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.