SAHDism

a collection of thoughts by a Stay At Home Dad

“The Year of Living Sequeiralously”

Trapping The Kids Before They Wake Mommy

by

…so one weekend morning, I wanted to run out and get some ingredients to make a nice big breakfast but I needed to ensure Michele Lynn Sequeira could stay sleeping since she worked the evening shift the night before. How to prevent the kids from coming in and waking her up? A honey-trap!

In Photo 1, a kid’s eye view coming into Mommy-Daddy’s room, you will note the placement of the iPad in the lower right corner, already playing PBS Kids very quietly.

A kid's eye view coming into Mommy-Daddy's room

A kid’s eye view coming into Mommy-Daddy’s room

By Photo 2, the first wild Sequeirlet has been caught. On his way to jump on Mommy, he runs by at first, then slowly backs up and plops down in front of the screen, helplessly caught.

The first wild Sequeirlet has been caught.

The first wild Sequeirlet has been caught.

By the time I got home from the store, all three Sequeirlets were sitting right in that spot, unmoved, unblinking, while Mama slept peacefully just a room away.

Before and After Photos

by

“Before and After What?”  you might ask.  Let’s just say I was taking a photo of my three beautiful children playing in a park in Hawaii while on vacation.  That’s the “before” photo.

I look at the photo on the camera screen and I notice that the lens was fogged up from being in the backpack with some cold water I had packed for them.  I asked them to (oh horror of horrors!) go back to stand for another photo after I clean the lens.  That second picture, my friends, is the “after”.

Three kids in a park - happy

Before

Three kids in a park - unhappy

After

Sometimes It’s a Good Thing

by

I don’t believe my three year old is unique in that he has zero filter and no control over the volume of his voice.  This can quite regularly lead to awkward conversations in public places.  Today, however, I found an instance where this wasn’t the case.

Two of us were out for lunch at a pizza place and he had to go to the bathroom.  This place has two separate unisex bathrooms so we get the key and go into one of them.  I help my son go pee and get him set up with soap, water, and a paper towel at the sink and then it’s my turn.  As I’m standing there doing my business, he looks over at me and says in his not-so-sotto-voce, “Daddy, your penis is HUGE!!!!”

Ya, I can’t really complain about that one.

A Restaurant Excursion

by

My wife is out of town for a several day training class.  It’s only an hour away and the kids were really missing Mommy so I took them after school to visit her during her break.  It made for a great way to spend the afternoon/evening since if we came directly home after school, I’d have three grumpy kids to deal with all evening whereas with our excursion, I had three slightly less grumpy kids to deal with for only an hour before bed.

On our way home from our visit, I thought it would be nice to take the kids out to dinner in a restaurant instead of chicken nuggets from a drive through, which, for all its convenience, is something I’d prefer to minimize.  We ended up in a truck stop at a Shari’s restaurant.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Shari’s, it’s similar in style to a Big Boy or Denny’s.  What made this meal special is that it’s the first time I took all three kids by myself to a sit down restaurant.  Well, I can’t remember ever taking them out by myself to a sit-down restaurant, which means it could have happened but my mind blocked out the horror either as a coping mechanism or by electro-shock and/or chemical intervention.  Regardless, it was all new to me this time.

I don’t know how long it took me to realize it, but somewhere during the hour-long process, I realized that it was not only not unpleasant, but it was actually fun.  As my guys grow older, they have the patience to sit longer, are able to entertain themselves by talking to each other and to me, and occupy their mind with crayons and reading materials.

I sat back and watched as my three kids colored on their kid menus, showed their drawings to each other, talked about their day.   Every moment when I observe a milestone in their childhoods, it is a time of immense pride with a touch of sadness.  The pride comes from watching my children grow into the people they were meant to become; the sadness from leaving behind another wonderful phase in my babies’ lives.

I hope my kids always enjoy each others’ company as they do now.  Maybe in twenty years they’ll still be meeting for the occasional dinner date and if I’m lucky, I could join them one time.  At some point during the meal, I’ll just have to sit back quietly, watch them together, and remember this day.

Flashback To Our First Car Jam Session

by

As I was driving to pick up my kids from school one sunny afternoon, I was lucky enough to catch War Pigs by Black Sabbath on the radio.  What could be better to rockin’ out to War Pigs?  Flashing back five years ago when my daughter was just old enough to sit in a front-facing car seat and watching her in the rear-view mirror as she pumps her fists and shakes her head to War Pigs.  It was the first time she rocked out in the car and not only does it make me a Proud Papa but it’s such a fond memory of the two of us at the start of my life as a stay-at-home-dad.

