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.