Monkey House

So, somewhat as per my predictions, here’s how the day went. The details are excessive, and possibly only interesting if you can visualize me with Cole. But this is really more for my wife and Cole’s grandparents than anyone else, so read at your own peril:

Woke up at 8:30. Must wake up at 7:30 from now on. Here’s why: I’m incapable of making coffee and eating cereal by the time Cole is unhappy with his current activity (whatever that happens to be at the time.. mat, exersaucer, whatever). He gets unhappy that quickly. I thought to myself, “meh, he can sob a little bit while I eat. A guy’s gotta eat.” But that didn’t work out so well for me. I *did* manage to grab a bowl of cereal (ate with one hand at the counter, Cole in the other arm) but it wasn’t worth it. I’d rather wake up earlier and share breakfast with my wife.

Suffice it to say, from 8:30 – 9:00 I juggled Cole in one arm while trying to get my day started. He wasn’t uncooperative, but I knew he was in the mood to wander and look out the window, not to be on his mat or in some other independence-granting device.

But at 9:00 the shit hit the fan. Not literally. Thankfully.
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So, I’ve needed an excuse to just ramble a bit here. And my excuse will be a journal of my short (2-month) paternity leave. Oh sure, there’s tonnes of other stuff in the backlog (baby’s first Christmas!) but those things require video and/or photo editing, and my puter is running on 1GB of 333Mhz RAM for about a week… not in the mood to do anything too intensive with the machine until it’s up to speed. Instead, I will jump right into posting about my parental leave… no pics necessary, though I’m sure there will be some of those as well…

So, Day One is coming up. The plan? Don’t really have one yet. I think it will be:

1. wake up as Mama goes off to her first day back at the lab
2. Go through some of his usual diversions depending on what he’s in the mood for:
   1. practice sitting/crawling
   2. read book(s)
   3. jolly jumper
   4. mat time
3. Try to get him down for a nap. As far as I know, he usually has boobies which lead into naps. I do not have boobies. Bottle and reclining MIGHT do it, but it might now. This might be a tough stretch of walking around the main floor with a carrier
4. Fire up some laundry (or, nap with little guy if I’m bazaughsted)
5. Meet mommy for lunch
6. Go to the dog park
7. Swing past Future Shop
8. Nap #2, which may involve more playing by ear, figuring out how to get him to go down for some sleep
9. Exersaucer, laundry, pray mommy comes home soon
10. Start supper?

I’m under no illusion… my stay-at-home period will likely be easier than Alie’s was. The hard part will be establishing new routines, figuring out how to get him to nap, and generally rolling with the inevitable moments when I can’t figure out how to keep him happy.

But I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. Many dads I know are from the generation before me, or couldn’t take the time off work. 9 time out of 10 they say they wish they had taken more than a few days off. I may not be taking 35 weeks, but a solid 8 weeks is going to be unforgettable one way or another.