Stay-at-home-dad again

By Published On: February 15th, 2016

Even though I work during the day, there are still […]

Even though I work during the day, there are still days where I tell the nanny she can have a day off because school is closed. These are the days I cherish.

The entire family will be together every day from roughly April to August and I’m looking forward to that immensely. When my wife goes back to work, the rest of us likely won’t. N begins kindergarten in September while G and D3 are going to stay home—but who they’ll be home with is the question. I am going to look for jobs with an open mind, but there’s a catch: If I do get a job, it’s going to have to cover the cost of someone watching two boys while also making us some profit after paying out the help. There’s a 95 percent chance that said help is going to be ME!

0118160952I did it with N, I did it with N and G, and I’ll likely do it with all three. We’re in a great town that allows us easy access to Hartford, Boston and New York City, along with some smaller cities within Connecticut. There’s always going to be something to do, other toddlers for them to meet, plenty of outdoors activities to enjoy.

The last day I had off of school, I took them out to an arcade to take advantage of the time with them (and a free $20 gift card I got in the mail for said arcade). And it was glorious. Think Dave & Buster’s but on a smaller scale and 10 minutes closer to home. SkeeBall, giant spinning wheel games, even a game that is similar to beer pong but isn’t called beer pong. There’s carnival games, air hockey, rip-off coin drop games. The tickets that we won are automatically loaded onto your card. Once N saw the place and was like a kid in a, well, arcade.

G is a little too young to fully appreciate (and play) any of the games, so I had to hold him for most of it. When I did put him down, he wandered around but never out of sight. Luckily we were the only ones there at the time.

We milked the $20 for about an hour before we headed to the prize room. It took 15 minutes or so for N to choose his prize—and G’s. A full-sized neon slinky for himself and a miniature heart-shaped slinky for G. Miraculously, G’s lasted a few hours before losing it’s shape, and N’s is still holding form, a week later.

0118161717Once home, it was puzzle time for the boys while I made lunch. Puzzle time is more or less mess-making time. G grabs all eight puzzles and turns them over, creating a sea of puzzle pieces. It’s awesome fun. It’s even more fun when N gets into the mix and they both start firing puzzle pieces into their couches.

After lunch, G napped while N and I did some mazes, played Candy Land, and talked about listening and the importance of being a good role model for G—and eventually for D3.

These are the types of days that I’m looking forward to come August—with one more boy in the fold.

Pregnancy Update:

L continues to amaze me.

She works all day, comes home to dinner (prepared by me), and takes on the two boys once I leave for work around 5:30 p.m. She’s been more and more tired lately, but she fights through it for the boys.

After they’re in their beds, she usually brews herself a cup of tea, grabs whatever book she’s reading, pops on a “Housewives” show as background noise, and winds down for an hour or so. I get home around 11 p.m., and she’s usually out cold, until I bring N into the bathroom so that he doesn’t wet his bed. “Goodnight, love you,” she whispers, followed by N’s reply, “Love you.”

So besides being more tired, everything else is status quo. Except that D3 is now the size of a butternut squash.