Newfound jungle gym

Let me start by saying that there's most likely loads of people who will disagree with my new and exciting toy for my daughter. Let me assure all you nay-sayers, I could give a crap about you and whatever you say nay to. Kisses.

With that, I have a fun and exciting new jungle gym for my daughter; our car. A new routine I've established in our day is I drive my wife to work and come home (we have one car, so this kind of makes sense). Once I park, I turn off the engine and take the keys out of the ignition (a very important step). However, the car keeps the radio and most of the electronics going until I open a door.

So instead, I reach back and unhook my daughter from her carseat and then climb into the passenger seat. She then proceeds to climb from the back into the driver's seat, and while she explores the exciting world of "driving", I sip my coffee and listen to NPR. It is great.

After about 8 minutes, the electronics shut off, and that is more or less our cue to get out and do something different. It's a fantastic routine.

The one downside: whenever my daughter sees our car, she wants to play in it desperately. "Cah!" she screams whenever we're near. Quite cute, but unfortunate that we have to limit that special playtime.

What isn't to love about staying home?

I'm going to mention a few taboo thoughts I've had in regard to being a stay at home dad. Whether this applies to similar thoughts that moms have, or other dads, that really isn't my call. I'm just calling it as I see it in my own life. 

First, staying at home is lonely. For a guy whose major hobbies are playing guitar and writing poems, there aren't people knocking down my door to go out on the town. Besides that, my daughter does not prefer going to loud, busy places. Let me rephrase that; I don't like taking my daughter to crowded, loud and obnoxious places. Social interaction based on my choice of hobby is limited.

Next, when you live in a more conservative town, it seems that there aren't as many stay-at-home dads, nor groups for dads. This is probably more related to my own social network, or significant lack thereof, but of the parenting groups I've come across, they are specifically called "mom's groups". This is pretty dejecting. I won't say that I've ever been turned down from joining a mom's group because I've never even tried to join one. Quite frankly, I'm not particularly interested in hanging out with a bunch of moms all day. I mean let's be honest, though I'm extremely involved in my daughter's life, I'm not interested in "mom talk". 

This next item obviously will vary from family to family, but during the day, I'm the parent which means that I'm the one who says "no" all day, and redirects, and cooks and plays and walks and whatever else we do all day long. Unfortunately, I'm not mom. So when mom comes home from work, our daughter immediately abandons my umbrella of authority, and becomes mommy's girl. I can hardly complain about this because it gives me a break I've craved all day, but I can't help throwing myself a pity party in the corner as my daughter has apparently forgotten about me. I probably shouldn't complain about this, but part of me can't help wondering what it is about mom that dad can never fulfill. If she stayed at home and I was gone all day, I doubt the roles would reverse. She would greet me when I got home, but still be mommy's girl. It's not a competition, but I can't help wondering how to compete at times. 

The final item on today's list is when I recap daily activities with mom once she gets home. When my daughter and I go out to play, I am pretty over-protective; I'm not embarrassed to admit it because I'm constantly swirling around her as we walk, and anyone can clearly see I have apron string issues. But still, I manage to put my child in some kind of danger that I am completely oblivious to. So when my wife comes home and I tell her what we did, what seems like 75% of the time, my wife will express "YOU DID WHAT?!?" and proceed to tell me how bad of a decision I made that day. In general, she's right, and up until that point, I thought we had a pretty nice and safe day. Silly me. I'm apparently not as protective as I thought.

Today being a rant day, I want to conclude by expressing how incredibly grateful I am to have the opportunity to be able to watch my toddler grow before my eyes. But to anyone out there who envies my situation, you should know that poop is just as stinky on this side of the fence. 

Hiding yuckies in the yummies

My daughter is not a fan of "green" food. That means everything except boogers, which she's apparently taken a liking to.

The one green I can sometimes hide is spinach, which I literally hide in everything possible. Pasta, oatmeal, pancakes, tacos. Cauliflower is the other saving grace because it's a white vegetable. How cool. Thanks Mother nature.

