When Lindsey went back to work for the first time since Kaitlyn was born I took a week off to help manage the transition. I shared the daily challenges and experiences here:

Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day Five

Takeaways

First and foremost - I knew that what Lindsey did by staying at home when I went back to work in October was impressive, but having lived a small sample of that reality, I’m now even more impressed. There’s really no way to understand how draining it is to be completely responsible for the entirety of another person unless you’ve done it. While that responsibility at times can feel like an unbelievably heavy burden, I feel like it also comes with an immense sense of pride. And of course, there are moments of joy. I’ve never heard a sound as sweet as that of a baby cooing, babbling, and giggling and I’ve never seen something that can melt my heart faster than a coy smile that creeps up at the edges of my daughter’s face and then blooms into a wide toothless smile. But as great as those moments are I have to admit that there are as many, and maybe more, moments of frustration. My point is that its hard, very hard. If you’re a parent and it wasn’t hard for you… well you were either very lucky or you’re a better person than I am. Either way I’m happy for you, and please don’t judge me too harshly.

With that said I really enjoyed spending the week taking care of my daughter and I would be happy to do it again if Lindsey’s work situation required it. I think I would even be willing, if Lindsey wanted to and our financial situation could bear it, to be a “stay at home dad” full-time. I would definitely need to have time where I was “off” but I think it could be a lot of fun. I think I would also end up working on a lot of side-projects including writing more often. I’m not really very good at taking naps in the middle of the day - once I’m up I tend to want to stay up - so I think I would use the time when she naps to work on projects. Its possible that I would ultimately HAVE to take naps, but this is all very hypothetical and not very likely at this point.

Finally, if you’ve been following Lindsey’s blog or read what I wrote about the trauma she suffered after giving birth you know that I came very close to doing this on my own. While I’m still working through the emotions (mostly anger) about what happened I can’t help but be grateful every day that Lindsey is still with me. I wish I could say that I can’t imagine doing this without her, but one of the horrible things about sitting in the hospital when she was still in the ICU was that I was forced to deal with the possibility that she might not come home. I know that our combined families would have been there to support me - they’ve been amazingly helpful as it is - but I would not handle taking care of Kaitlyn full time even half as well as Lindsey does. I’m blessed with a beautiful daughter, a supportive family that is very involved in our lives, and a strong, beautiful wife who now puts up with taking care of two babies.

With Lindsey going back to work¹ starting this week, we decided to help the transition by having me take the week off. Starting next week a combination of my mom most days and my father-in-law on wednesdays will take over, but I have enough vacation time that if I don’t use some of it I will stop accruing new time. So here I am, playing stay at home dad for a week.

Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day Five

Not the night we were looking for

Once again, Kaitlyn gives - and Kaitlyn takes away. Last night Lindsey and I went back and forth taking turns to put her down, but she wouldn’t STAY down until midnight. Then, she stayed asleep until about 5:45 this morning! But then she wouldn’t go back down again and Lindsey had to nurse her in bed. I may not have really been clear what nursing Kaitlyn in bed entails. For me - its almost as good as just sleeping. For Kaitlyn its pretty sweet as well - an all you can eat buffet in a warm soft bed. But for Lindsey - well, I don’t think I could sleep if someone was nursing on me… so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Lindsey can’t either. To add insult to injury, when Kaitlyn tires of one side, we do a little dance where Lindsey and I swap sides of the bed so that Kaitlyn is always between us. For me this again is only a little speed bump to sleep, but for Lindsey its one more hurdle to even going to sleep in the first place.

A short morning

Since Lindsey had to go to work early today she tried to nurse Kaitlyn in bed till Kaitlyn fell asleep. Sometimes Lindsey is then able to slip away from Kaitlyn and she’ll lay there on our bed sleeping. Unfortunately that didn’t work out, but Kaitlyn was pretty content to just lay there next to me babbling away while I was half asleep. At about 9 she seemed to be tired of hanging out while I was half asleep so I got up, changed her and brought her downstairs. She played with her toys while I watched some TV, and then she went down for a nap. She slept for about an hour and a half, and woke up just as Lindsey got home!

