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First off.  I want to apologize to all my followers who are reading these entries.  It was brought to my attention last night that Take 4 was hard to read.  

I decided this morning to go back and check all of the Poop and Pajama entries and I did find them to be something that wasn’t representative of myself.  I have since gone back and re-edited each of them.  If you had any trouble getting through those entries feel free to re-visit them.  When I write these journal entries for myself I write in a stream of conscious way.  I basically just split out what’s in my head onto the page.  That can be difficult for anyone other than myself to understand.  I hope the entries from here on out get better.  They aren’t meant to be polished as steel, but they should be readable.  Again, I apologize for sloppy editing on my part.      

December 15, 2012

You can tell how much he misses his mom when she is home on the weekends.  That is tough on me to witness, but me staying home is what works for us.  I’m much better at being home with my son doing the stay at home thing.  My wife is better at going to work.   She needs that day-to-day structure where I’m much better without it.  I don’t know why that is.  It just is.

Last night we took our son to Target for the first time.  Of course he slept through the whole experience, but at least we ventured out with him.  About the only going out we’ve done so far is to church and the church Christmas party.  I guess being first time parents we are just scared of doing it.  How do you change a diaper in public?  How do you keep him calm?  There are a lot of how dos that scare the crap out of you when you venture out the first couple of times.  We will get better at it.

I guess that’s about it.

December 16, 2012

This morning, with a bang, my parental instincts were called into question.  My son sometimes wakes up early and rolls around for a bit before settling and going back to sleep.  When I went to check on him he was doing just that.  I thought I shouldn’t pick him up because he may settle back to sleep, but for some reason I decided against my instincts.  I think it was the way he was moving around.  It looked different from what I have seen before.  I guess I thought it might be a diaper issue.  I couldn’t stand thinking he might be laying there in a wet or dirty diaper so I picked him up.  He woke up, of course, and it took me over an hour to get him to go back to sleep.  It took two trips upstairs to get formula and several attempts with the binky before he finally crashed out over my shoulder.  I put him down to sleep and he woke up on his own about an hour past his normal wake time in the morning.

Was it worth it?  For the peace of mind, sure, but there are times when it might be best just to let him wake up naturally.  If something is bothering him he will certainly let you know.

I thought of another tip this morning as I was changing him.  When you put a diaper on him make sure the edges are pulled out around the openings of the legs.  You can do this on him or if he is kicking too hard do it before you put it on.  Just lay the diaper out and open it flat.  Then work the edges as it lays open.  Then you can hook it over him and cover him up.  It should go right into place then.  Another thing you can do if you have a boy is to place a wash cloth over his area so he doesn’t pee on you.

December 14, 2012

Well, mid afternoon has arrived.  I tell you what.  I give my mom and women everywhere who have stayed home to raise their kids, full respect.  I bow to you because this is one tough job.  Taking care of not only your kid, but the house, dishes, clothes, and dinner as well.  Today I managed to clean the kitchen, vacuum, dust, do several loads of laundry, dishes, and take care of my son.  I tell you that at 3:15 P.M. I am wiped.  Women who stay home I truly respect your job.  I still have the bathrooms and the down stairs to clean, which will be on Monday.  I also have to cut up the potatoes and get dinner ready while all I want to do is sit here and stare at the wall.

Anyway, that’s not me bragging about what I’ve done today.  It’s just me wanting to let you know how tough it is staying at home when the roles are reversed.  This morning was probably the toughest I have had all week.  Around 8:30 A.M. my son decided to have a blow out (which is, he crapped so much it blew out of his diaper) which we knew was going to happen.  He didn’t go at all yesterday (which is actually not a concern if you can believe it) so we knew today was going to be the day, and let me tell you, it was.  While I was feeding him I kept smelling something.

I put him down on the changing pad in order to check his diaper.  The poop had managed to exit out via one side of it and it was all over his left leg.  When I removed the diaper I also found the poop migrating northward covering not only his back region, but his front region as well.  The clean up was going to be tough, but then it hit me.  My stomach decided now was the time my bowels needed to make their exit (trying not to be too graphic).  Here I was all alone with a baby covered in green poop and I had to go so bad it about doubled me over.  I cleaned him as fast as I could.  I slapped a diaper on him, and tossed the changing pad as well as the footy pajamas into a pile, both of which had poop on them.  I grabbed my son, tossed a blanket around him because all he had on now was a diaper, and I placed him in front of the bathroom door on a boppy (a thing that looks like a cushion horse shoe with a cover on it).  I could now watch him while I did my thing.

When I thought I was done (not sure I was, but I had my son to think about).  I decided to do something I had never done before.  That’s right.  Give him a bath.  This also involved a lot of tactful maneuvering.  You can’t just leave him alone and go and draw a bath.  You have to put him somewhere safe while you get his bath tub ready.  So I put him in the crib, ran the water, filled the tub, stripped him down, and with nerves not made of steel I bathed my son.  I even did his hair.  I was so proud of myself.  My son seemed so happy after wards.  Of course I still had to wash the crib sheets, the blanket that was around him, and everything else he had come in contact with when he was unclean.  All in all it took me sometime to get it done, but I did it.  I even called my wife to tell her because I just felt so good with myself.  Since then it has been pretty easy-going.  He’s napped and fed well.  The diapers so far have remained yellow.

By the way, here’s a tip if you are a new dad.  When you get your kid up in the morning you should go ahead and check their diaper if they will let you do it.  Sometimes they are screaming and kicking so bad you can’t do anything, but feed them right away.  If you can change the diaper though this will help you not to get peed on.  I’m not saying you won’t get peed on if you change the diaper, but it will increase your chances of staying dry.

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.

++++++

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.

++++++

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.

+++++

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.