Author: AWR72

December 13, 2012

Well, I had my first judgment call today.  It came in the afternoon.  I had no one to watch my boy when I ran so I had to make a decision.  What to do?  I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but I decided to put my son in his car seat so I could hit the treadmill for about fifteen minutes.  This required going out into the garage to do it so I bundled him up and went out to get some exercise.  It was in the low fifties outside so I opened the garage door for him and I to get some air.  He seemed happy and content as I ran so I think it was okay to do this.  Something about it doesn’t feel right, like I’m putting myself over him.  If I would have left him in the house crying then I think it would have been an issue or if I had just ignored him and did my thing – then we have problems.  I’m pretty sure this one is okay.  My boy got some fresh air (which he needs, would have been the same if I took him for a walk) and I got in some exercise.  It must have worked because I put him down for his nap and he dropped off pretty quick.  Before I took him out to the garage for some fresh air he was wide awake.

That was the big thing for this day.  Everything else was pretty much according to plan.  Now onto Day 5.

Is something like that okay?  Find a safe place for him and watch him while you run on the treadmill or is it putting my needs over his?  

Well, so continues my journey.  I thought I would post the next couple of entries in my stay at home dad journal.  

December 11, 2012

I Finally got a run in today.  It wasn’t a great run, but it was a run.  I’ll take what I can get.  Since my son was born that has been one of the hardest things to do.  I have had time to write, to read, to even watch some movies by myself and with my wife, but anything that involves leaving the house has been difficult.

Anyway, how was the day?  Again, deceptively smooth.  He slept at all of his naps, ate efficiently, and had great play time with me.  The diapers weren’t too bad, no major blow outs, a couple of heavy ones, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  Having fun with it so far.

December 12, 2012

The monitor woke me up with his noises.  It is getting close to 6 A.M. so it should be another hour before he wakes up, at least.  Since he’s been sleeping through the night we can usually expect him to wake up between 7 and 7:30 A.M.  I have heard that baby’s don’t officially stick to sleeping through the night until after 6 months of age.  That’s why he has been so uneven with it.  He will go for a week sleeping through the night and then start waking up early again.  Then back to sleeping through the night.  He’s a baby.  It’s what they do.  We also think he might be teething early so that could be affecting his sleep as well.

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My wife has already left for work and my boy has had two incidents.

The first incident was a wet diaper that leaked out of his diaper and onto me.  So that meant not only a change of clothes for him, but a change of clothes for me – all the way down to the boxer shorts.

The second incident was when the poopy diaper hit and it required another change of clothes for him because he had pooped upwards.  That’s when he poops into his diaper and instead of just going there and staying it decides to move northward.  Those kinds of bowel movements usually go pretty far up his back.

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The day concludes and my son has gone to bed wearing his fourth pair of footy pajamas.  He had another big blowout sometime this evening while my wife was changing him.  Other than that, the day went pretty well.  He had a couple of fussy periods, but nothing a good bottle of formula can’t cure.

So that was the next couple of days.  I hope you have enjoyed this journey so far.  What do you think?  Would you want to hear some more?  I might start posting my entries from here on out.  If I have the time.  A lot on my plate as a stay at home dad.

I’ve been working on a book about being a stay at home dad.  It is a journey of what it is like to be a stay at home dad for the first full year doing this wonderful and challenging job.  Why chronicle just a year?  Not sure, it just seemed like a good well-rounded way to do this.  I might make this a series of books and just chronicle each year until he goes to school for the first time.  I’m honestly not sure just yet what I want to do, but I have enjoyed chronicling my journey.  It’s a nice way to have a place to release the thoughts in your head.  

I thought I would post up the first entry in this book in order to gauge the interest in it.  Would you be willing to read this?  Would you want to read this?  Does it grab your attention?  That sort of thing.  I’m purely a fiction writer (mostly horror based) so writing something like this is really out of my comfort zone.  

Well, I’ll shut up now.  I hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think.  If you want more I can easily start posting excerpts from it.

This first entry starts on the very first day my wife went back to work.  

December 10, 2012

Sometime in the 3 to 4 A.M. range, I was woken up by a call for the binky.  We’ve learned from others that sometimes when your baby wakes up in the morning he isn’t hungry, he just wants something to suck on.  This didn’t start happening until he got closer to 3 months old and after he had started sleeping through the night.  When he was younger he did need to be fed when he woke up because of his age, but now it seems he could go either way.  When I get up at 3 A.M. I first check his diaper and then try the binky.  I stay with him for a while to make sure it works and that he isn’t rejecting it.  If he is rejecting it then by all means, I feed him.  He is hungry.

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My first full day of being a stay at home dad is in the books.  Monday Night Football is on and I am finding it hard to sleep for some reason.  My creative juices are just flowing.

How was the day?  Deceptively smooth.  My boy went down for all of his naps rather easily except for the one around lunch.  I’m not sure why he was crying so much for that one.  No major diaper issues or vomit, no pee on the walls.  I managed to get the dishes done, dinner cooked, and most of my laundry done.  My wife and I still do our own laundry which is the way we did it before we got married.  Tomorrow is another day so onto Day 2.  Let’s hope it’s just as smooth.