That technically wraps up my time as a stay at home dad. Ironically some of the worst time I had was this afternoon. After Lindsey got home she fed Kaitlyn and we had lunch, and then I suggested she go upstairs and take a nap. I was pretty sure that Kaitlyn would go back down for another nap. The short answer is that I was right. The longer answer is that it took an hour, a lot of crying - and she cried some too - before she went down for a 30 minute nap. It certainly can’t compare with the hell that Kaitlyn has unleased on Lindsey multiple days in a row, but it was definitely a little taster.

What’s next

This was a short post since it was a short day. I think that I’ll write a recap post tomorrow looking back on the week as a whole. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive this week. I’ve appreciated the positive thoughts, comments, and prayers.

With Lindsey going back to work¹ starting this week, we decided to help the transition by having me take the week off. Starting next week a combination of my mom most days and my father-in-law on wednesdays will take over, but I have enough vacation time that if I don’t use some of it I will stop accruing new time. So here I am, playing stay at home dad for a week.

Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day Five

A Hitchcock Morning

Last night was another rough one for Lindsey. I got Kaitlyn to sleep at about 10:30, and she slept until about 2:30. At that point Lindsey fed her and tried to get her to go back down. By 4:45 Lindsey gave up and broght her into our bedroom and continued to nurse her in bed. Kaitlyn appears to have trained me well, because again at 8:30 when she was once again ready to get up, I was awake and ready to get up as well. We made our way downstairs and while Kaitlyn layed on her playmat talking away at her toys and the world in general, I picked up North by Northwest from where we left off. At about 9:30 Kaitlyn seemed to be ready for her morning nap, and I decided to try something different. Rather than just putting her into her rocker, I turned on the rocker’s noise generator but then stood and rocked her to sleep on my shoulder the same way I would at night. My goal was to put her down with her blanket in her bassinet.

The bassinet has a really cool classic look to it, but we decided very early that it wasn’t practical. When we first laid Kaitlyn in it as a newborn, her weight shifted slightly and she ended up with her face against the bars on the side. Needless to say that wasn’t ok, so our next step was to use bolts to lock it down, it actually had holes in the posts for them. Unfortunately there was still a bit too much play, even with it locked down, so we’ve never used it. For a while now its been sitting in the living room behind one of the couches. Since we’ve been talking about wanting to begin minimizing her reliance on the rocker, I thought today would be a good day to try. I removed the bolts keeping the bassinet from swaying side to side and then laid her in it once she seemed to be asleep on my shoulder. She almost went to sleep; she opened her eyes, then they fluttered closed again, only to pop open for good. I put her back on my shoulder, got her asleep again, and tried one more time. This time she actually stayed asleep! Sadly once I took a picture and recorded some video she started stirring. I backed away and hoped she would settle back to sleep, but she only gave me about 5 minutes of nap in the bassinet. I decided against testing my luck any further and moved her into her rocker, where she was asleep within another 5 minutes and stayed asleep for about an hour long nap.

A special visitor

About 5 minutes after Lindsey left for work, while I was changing Kaitlyn from her sleeper into her outfit for the day, the garage door began opening. It was none other than my sister-in-law Auntie Megan! While I’m sure her primary reason for visiting was an opportunity to see and hang out with me, I know Kaitlyn appreciated the visit as well. As I mentioned previously, Lindsey, Kaitlyn, and I headed out to Ikea last weekend looking for a few specific shelves, only to be thwarted by a lack of inventory. Then a lack of inventory left us without any kind of outing yesterday as well. Finally their iOS app reported that they did indeed have the shelves in stock. So after Megan watched Kaitlyn long enough for me to take a shower² we packed up and headed out.

