Monday was the first day of my "Maternity Leave," as the folks at work jokingly called it. Ryan and Evan were born March 13, 2009, and my Dear Wife ("DW", as the internet forums style her) has now gone back to work after ten months of taking care of three kids every day. My name is Phil, and I'm a Stay-At-Home-Dad.
The first morning was a little difficult; I think everyone missed Mommy. The babies would both start screaming if I so much as stood up.
I've generally seen how things go during the day on weekends, but, of course, there's two people around then, so there were some particular strategies that I never observed. Like how exactly do you put two babies to sleep at once? Keep in mind that either of them will shriek with jealousy at the sight of another baby with a bottle in his mouth?
The plan: Get Ryan to play in another room with Nathan, then sneak away, and put Evan to sleep. (Evan is more likely to go to sleep on the first try). From there, I've only got one baby, and I already know how to do that.
I sat down in the comfy chair, and turned on the white-noise machine, and Evan began to relax with his bottle. In barged Nathan with some pretend alphabet soup, followed by a crying, crawling Ryan. Chaos ensued. Ok, maybe I needed to do Ryan first then, since Evan is better at playing by himself.
I set Evan down briefly in the crib, where he screamed while I got Ryan over to the other room. To quiet him, I popped a bottle in his mouth. And hark: there was silence. Evan had apparently fallen asleep too. Poor kid had had very little milk.
And then they each slept for three-and-a-half hours. Perhaps they decided I'd had enough initiation, and they should go easy on me the rest of the day.
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