Day 7 - My New Life

Work at Home Dad By Day, Housewife By Night

Born to play

I'm settling into my new life.  All day long I go about my daily routine with an out for dirty dishes that need to migrated to the sink, and forgotten pajamas that need to returned to their drawer.  When I plan out my day, I make sure to leave room for laundry, preparing a batch of bread (in the bread machine), cutting kids' nails, or cooking a meal for five hungry mouths.  As for myself, I no longer feel the need to change my clothes, and I subsist off of children's unfinished food.  Here I pick up a carrot end and shove it in my mouth, there I down half a bowl of rice forgotten at the table, supplemented by a couple of apple slices someone lost interest in.

This morning I rode down to the bank (with Noam in the child seat, as always) to deposit a check.  The bank is situated right on the edge of this magnificent park, with a properly outfitted playground.  Actually two -- one for big kids and one for little kids.  For some reason I wasn't feeling rushed, so I offered Noam to go play for a little while on the swings.  Around the playground were a young mother with her 2-year-old daughter, and a trio of grandmothers watching grandchildren.  I felt like I belonged!  Sad, but true.

Together Again

He totally deserves all the attention he gets

Noam and I have been constant companions even since he was a year old.  When Michal went back to work, I was in school two days a week.  He went to a babysitter for two mornings, and the rest of the days he was in my care.  When I finished school at the end of last summer, he stopped going to the babysitter.  I took care of his every need, and if I needed to go anywhere, well, I just took him with.  It was as if the first paragraph of Shema Yisrael was referring to him: "When you lie down, when you get up, sitting in your house and walking on the way..."  Our close companionship was interrupted only when his mother brought him home a baby sister.  With her on maternity leave, I no longer had to be with him at all times, but a very special bond remained between us.  Not that she's out of the picture, we've gone back to our old gig.  I just mention that we need to go somewhere, he runs to get his hat and sandals.  He utters some semi-intelligible monosyllabic, and I know he wants a drink, or needs both stuffed dogs before he can take his nap.  We have an understanding that's not easy to come by.  But what does it mean if my closest companion is 1/17th of my age?