The timing could have been better, but overall it went well. Kaitlyn was JUST ready to start her second nap as we packed up, so she was asleep in the car before we even got on the highway. She slept through the entire drive, through most of our time at the store, and through the entire drive home. She opened her eyes and looked around while we were in line checking out, but again once back in the car she was asleep by the time we hit the highway. The best part of the trip - besides FINALLY getting the shelves we needed - was getting to hang out with Megan. We don’t get too many opportunities to just talk, so I sometimes lose track of just how cool a person she has grown into. Its weird to think that she’s the same woman who used to be my friend’s little sister; someone I could tease and tweak until she would paw the ground with her foot like a bull and try to charge me³. I definitely lucked out with my in-laws. I know that there are a lot of jokes about in-laws (mother-in-laws in particular) and I like to give them all a hard time, but I really feel like I got an extra set of parents and an extra sister - in all the best possible ways.

Once we got home I entertained Kaitlyn while Megan ate her lunch, then we swapped and she fed Kaitlyn a bottle. After eating Kaitlyn played with her toys making cute sounds for a little while, but then she started getting fussy again so I tried to put her down for a nap. Unfortunately she was not willing. Megan had to leave, so I did my best to keep Kaitlyn happy until Lindsey got home and was able to nurse her.

Its been an interesting and challenging week, so it seems fitting that tomorrow is “Backwards Day” at Lindsey’s school. This is one of the “Spirit” days they do to promote school spirit, and this means that in addition to wearing their clothes backwards they’re reversing the schedule. So instead of attending your classes first period through sixth, the students will start the day with sixth period and work their way back to first. For most teachers while this will be odd, it doesn’t impact when they’ll be at school. For Lindsey however, since she’s currently only covering a fifth and sixth period class, she now has to come in at the start of the day instead of the end. Its not the end of the world, but it definitely adds a wrinkle, especially as we just started getting a rhythm down. As I write this Lindsey is making the first attempt at putting Kaitlyn down for the night, hopefully it won’t take too many attempts, and hopefully Kaitlyn will sleep for a nice long chunk. Extra sleep tonight would definitely go a long ways for me but especially for Lindsey.

With Lindsey going back to work¹ starting this week, we decided to help the transition by having me take the week off. Starting next week a combination of my mom most days and my father-in-law on wednesdays will take over, but I have enough vacation time that if I don’t use some of it I will stop accruing new time. So here I am, playing stay at home dad for a week.

Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day Five - Day Five

A slightly different morning

Last night was fairly rough as far as sleep goes. And thats once Kaitlyn actually WENT to sleep. At 10:30 PM she was laying on the bed between me and Lindsey babbling away quite happily. She was also repeatedly kicking my arm which is only cute for the first 30 seconds, then it gets progressively less cute. She FINALLY went to sleep at 11:30 and only stayed asleep until 3:30. To her credit she did go back down at 4:30 after Lindsey nursed her, but then that was it for normal sleep. At 5:30 Lindsey asked me to go get Kaitlyn and bring her into our room so she could nurse in bed. At least, I’m told she did, fortunately (or unfortunately?) for me I have only the vaguest recollection of the experience. The only piece I sort of remember is that I got out of bed, stood there for a minute and asked Lindsey, “What am I supposed to be doing?”. Yeah, I sometimes have full conversations in my sleep and don’t remember them² (a genetic gift from my mother³). Once again though, by about 8:30 this morning she was ready and raring to go. I’m really hoping that she someday learns the value of sleeping in.

This morning I thought I would try something different when we came downstairs, mainly for selfish reasons. I got an iTunes email last night which mentioned that Switchfoot’s latest album, “Fading West” was available for streaming on iTunes Radio for free! So after letting the dog out to do her business, and feeding both the dog AND the cat, I moved Kaitlyn’s play mat out of the living room and into the front room⁴ where I have a stereo system set up with a record player and a cable for my iPhone. It went pretty well! The music is very good, I highly recommend the band in general and the new album in particular (although I haven’t finished listening all the way through yet) and I think I may pick up one of their holiday packages that comes with a lot of cool stuff, its not just a new album, but also a movie as well. As far as Kaitlyn was concerned she was happy to listen to the music with me… until she wasn’t. So considering it seemed to be about the same time as the last few days for a morning nap, we trekked back into the living room and she’s now been asleep in her rocker for almost an hour.

