“I don’t want to miss anything.”
Strictly Come Dancing star, Kevin Clifton, welcomed his first child with Stacey Dooley less than four months ago and the new dad is full of advice for parents in his position.
Kevin is currently on tour with Strictly Ballroom, travelling across the UK and Ireland and performing to thousands each night.
While Stacey and their daughter, Minnie, join him at any chance they get – but that’s not always possible.
Like many new parents, Kevin has to travel for work and is away for days at a time, missing out on some special moments with his daughter.
Speaking to HerFamily, Kevin said the best advice he has for other parents in a similar position is to take as many photos and video as possible – and savour them.
“If I’m within touching distance of home than our commute and I get to see them all the time, sometimes they’ll come with me which is great,” Kevin said.
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“I’m 17 weeks in but I’m just winging it. But for me, I’m just constantly in touch in terms of face-timing them and stuff. I don’t want to miss anything.
“Just be on FaceTime, just keep spending each other clips. Stacey sends me clips of everything, my phone has become full of photos and videos of Minnie.”
For Kevin, it’s not only a case of sending these videos and photos, but it’s the act of continuing to take them and having an array of footage to look back on regardless of whether he is home or not.
“Keep taking the videos, keep collecting it all because it’s so lovely to look back on. Even now, she’s seventeen weeks old and I’m looking back on old pictures of when she was three weeks old and it’s so lovely,” he added.
While there are some good aspects of the constant stream of video from his partner, at times Kevin feels he is missing out on a lot.
Recalling one story, Kevin shared that he had missed out on Minnie’s first big laugh while on tour, leaving him in tears.
He said: “I miss them so much, Stacey and Minnie and yesterday Stacey sent me a video of her mum playing with Minnie and she does her first proper big laugh. Honestly I was just in my hotel and I broke down, it made me cry. I can’t believe it.”
Kevin is currently starring in Strictly Ballroom, which makes its way to Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from May 29th to June 3rd.
