Our day-care center was closed for the Christmas–New Year’s week, and my wife and I split the days at home: two for her, two for me. This was, somehow, the first time I’ve had to do more than a single day as a solo flier, and frankly I was a little uneasy about it. Our little guy has already begun to show that he’s more attached to his mom than to me—which is completely understandable, given that she’s the one who supplies all the milk.
It’s not (mostly) something I’m sad about; it’s just the way things are. But it does mean that, when I’m alone with him, he cries a little more, fusses a little more, and has more trouble napping and taking his bottle. I refuse to indulge in that “learned helplessness” that so many dads deploy, and in fact try to to go in the opposite direction of “Everybody stay calm. I’ve got this.” But the fact is, a full day on my own with him can be a very long stretch. It was a relief, on Thursday, when his mom finished up work and came home early.
Unless the aforementioned naps work out.
In which case, you get Dadwagon posts like this one. And mom gets Julia Child’s boeuf à la bourguinonne for New Year’s Eve dinner, and the option (depending on the length of said naps) baked goods for dessert. And I start cleaning out the closet, which has been a study in mayhem ever since the piles of baby gear started breeding and multiplying at night. Suddenly I’ve realized how my freelance-writer, at-home-working friends can pull off anything like a career. It’s all about sleep schedules. If they work in your favor, daily baby care is, for long stretches, a matter of not letting him fall on his head. If they don’t, it’s constant attention, without the slightest break.
Nap time just ended. Gotta go.
Re: freelancers with kids: They hire babysitters. That’s the only way to work at home with kids long term (and they have one tiny, dark, chocolate-wrapper-littered Room of One’s Own).