Just Call Me Dad

It continues to amaze me just how fast my boy is growing. He’s learning all of these new things: most of them really good, some of them not so much.

The latest “not so much” trick involves clothing. Yes, he has started to take it off by himself. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t started stripping in public or anything that serious yet, but more and more in the evenings the clothes are coming off.

It starts off innocently enough - with the socks. “Hey, I can relate”, I think to myself, “sometimes I like to take off my socks and go barefoot or put on slippers in the evening.” So, the socks come off. Then the pants started to disappear. “Well, it is summer. He’s wearing long pants, and he’s probably hot.”

Last week though, things came to a head. First the socks came off. Then the pants. Then, he started fiddling with the sticky tabs on his diaper. Before I could get to him, the diaper was on the ground. No more than two seconds could have passed before I got to him… but it was enough time for him to say, “Daddy, I PEEEED!”

I assume that he had intended to go to the potty (we are letting him use it occasionally, as a way to get him comfortable with it). But, maybe he waited too long, or didn’t really understand the process. Either way, he was wet. And so was the couch. No real problem; I bought a truckload of SpotShot this spring, so the couch was easy to clean up. Mommy took care of the boy and found him a new diaper and some new pants.

I know many of you can relate

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You know, the one that said I’d be a part of Fatherhood Fridays? Well, it’s 9:47pm local time, so technically it’s still Friday. I’m not absent, just cutting it close.

A big thank you to all of the people who have sent me notes over the past week congratulating me on my decision to be more involved and at home. I know all of you SAHD out there will understand this-but there is a real stigma associated with men who don’t have a full-time job. Surprisingly, it’s not just other people, it’s also me! Your reassurances have been great.

This has been a busy week. Even though my new sales job is part-time, I still had to fly away for some training for a couple of days. Then, I had a couple deadlines to hit, and before I knew it, the week was over.

I flew out of town on Monday night and arrived home on Thursday afternoon. Surprisingly, Nick has been a little shy towards me since I’ve been back. If he has his druthers, it’s Mom that he has been calling for to get him a drink or to change his diaper. This is a little hard on me, but it will pass. In the meantime it’s a great reminder of why I’m on this journey and why the cost of not succeeding is so high. That is very motivational. His behaviour hasn’t all been bad though; we had a great time at the park near our house last night. I’m sure the robins that we chased around would have a different opinion though.

The next week will be great. We’ll be visiting with some family over the weekend, and then I’ll begin making sales calls on Monday. My schedule should be sales Mondays and Wednesdays, writing Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Fridays will be for writing/catch-up/picking Nick up REALLY early/whatever.

Good luck to all of you Dads out there.

In my last blog entry I told the story of how I was going to be spending the majority of my time working from home, allowing me to spend much more time with my son and family. I also said that one of my goals was to spend more time publishing here, and that I intended to become a part of Fatherhood Fridays; a sort of web ring sponsored by Dad Blogs. Today, I’m making good on that promise: Here is my very first Fatherhood Friday post!

My last week has been wonderful. I’m really still trying to figure out how this is all going to work, but it definitely has promise. Just to be clear; I’m not a SAHD, Nick is still going to Daycare while I work (I love him completely, but I would never get any work done with him at home). However, he’s been spending much less time at daycare. His mom used to drop him off at 7:30 in the morning, and then pick him up just before 5:00 in the afternoon. This week, I’ve been leaving the house at 8:00, and picking him up at 4. This simple tweak of our schedule has made all the difference in the world. There is no longer a mad rush to get out of the house in the morning, and there is no longer a race against hunger to get supper on the table before Nick gets too hungry in the evening. It just goes to show that often it really is the small things that make the biggest difference in our lives.

I should point out that both Nick and I absolutely love his daycare and his caregivers; spending more time at home with Nick is simply a gratification of my own wants, not an indictment of them in any way.

This extra time with Nick has been amazing; I’m learning a lot more about him and what makes him tick. His language skills are really coming along. He’s 21 months old now, and he has a couple of phrases that he uses all the time. “I did it!” and ”I got you!” are two common phrases that I hear, and he’s even started singing along to “Elmo’s Song”.

I’m really excited about our future as a family. I’m sure there will be some challenges going forward, but one week into this new experiment, I really wish I had done it a long time ago.

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