Category: Stay-At-Home-#GirlDad

Egged On

I had my first true full-frustration-with-my-daughter moment, and it didn’t feel good. I was feeding her scrambled eggs, and she was doing everything she could to get the eggs anywhere but in her mouth. She would grab the eggs and then just drop or fling them. I would try to feed her with the spoon and she would knock it away with hands or elbows (or both; she’s going to be a heckuva defender when playing basketball). It really frustrated me. I kept reminding myself that “she’s nine-months-old, she’s not doing this on purpose, etc etc yada yada yada.” But man, it really frustrated me. I finally gave up on the scrambled eggs by themselves, added some sweet potato to hold everything together better, and then the feeding went on without a(nother) hitch. It took me a little while to come down off of that, because man, it REALLY frustrated me.

(Editor’s note: She was bothered not even a little bit. In fact, I think she enjoyed it. And I know for a fact our dog loved it. Incredible edible egg, indeed.)

What I’ve Learned as a Father

I have now been a father for eight and a half months, and I have learned a lot during that time. About myself and…other things. Lots and lots of other things. Way too many other things.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED AFTER BECOMING A FATHER:

I learned there is a lot more to using a blender than putting food in and hitting “blend.”

I learned that avocados are impossible to be cut if they are not SUPER ripe.

I learned that three people — one of them an almost nine-month-old — can go through an entire household supply of silverware. In a single day. Multiple days a week.

I have learned that dishwashers really are a godsend.

I learned that I am very bad at snaps. Like, embarrassingly bad. Like, screwing up on the snaps of her clothes at least twice a day.

I learned a new level of exhaustion. Our daughter sleeps through the night, and we get more sleep now than we did before she arrived, and yet I am completely wiped every hour of every day. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for parents of kids who don’t sleep. My heart, and coffee, goes out to them.

I have learned that ignoring laundry for one day makes the pile seem so insurmountable that one day becomes three days, and all of a sudden we’re doing nothing but laundry.

I learned what a potty mouth I have. I knew I liked to use certain four-letter words, but now that I’m hyper-aware of what actions and words of mine my child will mimic, I really need to cut the $#!+.

I learned that becoming a dad doesn’t automatically make me more mature. It’s like a birthday — suddenly there’s something different about me, but I’m still the same me, so there’s really nothing different about me.

I’ve learned what my wife said about being a parent rings as true now as it did when our daughter was born: “tired, clueless, and completely in love.”

Spoonman

I was pretty proud (and, if we’re being honest, impressed with myself) when I taught our daughter to eat with a spoon. And by eat with a spoon, I mean I put food on the spoon, hand her the spoon, she takes the spoon and sticks it in her mouth. So I was a little annoyed when today, out of the blue, she decided she no longer wanted to have a hand in feeding herself with the spoon. She just wanted to be hand fed.

So as I sat there, annoyed with my daughter, she grabbed some of the chicken (yes, that’s chicken) with her hand, and stuck it in her mouth. This was a first for her – she’s fed herself puffs, but not real food. Usually she would just play with her food and get her hands all messy.

Her hands were still messy, but there was no food left when she was done. So what started as a fail turned into a win. Albeit a messy one.

#GirlDad Review: The Princess and the Pea

The Princess and the Pea is a crap book with a crap message and I will never read it to my daughter again. A review:

I love reading to my daughter. And I was excited to read to her books that I remember from my childhood. For example, The Princess and the Pea. But I didn’t remember (or didn’t realize) what a terrible story it is.

As I was reading The Princess and the Pea to my daughter I was thinking to myself (and saying out loud), “what kind of awful message is this for girls?” Basically the story is: a Prince is looking for a wife. His wife has to be a princess (class-ist). He can marry any princess he wants (sexist). First a bunch of princesses come to him, but he doesn’t like them. Then he travels to meet more princesses, but doesn’t like them either. Think Goldilocks as a guy, and the porridge is princesses.

Then, back at home, during a rain storm, a girl (Polly) knocks on the door and asks if she can spend the night. “She didn’t look much like a princess,” says the book. WTF is a princess supposed to look like? The entire book so far has been how different every princess looks and is! So girls have to look a certain way to be accepted? GTFOH.

The unnamed prince (only princesses have names, apparently) fell in love with Polly because she was “pretty and funny and kind.” So looks are most important and intelligence isn’t even listed. Cool. But because Polly didn’t “look like a princess” the queen had to test her to make sure she was, in fact, a princess, because again, the prince can ONLY marry a princess. Polly gets into a bed with a bunch of mattresses, and a pea under the bottom mattress, and only a princess would feel the pea, which of course Polly does, and so the prince asks Polly to marry him and she says yes. THEY’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER LITERALLY LESS THAN 24 HOURS. We never find out if Polly even likes the prince; the entire plot is he wants a wife, he searches for a wife, he gets a wife, end of story.

I give this book NEGATIVE #GirlDads.

The New Normal

I preface this by saying: I completely understand that this is a scary time, for a number of reasons. I know that hospitals are swamped and that medical workers are putting their lives on the line on a daily basis, that people are scared of what will happen with their jobs and the health of their loved ones, and that this whole situation sucks. So is it wrong that I don’t think I want the shelter-in-place to end? Probably.

I should clarify – I do want the shelter-in-place to end, because among other things, I want to be able to go to the store without chlorox wiping everything and sanitizing my hands every time I touch something. I just wouldn’t be upset if my wife continued to work from home. I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for four months, the first two of which coincided with the end of my wife’s maternity leave. Now that she is working from home because of coronavirus, it feels the same as those first two months. Just, different.

Although my life hasn’t changed since my wife started working at home, it feels very different. Our routine is basically the same; I get up around 6:30am to work out, my wife gets up at 7am to get ready for work, I get our daughter around 7:45 so that my wife can say good morning before heading off to work, then I do the stay-at-home-dad thing while my wife works until returning around 5:30pm. Rinse, repeat.

Now, instead of getting in her car to drive to work, my wife walks down the hallway to our office. That is essentially the only modification to our daily routine and everything feels very different. And I love it. It’s amazing 1) to see my wife throughout the day and b) for my wife to see our daughter throughout the day. I love witnessing both of their smiles when they see each other. Also because I don’t have a “9-to-5” job, I am able to take care of our daughter and allow my wife to do the work she needs to do.

(Also, I find it funny that my wife LOVES that she can wear sweats and comfortable clothes at work, while I HAVE to wear jeans at home so that I don’t feel like a lazy slob. Mars and Venus, I guess.)

This is definitely a weird limbo for a lot of people, including my wife; my routine will not change when she starts going back to work. We are incredibly lucky that so far we have not been impacted too much by this terrible situation (knock on wood). I don’t know how long this new normal is going to last, and I certainly hope it doesn’t last much longer for all of our sakes. But I also will miss this new normal when the old normal returns.