How I Used 30 Minutes to Transition from Work to Home And How It Helped Me Be a Better Daddy

Posted by Jeff on January 21, 2009

How many of you are from families where both parents work?

How about just one parent that works?

Well in our family, both Mommy and I work, and we work hard during our 9 hour day away from the kids — they both go to school/daycare. Mommy has a little longer of a commute (30 mins from work to daycare) and therefore a little more “transition time” from work life to home life. Me on the other hand work minutes from our kid’s daycare — and I used to be the primary parent for evening pick up — giving me like 3 minutes to destress from a busy day at work to both kids so excited to see me. Sure it’s awesome to have them excited to see me…but I was always experiencing both of them trying to talk over one another, tell me about their day, and just trying to fight for my attention.

My attention? How could I pay attention to them with only 3 minutes of downtime from work? I try and I try and I never seem to be able to do that.

Well lately my wife, the saint that she is, has been picking up the kids and I’ve been heading home directly from work. I get home around 5:30pm and take care of the kitchen. Some nights it’s emptying the dishwasher, others it’s just cleaning up the bomb that went off from the morning!! Shit everywhere! And sometimes I might just do nothing — just to relax. I need to relax! I’m a high stress individual , not a good mix for a 4 and 2 year old right now. (I’ve written about that before…and probably write more on that subject again!)

Finding the time to relax and enjoy playtime

So…as I was typing. I’ve been heading home before the rest of the family. Take tonight for example. I left work at 5:10pm and stopped off at ACME (food store) to grab a few things for a salad (it was eat lite night) and return a RedBox movie rental (My Best Friend’s Girlfriend – or something like that). So by the time I got home it was 5:40pm. Not too bad — I had 30 minutes of transitioning from work to home (the drive is usually 15 minutes). I felt good when I got home!

What Worked

Having dinner almost ready when the rest of the family arrived home made all of us more relaxed. No more last minute running around the kitchen like a one man chef at a busy restaurant. No…it was rather peaceful. The whole night was peaceful.

I had the kid’s dinners ready, food on plate, milk in cups, napkins, forks and spoons for them. Then i prepped a simple salad of baby spinach, feta and sunflower seeds for my wife and I. Poured her a glass of Shiraz and I enjoyed 2 Heinekin Lights. (It was eat lite night).

I did not yell tonight! That might be the first night in like months I didn’t have to raise my voice! It was a great feeling. And I could tell that my son really liked that. He would say, “I Love you Daddy!”

So after dinner he and I went into his playroom and created a pretty kick-butt GEOTRAX train layout. He was so excited that I went in and ASKED him to play trains with me. I usually try to clean up and do house stuff so my wife and I don’t have to do that once the kids are asleep. We do need our own time as well. But she packed lunches and cleaned up while the kids and I played.

The Best Night Ever

Well at least tonight ranks up there in Top 5 nights for me. There was absolutely NO WHINING! That’s right. No Whining at our house! Or none that I remember, so that’s good. Took my son up to bed and read him 3 books. He kept saying he had fun with the trains and than he loved me. That sure makes me feel good and I do feel good about it! I made his night!! and he made mine!

Now I just have to remember to stay calm and continue this!

But Daddy….Bears Eat Honey

Posted by Jeff on January 14, 2009

ahem…ladies and gentlemen…

I am back tonight from a few weeks off from blogging. I am not sure where my nights have gone lately. Oh, that’s right…my Dad had bought me the first season of The Wire (HBO) and I watched 2-3 episodes a night for little over a week. Well anyway, here I am trying to jumpstart my blogging again. I find it relaxing and fun. Sometimes stressful when trying to think up new topics.

Well tonight was easy. My son helped me think of it. Actually, he didn’t help think of it, he just gave me the idea from a very cute thing he said…”Daddy, Bears eat honey!”

Huh?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. What does he mean?? Then it struck me….I had asked him if he would like to try a spoonful of honey to help soothe his nagging cough. And again his response was “Bears eat honey!”

See…it makes sense. He’s four. He reads books with bears. Bears that eat honey. Just like Winnie the Pooh. And the same reason the image I chose for this post is a honey bear. Those poor bees…they get no credit. I’ve never seen a BEE-SHAPED honey container.

So anyway, I thought it was cute what my son said and wanted to share that with everyone. Also, here is a post I wrote back in March 2008 about the same thing…the Nighttime Coughing.

By the way, all is quiet in the bedrooms. Guess the humidifer, vapor rub, a little bit of honey and his grape lollipop worked!

Disclaimer: there is no scientific proof that a lollipop helps soothe a nighttime cough…but holy crap I think it worked!!

Also I grabbed the image from Carlisle Honey, check out their site.