Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Stay at Home Dad

This week, our daycare is closed so Priscilla can have a vacation of her own. As a result, Hubby is home alone with our little boy this week. I have to admit that, this past weekend, I would have to occasionally duck into an empty room to laugh maniacally. Not very compassionate of me, I know.

So to make up for this evil minded giddiness, I took steps to try to help him out the best I could. There are plenty of diapers in the house, and both changing tables are fully stocked. We have a whole case of baby wipes. There is plenty of frozen baby food, and extra baby peas in the fridge to add to any veggie to make it more appealing. All the containers of snacks were full on Sunday night. I put a pile of bibs near the high chair, the downstairs changing table, and also in the dresser. There are plenty of baby washrags in the drawer in the kitchen. I packed the diaper bag with everything he might need on an outing of any length. I bought some new toys for some new variety in the mess making. I posted Priscilla's notes on the wall about when he ate and napped last week.

At one point Sunday, he asked me if I knew when he normally got a bottle at Priscilla's. Yes. He says severely, "when were you going to tell me that?!" I taped it to the wall beside the calendar downstairs. Sheepish, "oh." I went over it verbally with him later (he learns auditorially and I learn visually). I asked him if he would like me to write out a simplified version of that. Yes, please. So I wrote it out in huge marker roughly when he normally naps and eats and what he eats when.

Before this, I've left Quint with Hubby for probably a maximum of 4 hours by himself. And usually, there's a phone call to me near the end of that asking when I could be expected home again. Now he's by himself from whenever the baby wakes up to at least 5pm.

So. Day 1. I never did get any frantic calls asking what to do. One time when we were on the phone and Quint started crying, I thought, "oh, you need to go" and only 5 seconds later, Hubby said the same thing and basically hung up on me. I smiled.

When I got home, no one was crying or traumatized. Quint was happy to see me, but not panicky or desperate. He did not need extra comforting or anything. Hubby also was not traumatized, but was very quiet all evening. Soon after I got home, he "got some things done" that would have been hard to do with the baby awake.

All signs point to a fairly good day for all parties! Hubby was pretty quiet in the evening, though. At 9:00, when I finally got Quint to bed (we had all been riled up at 8:30 at the normal bedtime), I noticed that one of the things Hubby was watching on TV was the Lifetime channel! He even watched the end of a sappy girl movie and said, "aaawwww" at the end. I laughed and hugged him and said, "one day as a stay at home dad and you're already watching the lifetime channel! What is the world coming to!" He playfully squeezed me and said, "yeah. Let's get some bon-bons and go watch Pride and Prejudice." We both laughed. "What the schmo are bon-bons anyway?"

1 comment:

  1. Awww. That gave me the warm fuzzies. I'm jealous of how productive you've been!

    ReplyDelete