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| Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad: Part IV | | Print | |
| Written by Joeprah | |
Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad: Part IVContinued from: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad: Part II Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad: Part III Whenever I met someone new and they asked what I did for a living, I found myself saying in an apologetic voice that, “I stay home with my daughter.” It was as if I was waiting for someone to chastise me for being different. I'm not saying that didn’t happen; it just didn't happen as often as I had envisioned. I think male pride can be a tough pill to swallow, but over the course of over seven years and three daughters, I can safely say that I have that sucker almost all the way down. Our first year with Bella saw my wife and I complete our degrees; mine in English Writing, and hers in Computer Science. I quit my part-time job in construction for a night job waiting tables, and my wife got a new job at a higher salary, with a better company. Our work schedules always kept Jodi and me in a constant state of “ships passing in the night,” as I would leave for work, often times, as she was coming home. We depended on the supplemental income that my part-time jobs provided, and no matter how inconvenient it was for us as a couple, we seldom complained about our situation. As first time parents, we were predictably vigilant; monitoring dropped bits of food like guards at a prison, diving to stop escapees. Three-second rule? That was about three seconds too long in our house. Were we over protective? Nah. (Well, maybe just a bit.) Predictably, as first-time parents, we limited the amount of times we drove with Bella. The constant fear of a car accident kept us both tied in knots for the better part of a year--at least. We limited what she could listen to. Nothing too heavy--Mozart, Bach and maybe Beethoven. We limited the amount of times we took her out of the house—small pox. No matter how much she cried during mass, we made it each week to church—fear of possession. I feel first-time parents are beset with fear. We think that we are going to mess up. So, we take precautions to more or less fool-proof every action we take. First time parents can be more like Secret Service than actual parents; although instead of checking rooftops for snipers, we were putting bumpers on coffee table corners. We intently read books, magazines, articles, leaflets, flyers, fortune cookies, really anything you could read about parenting as we readied ourselves to deal with the rigors of infants and toddlers. Here is a quick synopsis of what the books said: as babies get older they grow, eat more food and do more stuff (i.e. walking, talking, testing your cabinet latches). The books were gold to us newbies, and we used them mostly to identify the fact that our first daughter was predictably advanced. As first time parents you think two ways: Either A) our child is advanced—meaning developmentally, physically, or both Or B) our child is slow—cause for great alarm and countless hours of scrutiny. As parents, we look for ways to qualify our kids in one of those categories (and sometimes both of them for extra points.) For instance, Bella was amazingly quick walking and was talking early, but she was (like all our children) on the smaller side. There really isn’t any compromise as parents; we instantly thought Bella was going to be a Hobbit sized rocket scientist—period. I don’t think there are a lot of first-time parents who look at their children after all the doctors’ appointments, hours of interaction and conclude their child to be “average.” Most parents have at least one caveat or accolade they immediately talk about when describing their child, and for us it was basically all accolades. Bella walked at 9 months and began talking around the same time. By the time Bella was one-and-a-half years old, she was speaking in sentences, identifying colors and shapes, and off the charts in cuteness. Around this time, Jodi and I got some incredible news; we were pregnant again! Bella was remarkably smart, easy and lovable, and we were thrilled that she was going to be a big sister. In our three bedroom row home, we converted our last remaining unused bedroom from an office into a nursery and. on Bella’s second birthday, moved the crib from her room into the new baby’s room. For the deal, Bella became the proud owner of a cool car toddler bed. We were less than three months away from having our second child. Stay Tuned for the Next Installment
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