The Intermisson, Part 6 - The Fraternal Order of Home-bound Fathers

When I decided to quit working and became a stay-at-home dad, I knew I was joining a crowd of a select few. It's super common for one to see stay-at-home moms. Seriously, check out your local grocery store or library whenever you have a day off work. However, stay-at-home dads tend to be more of a rare breed. In fact, I feel like I've been able to go weeks at a time without seeing another S.A.H.D. in the wild. Occasionally though, I encounter those moments that remind me I'm not alone.

I'll set the scene. It's Thursday and Ellie and I are ready to take in story time at Woodneath Library. As we had arrived at the library a few minutes early, I decided to treat us to something special from the on-site coffee shop: a strawberry-banana smoothie.

I want this right now.

Now,  I don't know if I speak for all dads when I say this or not, but I like to spoil my little girl and occasional treats like this are one of my favorite ways to do so. Of course, part of spoiling Ellie is wanting to keep it just between the two of us. Therefore, I always make certain to remind her not to tell Mommy even though I know Bethany wouldn't care.

Once our smoothie was in hand, Ellie and I headed to the story time room and took a seat. There we sat and read books together, alternating sips of our smoothie until the festivities finally begun. While these events are largely attended by women, imagine my surprise when I saw a dad with his preschool-aged daughter wander in and take a seat. Of course, as men are prone to do in these situations, rather than engage in conversation, we instead acknowledged each other's presence with a simple head nod and returned our attention to our respective child. 

Approximately an hour later, story time had come and gone, the smoothie was long gone, and Ellie was the proud borrower of five new library books. Therefore, it was time to head to our next stop, Sam's Club. While our shopping list wasn't large by any means, it did include two specific things for Ellie: a new set of pajamas and a massive bucket of animal crackers. 

When it came time for Ellie to pick out her new pajamas, I must admit that disappointment reigned supreme. Even though I made a hard push for her to choose space cat-themed pajamas (you read that right), she instead settled for pink and purple donut-themed pajamas. Like a good dad though, I begrudgingly placed them in the cart and moved on.

Oh, what could have been...

As we traversed aisle after aisle, we suddenly encountered an unexpected surprise. There in the milk aisle was the same father/daughter combo we had seen at story time. Even though this meeting wouldn't be any more eventful than our last, there was at least a second head nod accompanied by a "Hey, it's you!". With that, it was time to head home to see Bethany and Ethan.

Oh, I guess I should mention here that Ellie is the biggest tattletale that ever lived. Within five minutes of being home, she had blabbed all about the smoothie to Bethany. I still can't believe she sold me out! #DaddyWrite

(Wife edit: Really you sold yourself out. Lol. I tried to tell her you don’t buy smoothies at the library. Little did I know her response of “you have never been to this library" was so true.)

The Intermission, Part 5 - The Return

Your eyes do not deceive you. After a little over a month, I'm finally writing another #DaddyWrite post. I'm sure my little layoff makes sense to anyone who has ever had a newborn in the house. That's especially true when you take the presence of Ellie into account as well. 

By the time it's all said and done, if Bethany and I have kept Ethan safe from his big sister for an entire day, that's a win. It doesn't matter if we have dishes that haven't been done or laundry that hasn't been done because priority #1 is keeping both kids happy, healthy, and safe. Therefore, as you can imagine, keeping up with a semi-vanity project like #DaddyWrite falls down the to-do list slightly.

In all seriousness, there is an importance to #DaddyWrite in that it gives us a practical tool with which to look back on the childhoods of Ellie and Ethan someday. That's probably the exact reason why Bethany has been strongly encouraging me to write again. For the record, there is a huge difference between strongly encouraging and nagging. 

While I could choose to write about our family trip to the zoo today, I feel there's an importance in actually discussing what life has been like at home for the past month as a family of four. Spoiler alert, it's been somewhat less than easy.

For one, even something simple like putting Ellie to bed has changed dramatically. It used to be that the three of us would all hang out in her room with the girls sitting in Ellie's rocking chair reading books while I sat in the extra-manly, furry, pink chair on the other side of the room. Once books were finished, we would spend time praying together as a family  before I finally would tuck Ellie in and call it a night. Now, Ellie is lucky to get one of us in her room for Operation Bedtime while the other takes care of Ethan. 

With any luck, Ellie will be doing this soon.

That's not the only thing that has changed for Ellie as she's had to learn to share her mother with her brother. You wouldn't think that would have been a big issue since she still had me around but it's actually been quite difficult. For the first six weeks of Bethany's maternity leave, Ellie and I spent most of our time engaged in battle over me trying in vain to get her to do something and her refusing. 

My personal favorite battle revolved around me trying to get her to put on her pajamas. We spent forty-five minutes locked in the bathroom with Ellie kicking and screaming. What was my response? To watch NCAA Tournament games on my phone, only looking up during commercials to ask if she was ready for my help. That question was generally met with louder and more intense screaming.

The most difficult part of the transition has actually been the arguing for Bethany and me. Between the lack of sleep and heightened emotions, we've found ourselves bickering a lot more than normal which definitely led to some hard feelings. It's ok though because even though we've had some hard conversations, we're back in a really good place right now or at least I feel that way. I'm assuming Bethany does as well.

I don't want you thinking that all of our difficulties are due to Ethan's arrival. For Ellie, her biggest struggle in life can sometimes come from eating a simple taco. We've all been there. We're taking bite after savory bit of taco goodness when out of nowhere, a big pile of filling plunges out the opposite end onto the plate below. While adults simply take a fork and eat the "leftovers" once the taco is consumed, Ellie's response is slightly different. 

"Oh no, my taco!"

On a positive note though, whenever something hard happens tomorrow, I now have something I can think of guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. "Oh no, my taco!" #DaddyWrite