A Service Appointment

As an interesting wrinkle to today’s schedule, our new car was due for its first service appointment. The plan was for us to take it in before Lindsey had to go to work, and then I would drop her off and pick her up afterwards so that I had the car in the case of an emergency. We thought the appointment was at 11, so while Kaitlyn still slumbered we had a bit of a conundrum - we didn’t want to wake her but had to take the car in. Fortunately my father-in-law Tom came to the rescue. He has Wednesday’s off, and so he met me at the dealership. It turns out the appointment was actually at 1:30, but Toyota didn’t have any issue taking the car early. So far I have nothing but good things to say about everyone at Toyota. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been nice, engaging, and helpful.

Once we got home from the dealership I took Kaitlyn back from Lindsey so she could finish getting ready for work and eat lunch (Tom and I stopped and picked up Subway on the way home). It wasn’t very long after I took Kaitlyn that my hand felt wet, I did what I think most parents do - I smelled it. Sadly the results told me we had a decent sized blowout, since I was smelling poop through not only the diaper, and onesie, but the pants she was wearing as well. Ah the joys of parenthood. A quick diaper and outfit change and we were good to go. My plan was to drop Lindsey off at work, come home for Kaitlyn’s second nap, and then head out to Ikea since we trekked out there last weekend for a couple of shelves - one for Kaitlyn’s room and one for the bathroom - but they were out of stock. Fortunately I used their iOS app to check stock because they were still out of one of the two shelves. This left me in the strange position of not having an outing for the day.

To pass the time I decided to take advantage of an awesome christmas gift I received from some good friends and I began my Hitchcock marathon⁵. The gift was a boxed blu-ray set of five Hitchcock classics: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, and North by Northwest. So while Kaitlyn napped I started watching North by Northwest. I’m a big fan of classic movies and classic styles - I wish I could wear a suit every day⁶. Unfortunately I didn’t get to finish the movie before Kaitlyn woke up and needed a bottle. We hung out for awhile until it looked like she needed another nap, but unfortunately the timing was pretty cruddy. If I put her into her rocker and got her to sleep, she would probably have been sleeping still when we needed to leave to pick Lindsey up. So rather than have to wake her I held her which ended up meaning it took her longer to fall asleep than she would have in her rocker, but she fell asleep anyways, just on my shoulder instead.

When it came time to pick Lindsey up I loaded Kaitlyn into her carseat where she promptly went back to sleep. We picked up the car from the dealership (the service department had called to let us know they were done while we were on our way to drop Lindsey off at work!) but then Lindsey took Kaitlyn home since she was still sleeping, and I went to Walmart and Staples to run a few errands for Lindsey. Then it was back home to watch the University of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team beat up on Mississippi State (to be fair Mississippi State actually had a 3 point lead at halftime, but they never stood a chance in the second half). After dinner and bathtime, Lindsey nursed Kaitlyn, and at 9:45 she was asleep… for about 15 minutes. She finally ended up going down again at 10:20, and she’s been asleep for about 30 minutes now, so hopefully she’s out for a good long while, and I can get some sleep.

We’ve crossed the mid-way point of the week and it hasn’t been too hard on me, but I’m definitely more tired then I was at the start of the week and more tired then I’ve been most weeks recently. Lindsey has a bad habit of letting me sleep when she knows I’m going to work in the morning. I’ve tried to convince her that I’d rather she wake me up and let me help, but she’s stubborn - and I love her for it. I was already amazed and impressed with the way she’s handled staying at home all day with Kaitlyn, but this week is definitely deepening that amazement. She doesn’t seem to believe me, but she’s done a great job so far, and she’s only getting better.

