Daddy Bloopers

Andrew always said he'd make a great stay-at-home dad. When I returned to work, he was at home with Emma in the daytime. During the two weeks before that, I tried telling him about her schedule, what to do, etc., but he didn't listen. He thought this would be easy...

Day 1--8:20a.m., my first phone call at work. Emma's crying in the background--"What's wrong? Is she hungry? Should I feed her?"

End of Day 1---he let her sleep the entire day, so she was wide awake that night. Daddy's in the doghouse.

Day 2--"She's napping, is that ok? Has it been too long? Do I wake her up? HOW do I wake her up?"

Day 3--Andrew begins to hold the phone to screaming baby for me, then asks, "Does she SOUND hungry?"

Day 5--Daddy is beginning to wail, "When will she start sleeping more?"

And then--"How am I supposed to get anything done?!?"

"Why is she crying???"

He consistently calls me to check in--is it ok to feed her? Let her sleep? What to do when she's awake?

I knew it was a "bad" day when he threatened to put her in the trash.

A few weeks later, he calls about Emma falling off the couch. He put her down so he could take a minute and change, even though I'd been telling him to not set her on the couch. I was mad at him, and then he responded, "You're not making me feel any better!" =) Well, she survived just fine, and he won't live it down.

When it was time to start feeding her real food, he shied away from it, scared of the mess. Instead, she would get his bottled concoctions of milk and rice cereal. I could do nothing to convince him to feed her more during the daytime. Then when I got home at night, I'd have to teach her how to eat with a spoon or by hand. Once she could handle that without a huge mess, THEN he'd feed her more (safe) stuff.

As for being a "house-husband" when I got home, I was immediately handed the baby, and then he asked, "What are you making for dinner?"

--Or--I'd get a call at work asking me what do we have at home that we can make for dinner? Umm..you're 2 feet away from the refrigerator while I'm 20 miles away.

He says: "I'm going to do some house cleaning today."

Translation: "I'm going to sweep and mop the floors." We had really clean floors. Not much else. I spent the weekends cleaning up after a week of Andrew and Emma at home alone.

He says: "I'm going to do some laundry."

Translation: "I'm going to wash and dry laundry, then pile it up in the laundry baskets for you to put away." This equals wrinkled work clothes.

He says: "Don't worry, I'll do the dishes."

Translation: "I'll wash all the easy stuff--plates, bowls, but I'll leave the silverware and bottles to pile up until you do it."

Soooo, it's nice for me that he's out of the house during the days now. He did improve a lot over the last several months, and now we can laugh about the beginning, and he can admit that he thought it was going to be easy. Now he knows!