Breakup and Dating Scene

It's already been a week since I broke up with Intel for someone else and unlike all the other breakups in my past, there are no tears to speak of, no long talks with my sister to remind me that I am worthy and I will find happiness again, and no middle of the night urges to contact Intel and ask to be taken back. Nope, none of that. It's too soon to say what it's really like day to day as a stay-at-home mom but I can say that I am happy and this past week included a lot of firsts not only for Lily but for me as well.

One of my firsts is that I cooked dinner every single night this past week and I didn't mind. I cooked rice for the first time (how embarrassing is that?) and learned that squash takes forever to bake to the point that watching Nate eat it reminded me of a dog gnawing on a bone. I tried out new recipes and I consider it successful because Nate ate it and is still alive. My mom always told me growing up that a way to a man's heart is with food. I don't agree, but I do feel a sense of pride knowing I could cook a healthy and tasty meal for my family and I know my mom and I agree on that.

The other first is an embarrasing realization that my quest to meet more people in my neighborhood is starting out differently than I hoped. I am meeting new people that are very friendly, especially to Lily. Lily has gotten "there goes the future" and "she has the face of the future President of America" and the usual "all that hair is awesome" (which by the way never gets old). Unfortunately, all these comments come from what Nate calls "street persons." They aren't transients because they aren't going anywhere and they don't seem to be homeless. I take a lot of walks with Lily and when you take walks around the city, especially downtown, in the middle of the day during the work week, you pass a lot of street persons. I have also handed out leftover baked goods out to them so maybe word is getting out about crazy tall lady and her baby walking around the city looking for people to give treats to. It did seem like I got approached quite a bit last week.

I'm slowly putting myself out on the "mom-friend" dating scene. Thankfully Nate paved the way at the library's book babies class and I was approached by a couple of women last week who remembered Lily. I haven't gotten any phone numbers yet and yeah, I have had a couple anxous moments where I wish I had a fun group of active mom friends in the neighborhood. If I've learned anything about the dating scene though, it's that it all seems to happen when you aren't working so hard at looking for it.

Even though Lily still cries quite a bit when she goes down for her "will it be 30 minutes or 1.5 hour" naps, we had a lot of fun this week. I know she like Guns-N-Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine", she'll giggle if I jump up and down and say boo, she enjoys dancing with me to the Beatles "Yellow Submarine," and likes watching me dance while cooking in the kitchen. Lily likes to hold leaves and will follow the falling leaves from the trees with her eyes. She'll kick her legs in excitement whenever a dog or a cat comes close. She likes playing with the nalgene bottle cap and enjoys the crinkling sound of a granola bar wrapper. It probably seems pretty mundane and boring reading this but I honestly find it really exciting to be a part of Lily's world. I wonder what I'll learn this week.

No More Daddy Day Care

Well my five weeks off with Lily have come to an end. Today was my first day back at the office. Only 700 messages in my inbox to wrestle with, was way fewer than I expected, so it wasn't a bad start.

I really enjoyed my time as a stay at home Dad. It definitely gave me an up close and personal look at what it's like to be with her pretty much every moment day after day and showed me that it's not a walk in the park. We did take plenty of walks in the park, but there were also plenty of not-so-fun times like trying to stretch awake time too long and ending up with an over-tired unhappy Lily. There were lots of highlights from our time together, and Lily showed me plenty of firsts. We especially liked walking over to the Library for Book Babies, where Lily got to hang out with a lot of other kids her age and hear stories and songs. I was always the only Dad in the room, but it really didn't feel awkward. Lily loved watching all the other kids, especially the ones that were crawling around or sitting up and playing with toys. Our first visit there she surprised me by sitting up all by herself for quite a while. She had never really done it before, but I was holding her up when I noticed that I didn't seem to be giving her much support so I let her go for it and she just held herself there like a tripod with both hands on the ground. It's really been amazing to see her balance develop since then, now she sits up straighter and can correct herself when she starts to tip over.

The other notable first is that she's actively teething. We were playing on the floor a couple of weeks ago when she chomped down on my hand and there was more than just gums there. She was a little cranky and not quite herself for a day or so but has been pretty good about it. The tooth still has quite a ways to go on its way in, but it's a lot more visible now. The second tooth isn't far behind, you can feel it starting to poke through the gum line now.

Actually just tonight she made a new discovery in celebration of her Mama staying home with her, she figured out she could put her foot in her mouth. Here's the video:


The first day in the office was pretty good, it was nice to visit with friends who were curious to hear how my time at home went. I was happy to get nice congratulations from a lot of people who I told about Nicole leaving Intel and staying home with Lily. I can honestly say I didn't think about work at all while I was gone, but I was happy that I snapped back into it pretty easily today, even remembering what most of our codenames referred to. I'm sure every day won't be rosy once I sink my teeth back into work, but the first day wasn't too bad.