With Lindsey going back to work¹ starting this week, we decided to help the transition by having me take the week off. Starting next week a combination of my mom most days and my father-in-law on wednesdays will take over, but I have enough vacation time that if I don’t use some of it I will stop accruing new time. So here I am, playing stay at home dad for a week.

Day One - Day Two - Day Three - Day Four - Day Five

Wakey Wakey

It wasn’t the worst night Kaitlyn has had, but it certainly wasn’t the best. She went down at about her normal time, but woke up about an hour later, and just would. not. go to sleep. for me. Lindsey had to nurse her and she ended up asleep I think sometime around 12. She apparently woke up at 5:30 this morning, putting her right on pace for the ~5 hour chunk of sleep that she’s started taking the last few days. Lindsey tried to get her back down and when that didn’t work she nursed her in bed. By around 8:30 Kaitlyn was done lying around in bed so I changed her VERY full diaper and we headed downstairs. She played with some toys on her playmat for a little bit and I started watching Star Trek V: The Final Frontier². After a little while she was getting fussy so I decided to try for a nap in her rocker, and she’s now been asleep there for about twenty minutes while I write this and get a bowl of cereal.

So far this isn’t really the start of “Day Two” since Lindsey is still here, just upstairs trying to catch up a little bit on the sleep stolen from her this morning. So far this is more like a Saturday when its Lindsey’s turn to sleep in.

Afternoon Errands

Lindsey had to leave for work at about 12:30 PM, so she nursed Kaitlyn immediately before leaving, and I was able to get Kaitlyn down for a nap in her rocker. This second nap of the day was another short one, only 30 - 45 minutes. When she woke up I fed her a bottle and decided to once again venture out of the house. I had a package I needed to drop off at the UPS store, and I needed to go by the comic book store to pick up my latest subscriptions.

For the most part these errands went off without a hitch. She happily chewed on one of her toys (freddie firefly) all the way to and during the comic book store. On the short drive over to the UPS store she started falling asleep which was good. But when I went to get her out of the car and head into the UPS store she started to give me a bit of a scowl. I think she was annoyed to have her nap interrupted. She also REALLY doesn’t like having the sun shine in her face, so we try to avoid that whenever possible, but sometimes there’s just not a real good option. Fortunately a nice gentlemen who was just a random customer at the UPS store saw me getting out of the car and wheeling her in, and he came over and opened the door for us. That’s the second time in two days I’ve had a complete stranger be very helpful.

Once we were done at the UPS store, since she was still just hanging out I decided to spend a few minutes perusing the “Previously Owned” games at the GameStop next door. I’m not usually near any GameStops so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. There was nothing that particularly caught my eye so we were off again heading for home. Almost as soon as I was pulling out of the parking lot she was fast asleep and stayed that way, even through a quick stop through the Jack in the Box drive-thru for my lunch and then all the way home.

As I carried her into the house in her carseat I had a moment of worry since she was resting with her neck at a very strange angle. Ever since she was born Kaitlyn has liked to sleep with her head turned so that it looks like she’s gone just barely past a ninety degree angle. It looks very unnatural. Even though I reached in and gently touched her face she stirred only slightly and continued to sleep. I left her sleeping in the carseat and she stayed that way for another hour and a half, even past the time Lindsey made it home! For those keeping score that was once again three naps today, two short and one long. Yesterday she went short-long-short, and today it was short-short-long, but still, I’m not complaining.

After two days, I’m feeling a little bit bad, and a fair bit nervous. She’s been very gentle on me so far, and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. The longer it goes without a really rough day the more worried I am that when she really does let me have it… well, I don’t want to think about it too much. I also feel a little bad for my mom and my father-in-law, this week and these blog posts may really be setting them up for a sucker punch if she waits and decides to punish them instead of me. Anyway, now Lindsey is home, we’re watching the San Jose Sharks hopefully beat the Nashville Predators and bath and bedtime are just around the corner.