Mr. Mom 2008

For the past four and half days I have been trying to fill my wifes shoes as she is soaking up some sun on a much deserved trip to the beach. This has become a tradition in our house and it accomplishes a few important things. It gives my wife the afore mentioned well deserved time off, it totally gets me off the hook for Mother's Day, and it also reaffirms for me just how challenging a job being a stay at home parent really is. This last one is important because it seems that each year that we do this I seem to have more kids than the last time and thus any previous experiences I may have had in filling her shoes must then be thrown out the window on the basis of change in scope or scale. My wife of course conveniently failed to mention the magnitude of the change this time around until the very last minute possible. The last time I attempted this trip we only had three kids and now we have five with two of them in school and two others taking classes at Lands End two days a week.

I must admit that I actually look forward to it each year...I consider it a challenge, a test of my parenting skills, a me versus the parental elements, there can be only one survivior sort of challenge. This years challenge appears to becoming to a conclusion without any major incidents..no lost kids, missed appointments, or broken bones to speak of. Everyone got three squares a day and diaper changes within the acceptable time thresholds I have carefully developed over time. We even managed to squeeze in some fun despite the uncooperating weather. We had a great day down in Dubuque,IA at The Mississippi Aquarium followed by a five star lunch at "Old McDonalds" and the discovery of a fantastic park, The Mines of Spain, which has an amazing overlook of the Mississippi. We stopped at various playgrounds along the way home and completed the day with Devon actually using the potty instead of his pants to take care of business. An event which actually shortened our stay at the last playground when I caught him going into what can only be described as stealth mode where he disappears off the face of the Earth for a while to take care of the business and suddenly reappears when the mission is accomplished. So a great day no matter what way the media tries to spin it!

While on the one hand my kids and I are anxious for my wife to return again ,as is the case every time she goes away for more than an evening, I am at the same time wishing this years challenge could go on a little longer this time around. Having just spent four and a half days in the life of my wife I can honestly say that running this household is as difficult as any senior management job could ever be. This is of course not news to me at all..but it is nice to have myself reminded of it every once in a while. I think the real reason I want this to go on for a little while is because I have seen myself over the course of five days improve on a much needed lack of patience despite the breivity of the situation and I also got to experience for a prolonged period of time what I think may be what motivates my wife to do what she does and I just want to spend a little more time taking that in. My experiment had a start and an end date making it easy to keep motivated and keep the energy level where it needed to be but a real day in my wife's life has no such end date, at least not in the near future. The reality is that as the non stay at home parent...I will only get so many of these types of experiences in my life and I need to take them all in. I also need to convince my wife to take a few more trips to the beach which I am pretty sure will not be a problem.