A week as a single Stay-At-Home Parent
Over break, I had a week as a single Stay-At-Home Parent. Josh was back in Brooklyn working hard on making the deadline for A.D. Phoebe and I went upstate to my parents’ place. It is a big house full of people who sleep until at least 10:00 or so. Phoebe got up before it got light, usually at 6:30. We slept in the same room. I fed her, read to her, dressed her, played with her. It was cold and snowed a great deal. Going out took a long time to prepare for. (It was actually our main activity—not going out but getting ready to go out.) While I did have some help, it was pretty much me caretaking for her all the time.
At first, I felt a mighty resistance. I thought of all the better things I could be doing with my time—writing and sleeping came to mind most—but after a couple of days, I gave into the restrictions of that life. And then a strange thing happened: I began to enjoy it. The simplicity of it. The single-minded purpose of it. We woke up, I changed her diaper, I made her a bottle. I looked out the window and in the early dawn you could see the snow falling steadily. It was very white. It was covering everything. In the cold kitchen, she sat on my lap in a chair and we watched the snow fall. At that moment, the seemingly small world of the Stay-At-Home Parent seemed a portal to something rich and wonderful.
At first, I felt a mighty resistance. I thought of all the better things I could be doing with my time—writing and sleeping came to mind most—but after a couple of days, I gave into the restrictions of that life. And then a strange thing happened: I began to enjoy it. The simplicity of it. The single-minded purpose of it. We woke up, I changed her diaper, I made her a bottle. I looked out the window and in the early dawn you could see the snow falling steadily. It was very white. It was covering everything. In the cold kitchen, she sat on my lap in a chair and we watched the snow fall. At that moment, the seemingly small world of the Stay-At-Home Parent seemed a portal to something rich and wonderful.
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