Tag: Stay at Home Dad

  • Busy Day Ahead

    I am in a hurry today. I was up at the normal time and turned the coffee maker on. I got the wife up and then the kid. Made the kid breakfast, packed her lunch. The wife got clothes out for the kid and helped her get dressed. Me and the kid brushed teeth together, put on shoes and we headed out for the school drop off with the permission slip for the upcoming field trip. I got her to school on time; said hello to her teacher and some of the other parents. Said my goodbyes and returned home. Then I made a meal plan for the week, and made a grocery shopping list. Then I balanced our check book, moved some money around, updated all of our bills to make sure everything was getting paid on time. I still need to shower and head out to Trader Joe’s before the old people and the young professionals pick over the store. Then I need to put the groceries away, make lunch for me and the wife, and then head back to school for the pickup. Hopefully the kid will want to go to the local park and play with her friends which will give me an hour or two hours to read, and write in my journal. Then home, play with the kid, make dinner, watch tv together, and then make the kid take a shower. Then that leaves snuggle and story time, with the kid hopefully going right off to sleep. Which will allow me to clean up the kitchen, and get the coffee ready for the morning. Then the wife and I will get an hour to catch up and fall asleep watching something on tv. And that’s pretty much my day.

    But before I head out to the store, I need to give myself a few minutes to write this blog thing.

    And all in all, most days, I’m pretty happy with this. Some days I do wonder if I am missing out, or I wonder if I could be doing more in the world. And then there are days where I am really terrible at this stay at home dad thing.

    This is where I am and I am happy. I know this because I don’t dread waking up in the morning.

    Okay, off to the store. Maybe there will be a Tottenham blog later in the day. We’ll see.

    (AND, please be kind and rewind and also take a moment to give a like, share, comment, or the greatest gesture of all, follow this blog. Please, it would mean a lot to me because I don’t want to start making TikTok videos.)

  • I Make Schedules Only to Break Them

    I had made a schedule for today, and I 100% did not follow it.

    Last week was Spring Break with the kid, and all the plans got thrown out the window. For one, our car got hit while parked on the street, so it’s been in the shop since then. The loss of the vehicle killed all of our plans of getting out of the City. I had this idea that me and the kid would go disc golfing up around Beacon, and then the next day, head to a beach on Long Island. Sounds like fun and we were looking forward to it. I replaced that with going to The Strand one day, and the Museum of Natural History the next. The kid seemed fine with it.

    Anyway, with all of my time last week being spent with the kid, I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done, not that I minded. So, the start of this week, I wanted to hit the ground running. Like I said, I created a schedule for today to make sure I would be able to get everything I wanted to get done, done.

    And the day started out fine. We all got up on time, and made it to school early. I went to the gym to work out, and really got into my run. Came home from the gym, and it just went downhill. Not that it matters, honestly. I’m writing the blog in the afternoon instead of the morning. I have yet to journal, but that will be next, and I know that I won’t get to fiction today.

    BUT! I did get the laundry done, balanced the check book, did some home finance projections for the wife, took down the Easter decorations, made lunch and shopped for dinner. See, I got some shit done.

    On to the next thing

  • Gumming Up the Works

    You know what happens in our home when it’s twenty degrees outside? No one wants to get up, myself included. Even the dog didn’t want to get out of my bed. The poor kid-o refused to get out from under her covers, so I had to pick her up outta bed and take her to the couch. Long story short, the kid was late to school. I’m talking maybe ten minutes late. Instead of going in the side door with her class and teacher, we had to go through the main front door, and by the school security guard. I watched the kid hang her head low as she slow walked down to her classroom, and had to open the door, in effect announcing her lateness to the class.

    In the realm of the Universe we live in, this was not a big deal, but to her, I could just feel the defeat and how this twenty-four-hour period will be described as the worst day ever. I might even hear it multiple times today.

    And still, I felt my little heart break for her. Such an innocent state of grace that she lives in where just being late is all the cause one would need for the day to be the worst. This caused me to remember the large and small tragedies that would befall me in elementary school. Missing the bus, or forgetting my lunch, or getting a stain on my shirt when it was picture day. Getting the question wrong, or being accused of liking a girl, when I did actually really like that girl.

    Watching my kid go through these things, does not make me feel good, but somehow confirms that life is really just on repeat. When it comes to how we deal with things, nothing changes from one generation to the next. I try to nurture a different result, but nature keeps gumming up the works.

  • Not Enough Time

    I am stealing a moment to type this out. I didn’t do my homework last night. My homework being to make a meal plan for the week, a grocery list, and writing a blog to be posted this morning. What I did was binge three episodes of Ted Lasso with my wife, and then fell asleep on the couch.

    So, now I am running behind. I still have to do the aforementioned tasks, but I also have to take the kid to her dentist appointment later today. As this is titled, I don’t have enough time to get everything done.

    And I had two really great ideas for a blog. One was about showing how over the past 30 years homage, parody, and ripping-off in media have become blurred. The other was how I was completely judgmental toward guys who work out all the time at the gym. Both I thought were great ideas.

    But now I have to go.

    Maybe I’ll get to it later in the week.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Playing Dumb, Vacation, and The Next Stage of Life

    When I went to pick up my daughter from school yesterday, she was super excited to tell me all about these new Solar System facts she just learned! How the sun is a star, and Venus is the hottest planet, and Jupiter Saturn and Uranus and Neptune were giant gas planets, and Pluto was a dwarf planet, and on and on. She was bubbling over with how cool space was, and how there is an international space station, and that we send robots to the planets and even to a comet! And each new fact that she presented to me was in the form of a question; “Dad, did you know Pluto is a dwarf planet?” Well, yes I do know that, and I was alive when Pluto was considered a normal, regular planet. But I don’t say anything. I just smile and nod my head because I have come full circle. All the years I went rattling off facts to my parents, which I now see they clearly already knew, but they let me proudly prattle on. Now, I am being prattled on, but I see the excitement of learning in my daughter’s eyes. That feeling of the world being knowable and accessible at the same time.

    I want to go on vacation. As it starts to get warmer out, I have this need to get out of the City. It would be great to get away, even for a long three-day weekend. I like living in New York City, but I also love getting the hell out of New York City.

    Another friend of mine lost their parent last night. They put up a post on social media, and I commented, telling them how sorry I am, and love them. Sadly, this has been happening more and more often with my friends, and this isn’t due to Covid. This is life. Me and my friends are hitting middle age, and our parents are reaching the end of their lives. Before, when a parent passed, it was a rare and unexpected occurrence. Now, it is becoming a bit more common, as, sadly, this is the next stage in life. And these things happen in waves. First, we all got married, and then started having babies, and then there was the small divorce wave, followed by more babies and second marriages. Now, we are at the time when on parents start to leave us. I wish there was more I could do or say to my friend at this time. I do remember when my Ma passed, and I received many posts, messages and texts. It meant a lot to me, knowing that people cared and were still decent. I hope my friend is getting some comfort at this time from all the people that care for them.