Parental Leave

Good evening, I welcome you to your normally scheduled blog post. Day 21. The day I almost did the whole day from dawn til dusk. My wife thankfully made it home just in time to catch Harry before bed and now they are up doing bedtime.

But other than that, it was dad all day long today. My wife was up earlier than the birds for a work event and that meant I had to take care of her part of the morning. No biggie, it was just breakfast and getting Harry to school.

The worry was, he had a rough drop off on Monday, so we were interested to see how his mood was today. He was fine. Why?

Angry Birds.

The toys we got in the mail yesterday were still fresh in his head. Even to the point where the first thing he said when he got up today was, can we play with the Angry Birds?

Monday night, at the computer, telling it like it is. Day 20 was not bad.

It all started bright and early just before 6 am when the baby awoke. I went to get him and brought him back to bed to try to get him back to sleep. Great idea, until we got all cozy and I smelled him. Yep, there was a present waiting.

So the choice was, stay in bed and let him sleep, or change him which would mean awake time. I chose uncomfortable and smelly. I did not sleep but the baby did, past 7 am. So that was a win.

For breakfast, it was the first day of a new cereal for Harrison. He picked out Frosted Flakes yesterday because he thought it was Tigger on the box. He is on a current Winnie the Pooh kick, so any tiger out there is Tigger.

We were not sure he would like the cereal, but all worry was gone in two seconds. Yep, they were greeeeeeat.

Well, Day 19 was a long one and when you add in that it was Friday, it is no shock that I did not feel like blogging last night.

Charlie is napping and my wife took Harry to Saturday gymnastics, so here I am.

Yesterday was a definite win for me I think. As you may have read, we have been transitioning Charlie from his beloved swing to his crib for naps. I mean he sleeps all night in the crib, so why not naps.

The first day was rough as expected, but yesterday was awesome. He was up there and asleep for almost three hours. My wife used the term “dad for the win” when she heard this.

Flash forward to today, it was back to rough. But that was expected as a weekend day is different from a weekday. Everyone is home, the house is less quiet and we were out doing stuff this morning which threw off the sleep schedule.

But he is up there right now, fighting it out and I think he has at least scored an hour of doze.

It is a cold, rainy and depressing evening in Halifax tonight. It is almost May and the weather is still flirting with the freezing mark. What gives? The boys want to be outside playing, not sitting on the couch looking out the window.

Oh well, the forecast looks much better next week.

Today, even though I got to sleep in past 7 am, was a tiring day. You know the days, when your eyes are like gum and your brain just does not want to function.

Luckily for me, I just had Charlie and he loves to sleep. He is like a bear. As long as he gets to eat, he is quite happy to doze and nap and sleep as much as you let him.

The overall goal of the day was to try to get the house in order. I feel like I am slipping from the tidy standard that Katie set while she was home with the baby. She had a schedule and the house was for the most part a clean space for us men to mess up.

I did manage to get a few rooms done but there is a lot more. Maybe one day. At least the hair got sucked off the floor. Having pets can really add to the mess.

Whoa boy, this is going to be a short post to end the week. It has been a long day with the wife still out on the town. She went to a play with some friends, so it was a dad dinner and double bedtime night. All done.

Most of today was spent watching or listening to the news out of Boston. We have friends who live in Belmont, not that far from Watertown. So it was great to hear they were okay. Bored, but okay.

The story has been crazy to follow and as I write this post, it might be coming to an end. At least for “white cap” and his run from the law.

What have we really learned today?

24 hour news is painful. There are a lot of “experts” on TV today who clearly did not know shit. All they are doing is watching what we see, reading what we read and then speculating. It is bad, bad television.

The CBC guy basically was referring to movie scripts I think.

Other than that, pretty quiet day.

Good evening, I am sitting here in the dark with the hum of the laptop keeping the house from being totally silent. Yep, boys are in bed and it is time to reflect on another day of parental leave.

It has been over two weeks now and I am really getting into the routine. Thursday and Friday it is just Charlie, so it makes it easy to have a quiet and relaxed day. I mean, he does not say much (yet).

Today was pretty routine although the dog walk today involved a half trail with Charlie sitting in the stroller without the car seat. Sitting and looking forward. Yep, he loved it.

Once lunch was over, I did a few computer things and before I knew it, Charlie fell asleep on me. Wow, the fresh air did the trick. Not so fast mister. I had to wake him up for a bottle so he could have his long afternoon nap.

Once he was swinging away, I decided to do something I had not done in several weeks. I watched a movie. Forget chores or endless things I could do on the computer, I needed to just chill out. I presented it to myself as a reward for a busy two weeks.