started driving around Leeds after years of walking and biking everywhere. Up until that point, I had spent a lot of time cursing aggressive drivers who cared nothing for my safety on a bike or the rules of the road when it came to pedestrian crossing. The minute that I got behind the wheel of my beloved Ka, however, everything changed. Suddenly there were these pesky pedestrians who stepped out in the middle of the road when you were least expecting it and cyclists who cut across your path or who held you up at traffic lights. It took a while to be able to put myself in their shoes again.

Having a baby has brought up this whole set of feelings, with a slightly different twist. It wasn't that I was frustrated by people with children, but more that I just wasn't aware of some of the difficulties that they face. Now with a child and a buggy (pushchair? pram? everyone seems to call it something different, and I change it's name depending on who I'm talking to) I'm much more aware of the view from the other side. Here are some of the examples that I've come across in the last few days that I wouldn't even have thought of in the pre-baby era (PBE perhaps?)

- Pavements (sidewalks for those reading on the other side of the Atlantic). While the pavements here are reasonably good quality, the height of them means that you have to walk quite far to get to a place where you can realistically cross the road without dropping your buggy six inches. This becomes exacerbated when inconsiderate drivers park up on the kerb without leaving enough space for a pedestrian, let along a father with a buggy. You then have to work out a way to go round the car without waking up the baby. I'm seriously considering making up my own bad parking tickets for these situations

- Parking spaces. I will admit that I'm not the greatest at parking, but it becomes a whole lot more tricky when you've got to get a car seat in and out of the back of your car. A couple of times recently I've come back to the car to find someone has parked incredibly close to my space. This is fine if I'm getting in as I can squeeze, but Jake's car seat is pretty inflexible. You're then left with the difficulty of pulling your car out into traffic, parking and putting the car seat in while everyone sits and stares. I would try to park in the parent and child parking spaces, but these seem to be taken up by people without children who fancy parking close to the shop. I never realised this would irk me until now!

- Space. One of the greatest pleasures about having a buggy is that Kelsey and I can go out and about and bring Jake with us. Walking around is fine and easy (until you come to an awkward piece of pavement) but the inside of most shops and restaurants aren't conducive to buggies. Again, I'm not expecting them to be as people with babies probably make up a tiny fraction of their clientèle, but nevertheless it's frustrating when you want to browse the aisles and there's not enough room for your buggy. You're then faced with another dilemma. Do you go elsewhere in the hope that there'll be room for Jake, or park him up somewhere in the shop and quickly dash to get what you need? It's easy when there's two of you, but shopping alone I feel will be an art form to be mastered.

None of these will stop me from venturing out with Jake and indeed my plan is to take him to the Leeds parkrun next weekend (a free 5k race around Hyde Park) to see if it's possible to run with him. However, it's just another series of changes in both thoughts and behaviours that we're making as we're learning the ropes of parenthood.