First Time Father: Prisoner In My Own Home?

I’m not the first and certainly won’t be the last dad to be home watching his baby while mom is at work. In fact, right now I wouldn’t have it any other way. After nine and a half months out of work my wife has returned to her job as an ER nurse at a new hospital and here I sit on the couch watching baseball at 10 O’clock at night while Gray sleeps.

I haven’t written much of anything in a while, and I plan on writing a Gray at 9 Months update next week, but tonight I felt compelled to discuss my night on Daddy Duty.

I picked Gray up at day care at 3:30 and strolled back to the house with our dog, Richard Parker on point. Gray was babbling happy sounds the whole time, a fine contrary cacophony after the fussiness of the last day and a half.

While a new air conditioning unit was being installed I hand-fed some Gerber fruits and vegetables to Gray, who was more interested in throwing toys off the table. And I gladly kept picking them up.

Gray’s nightly bath time was filled with splashy fun, and then we wrapped him up in the monogrammed hoodie-towel that Uncle Keegin gave him. Gray really loves that towel, and he doesn’t know it, but he looks rather like a tiny Jedi when he is swaddled in it. Gray did, however, give me a fight while I tried to dress him in his pj’s. Now that Gray has discovered how strong his legs are he loves to twist and turn any time he is laid on his back. I don’t know how my wife does this every night. Thankfully the little one took his final bottle-feeding with out protest and I was able to put Gray down to sleep at 8:20 with no fuss.

Here’s where I mention that I had other plans tonight. A few months ago I had intended to be at a minor league baseball game in Birmingham, AL on this very evening. As late as last week I was still going to do my bets to make it to this special game, but with Sandi returning to work, and her schedule unknown, it didn’t workout the way I wanted. But as I am learning about fatherhood, family comes first. Instead of eating dogs and drinking beers while commemorating the 100^th Year of baseball played at Rickwood Field, I sat on the couch and watched the Tampa Bay Rays come from behind to beat the Blue Jays. I also saw the worst call in baseball history when Tigers pitcher Armando Galerraga had a Perfect Game stolen from him by an erroneous “safe” call. And the best part, a phone call from Sandi to tell me how happy she is to be back at work and how nice everyone is who she is working with.

So, nothing groundbreaking covered tonight, but I wanted to capture this evening. I started out thinking I was a prisoner in my own house, the warden of my nine month-old son, but really, I’m just a dad.