I have a question for all of the Stay At Home Dads (or Moms for that matter.)What do you do all day? Do you have a routine that you go by? How do you get (and keep) the house clean, make dinner, take care of your kid, and all the other stuff while keeping your sanity? I've been staying home now since August and I thought that I would eventually just kind of fall into a routine, but I tend just to wing it most of the time. Sometimes I get stuff done, and sometimes not. So feel free to chime in and let me know what works for you.
Oda Mae has decided that she can walk now. She doesn't quite know that she should practice slowly for a while longer. Gonna have to watch out for her pretty carefully for a while until she really gets the hang of her new mobility. Here she is having some fun rocking around the house...
-OD
9 comments:
You performed w/Brave Combo?
I want your autograph! I have one of their CD's. Fun group.
I like the Tim Allen plan for dusting. It involves a leaf blower.
If I remember correctly from 1983 it was:
11:00 the young & the restless
12:00 all my children
1:00 one life to live
2:00 general hospital
During that time I'd be cleaning house, playing with the kid(s), folding laundry, complaining whenever the president would interrupt our regularly scheduled soap opera - you know - stuff like that.
Well, as a stay at home dad, I find that I am hit and miss on cleaning. I typically do make dinner, though. About an eighth of the time, I actually work on that novel that was my self-justification for staying home, while the wife worked. But after ten years as the primary bread winner... this shit is hard to cope with. As you can tell from my anonymous posting, I am still a bit ashamed to admit its not all about "being a working professional while at home".
I have two young kids and daycare took my entire salary. On the upside, they used be sick ALL the time in daycare and in the six months I've been home... its been a perfectly healthy environment.
After three years of this, I have finally decided that there is no pattern, no routine. All those "expert books" are written by people who don't have a kid.
The biggest thing I've learned is that, men are not genetically designed to do this, but also provide something that is sorely lacking in our kids lives these days. And that is constant companionship. So I think the "routine" we have all been searching for is right in front of our faces..The routine is to experience life every day with the little demon, just as she is...and that is a gift.
You have to do it constantly; there's no "doing it all on Saturday" with small kids.
Brave Combo? You are making me miss my years at UNT.
A routine? A clean house? You are joking, right?
We just Hokey POikey our way through the day and try to deal with chaos in the evenings after the kiddos go to bed.
I'm with the other SAHDs... It's a combination of winging it and pretending to plan. I've found that even my best plans usually go awry.
Some things I do every day: dishes, laundry, wipe down tables and chairs, pick up tons of toys, make meals, wish I was napping...
Vacuuming gets done once or twice a week, no particular day, just whenever I rememeber it. The cats' litterbox gets changed infrequently, but they let me know when it needs cleaning.
Wiping down the kids' bathroom is an every other day thing, as is re-organizing their rooms.
Stuff gets done, it just doesn't get done on any kind of efficient schedule.
But is that your daily life in a nutshell? I in no way intend to come across as condescending, but are you an aspiring writer or professional painter or something else, while this is happening?
"anonymous said...
But is that your daily life in a nutshell? I in no way intend to come across as condescending, but are you an aspiring writer or professional painter or something else, while this is happening?"
WHAT????????
-OD
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