How Long is Ten Minutes

by

So we’re moving into a bigger house and this new house is big enough that my father could move in with us.

I was putting up shelving in the garage one day while my wife was at work and discovered that I needed a specific screw size that I didn’t have.  Normally, I would have had to round up the kids, throw them in the minivan, and take them to the store with me.  This time, however, I just told my dad that I was going out for a quick ten-minute errand and asked him to keep an ear out for the kids.  Upon my return, I was amazed to discover that, without the kids, my ten-minute errand took… ten minutes.

Wow, I had forgotten what that was like; I could get used to that.

My Father’s Day Gift

by

One day when my oldest was just learning to walk, we went to a barbecue at a friend’s house.  As soon as we arrived, I put Lilliana on the grass and she took off to explore.  As she approached the stone steps at the tier that separated the upper and lower parts of the yard, the first-time-parent in me decided to hurry over and help her down the steps.  On the first step down, I landed poorly and sprained my ankle.  I managed to bounce down the remaining couple of steps on my good foot before falling with a firm thud.  I finished my acrobatics by rolling onto my side and Lilliana rolled out of my arms into the grass.  She promptly sat up and with a smile on her face said, “Again Dada !”

That would have been such a sweet way to end this story had not her squeals of joy been interrupted by my screams of pain.  My wife and many of her friends at the party are physicians and they put me in chair, propped up my leg, iced my ankle, and handed me a beer (the last one isn’t medical, but it is medicinal).

The next morning happened to be Father’s Day and we spent it in the urgent care where I was fitted with an air cast and crutches.  It is exactly at this point in time that my daughter decides she knows not only how to walk, but how to run, and I spent the next couple of weeks hobbling, hopping, and cursing at her down the sidewalk trying to keep up on my crutches.  Even so, whenever I caught up to her, I could reflect on what a perfect Father’s Day gift I had received in knowing that I sprained my ankle, fell down the steps, and my instincts kicked in to keep my baby safe in my arms the whole time.

Low Expectations, Highly Successful

by

One great thing about being a Stay-At-Home Dad is that people expect so little from me that I get credit for even the simplest of tasks.

If I change a diaper in a public location, you should see the smiles and admiration.  Double points if my wife is present.  It doesn’t even matter if the other two children with my wife are throwing tantrums and the kid I’m changing is the mellowest one of the bunch – “Dad is helping”.

Grocery shopping, which millions of families do every day of the week, is a special occasion when I bring my kids.  I get smiles that say, “How wonderful it is of you to help out your wife.”  You might be thinking that perhaps I’m reading too much into people’s looks but, no, I’ve actually had people come up to me in the store to tell  me this.  Specifically, it’s the little old ladies – they have no problem speaking their mind.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, however.  All this goodwill comes from the assumption that Mom is doing the vast majority of the child-rearing.  So when my wife was on vacation visiting a friend out of town and I had the kids all to myself for a week, I really wasn’t in the right state of mind when someone came up to me and said, “Mom’s day off, is it?”  This was the one time that I strayed from my usual smile and told them, “Actually, I’m the one who stays home with my kids, and I don’t get a day off.”

Still, no complaints really, it’s a great situation right now.  The saddest thing is that as more Dads are staying home with their kids, I’m just becoming another parent doing my job.  Until such time, however, I’ll just keep milking it for what it’s worth.

I Suppose You’ll Do

by

We’re on vacation in Sunriver and at the bouncy house, a favorite of our kids.  They love jumping and sliding and showing off their newest acrobatics, especially to my wife.  They love showing her stuff in part because she isn’t around as much and also because she is much more effusive and outgoing, whereas I’m more reserved.

Bennett gets to the top of the bouncy slide, ready to do his next trick, and calls out,

“Mommy, watch this!”

Unfortunately, my wife had just left for the bathroom and I let him know this.  Oh, you should have seen the sad look on his face.  He lowered his head and looked at his toes for a few seconds.  Then a flash of brilliance comes upon him and he starts smiling again.  He looks up at me and yells,

“Daddy, watch this!”

Going to the Movies

by

One great thing about being the father of three small children is that I don’t feel bad about being the occasional curmudgeon…
(scene takes place at the theater concession stand after waiting 10 minutes for our tickets and another 10 to get to the front of the concession line):

Stu to unfortunate teen behind counter: Yes, I’ll have the eight-dollar popcorn with the buttery-flavored topping please.