I'm Comin' Home.

I've decided to leave Intel and be a stay-at-home Mom. Making the decision was as easy as it gets. Once push came to shove and we had to commit to childcare, I couldn't do it. Oh, I agonized about it leading up to it, pretty much my whole maternity leave. I could see myself as both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom, I really could. I was actually leaning towards working mom because I just thought I'd be an idiot if I didn't work when I have a job I enjoy and hey, it pays nicely. Looking back now, it seems as though I was trying to talk myself out of what my heart and soul were telling me all along because I wasn't accepting who I am now. I'm just not wired to do both. Maybe it's because I had a stay-at-home mom. Maybe it's because I already have big issues with guilt and don't want to even try taking on the guilt I'd feel balancing work and home. Maybe it's because my job isn't as fulfilling now that I can compare it to being a mom. Maybe it's because I have the choice. I'm grateful for the choice.

I wanted Nate to have an opinion on what I do but of course he just said he wanted me to be happy and fulfilled, and whichever option maximized that was the right one. I wanted him to have a strong preference so if it ended up being wrong, I had someone else to blame. I know, very mature of me.

Life is long, childhood is short, and life already feels short enough. I can always go back to work. I can't always go back and experience Lily's childhood again. Call me selfish but I don't want to miss anything.

This week, I'll say goodbye to a company that's been good to me the last 10 years, a job that I enjoyed, and people that I'll miss. I'm also going to say hello to an exciting new chapter that will let me focus much more on my family.

It still blows me away how much I've changed in the last year. I didn't even know I wanted kids till I was 29. I didn't know whether I could handle Lily those first few hellish weeks. Now, I don't want to let her go and the person I thought I was already seems like a distant memory.

Mr. Mom

My time off with Lily is more than half gone. It's hard to believe, it's definitely flying by. It's been great so far and I'm really looking forward to the next two weeks before heading back to work.

During the week of overlap where both Nicole and I were off, we started trying to give Lily a bottle to get her ready to be alone with daddy. It was evident from the first try that it was not going to be as simple as sticking the bottle in her mouth and her sucking it dry. She showed zero interest in the bottle, and when she put up with it being in her mouth she didn't suck and didn't swallow the drops. So the first day Nicole went back to work, Lily managed to get about 3 oz. out of bottles, and probably half of that dribbled down her chin. To compare, she probably gets about 6 oz. every time she gets it directly from her mama. Over the next few days we tried different bottles, different nipples, different temperatures of milk, and anything else we could think of. Nothing seemed to work very well. But we just kept at it and I kept telling myself she was getting a little better every day. Not sure whether it was true or not, but eventually she started getting it. She settled on a particular type of nipple that she could latch onto and finally started to get some milk out and get it down. By the middle of this week she seemed to have it down and could eat as much as she felt like without having to sit there for 45 minutes. Now she can down about 6 oz. in 15 minutes. Much better for both of us.

Now that the drama is done, on to the fun we've been having. We've gone on lots of walks, gone shopping, had an afternoon in the park, and even went to book babies. I expected more story reading at book babies, but it was mostly singing songs and dancing around. Regardless, Lily loved it. She was all smiles checking out all the other kids, most of whom were crawling around. She even did something new, sitting up all by herself for a couple of minutes. At first I was propping her up a bit but noticed she seemed to be balancing pretty well and let her go for it. Another development over the past few days is that when she's on her tummy she sticks her butt in the air and pulls her legs in under her. Then she gets frustrated when she doesn't move. She's doing a lot more pushups too, extending her arms and getting her chest up in the air. So it's just a matter of time before she starts scooting around. On the one hand, it will be very exciting to see her figuring out how to move herself around. On the other, it means we have to baby proof and keep everything clean, or at least cleaner than it seems now.


The weather's been cool and a bit rainy this past week, keeping us inside more than we'd like, but hopefully next week we'll be able to get out more and hang out in the park. Lily loves watching kids at the park, and dogs too. Sometimes she'll even giggle while watching a dog play fetch, it's pretty cute. I guess she's an animal lover already.

Overall, I'm definitely enjoying being with Lily full time, it will be hard to go back to work when that time comes. And it's given me even more appreciation for what Nicole has done for the past four months, it takes a lot of patience and adaptability to keep Lily and yourself happy. Hopefully the next two weeks will be full of new things, good weather, and Lily's smiles.