Today's success was cauliflower in a cheese quesadilla. I use the boil, mash and ice-cubify cauliflower so that it's available to throw into anything. I thawed out two cubes, and spread it on the quesadilla, quickly covering it with cheese. To push my luck, I put two slices of avocado on top of the plate, which were immediately "discarded" or hucked across the room.

Short summary, hidden veggies are the only way my kid eats veggies. Therefore I hide yuckies in the yummies.

My stance on staying home

I'm going to confess something. I thought it would be fun to start a blog about being a stay-at-home dad. I thought this for a few reasons. First, to share the various exploits of staying at home with a little one. But second and more selfishly, to see if enough people were interested in my life to actually help pay some of our bills.

Shameless, really.

But what's funny is that there are many, many "stay-at-home" dad blogs that are wildly successful, and they go against something that I feel strongly about: offering parenting advice.

I personally despise anyone offering tips on how to be a better parent. Thanks for your help, but it's more appreciated when I ask for it. I'm not afraid to ask for advice, but I'm not willing to listen to unsolicited advice.

Is that selfish?

Yes.

But I dare any parent to gratefully and graciously listen to nosey-nelly's great advice. It's 99% of the time not appreciated when it's unsolicited.

I'm ranting for no reason. Circle back to point.

Parenting blogs tend to do this whole "this is what I do and how it's great and you should do it too." That's nice, except don't tell me my business.

I don't feel comfortable telling people what they should do, but rather share what I do. Therefore, I'm not a successful blogger.

That, and I post one thing a month or so. That's probably my bigger downfall.

Speaking of awesome things, my daughter is great. I'm going to spend all day with her, which is probably the best thing there ever was.

That's my random thought of the day.

Sick Daze

Living in Virginia this past year, it's been sad to be removed from our families located on the west coast. Though Skype and other face to face conversations keeps our daughter aware of other people, it does not provide the same experience you have when you actually play with other kids. So we were really excited to come visit the families in conjunction with my wife graduating from her doctorate program.

To summarize the trip in a nutshell, we saw all of our immediate families, and a handful of other folk in a whirl-wind of hand shakes, hugs, cake and coffee. Before we knew it, we were on a five AM flight back to Virginia. It was a Monday.

That is about when it began. 

Sometimes when I wake up early, I may get a little nauseous, especially if I try eating something and then get hurtled 30,000 feet up into the air. Whatever the reason was, somewhere over Nebraska, I was gripping my barf bag, praying to God that I didn't lose whatever I put in me yesterday.

Fortunately I left the plane more or less the same weight as when I started. After roughly 12 hours of planes, buses and automobiles, we made it home and went to bed. 

It was around 1 AM when my daughter threw up all over her bed. We didn't sleep that night.

We thanked or lucky stars that my wife had requested the following day off to get adjusted to the time change, unpack, etc. But instead of having a productive day back, we all slept. That's how we spent Tuesday.

Wednesday, Nicole went back to work. She did fantastic. We were all feeling better and had rather productive days, though we were dragging a little, easily explained by the two previous days of limited activity. However, around 4 o'clock that afternoon, I got an urgent phone call: "Come pick me up, I'm on the verge of being sick." I rushed to the hospital, where my wife happens to work, and brought her home where she spent the next six hours intermittently asleep on the bathroom floor. We finally managed to transfer her to the couch around 10 that night. 

Three hours later, I took her place. It was about 6AM on Thursday when we all stopped expelling fluids. The rest of the day was devoted to sleep.

We awoke on Friday, alive. Thank the Lord. Nicole went to work, I cleaned the house, and Michelle terrorized the dog. It was practically a normal day, we just had difficulty figuring out what day it actually was. 

In summary, I have no regrets visiting my family, but sometimes there are unsaid perks to using Skype and Facetime, whether your 3,000 miles away, or 30. 

Love you guys.