TL;DR: When life gets harder it’s because you’ve just leveled up. I certainly hope so because this week made the first week look like a walk in the park. Novelty of a new stay at home parent has worn off, reality has set in. I started the week with a lot of ambition. I thought I knew how to handle Sempi. So I voluntarily decided to level up my duties as a stay at home dad....
I now have a rhythm. Things seem to be getting easier. We’re one grandma down. We’re managing with just one grandma. :P I have a whole new appreciation for Portland parks and museums. You might remember that we spent an entire day (6 hours is an entire day in toddler time) at the Children’s museum last week. This week we spent an afternoon at OMSI. I took Yoshi’s e-bike and hitched the trailer....
tl;dr: It is hard and I’m struggling. But if I had a choice I’ll be a stay at home dad all the time. My company offers 4 weeks of fully paid paternity leave. I’m staying home to help out with the new baby. I thought I’d miss working and I did, for whole two days. I was checking my work email and clearing the accumulation, but after that I completely forgot about anything work related....
Sempi and I are sitting at the dining table eating dinner. Sempi is munching on homemade fried rice chips (vadaam) made by his Paati (grandma). He has a plate full of it and I’m trying to get him to share some of it with me. Me: Sempi, this plate of vadaam is for the both of us. Sempi: *pulls the plate towards him, suspiciously* Me: How about I take just a few of them and you can have the rest....
We started a new routine for dropping off Sempi at his pre-school. We walk to the school and on the way we find flowers to pick. This morning we found a dried dandelion and Yoshi taught him how to blow the florets. She blew half of it and gave it to Sempi. Sempi wasn’t all too interested but he wanted me to blow the rest. His stipulation was I have to blow the rest with my nose and not with my mouth....