It was vaguely like skydiving....

OK, here's the score for my first week being a stay-at-home dad (henceforth to be called just SAHD).

First of all, my situation is probably not typical. For the next three months, my wife works only four days a week - with one of those days spent telecommuting. Whatever baptism by fire I had was in reality only 60% of a whole baptism. More on the uniqueness of my situation later.

Second, there was a lot of depression. There is something about being a man in this society and needing to have a job to feel that you belong. Yes, I know, parenting is a job. I mean a "job" job. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was a kind of "oh, shit!" factor associated with simply knowing that today there wouldn't be a "real" boss to report to - just a tiny 12-pound boss who poops a lot. I love the little guy, but staying home with him was a move with a lot of buildup and expectation followed by an almost instantaneous resolution - classic building blocks of depression.

It was vaguely like the time I tried skydiving 10 years ago. The real tough part wasn't in getting up the nerve to do it. It was the trauma I felt upon realizing that I'd actually gone through with something so drastic. It haunted me days after I landed. Maybe more on that later too.

The most important lesson I'll take into Week 2 concerns the importance of incorporating structure. Those like me that battle with depression already know this. For the first SAHD week, I learned a lot about my present difficulties in establishing structure. In the hopes that other SAHD's will eventually read this, here is some advice from Week 1:

1. Don't expect to hit the ground running. (Pardon the skydiving reference...) Baby is no worse off because I couldn't get inspired or organize my time better this week. His basic needs were met, so my work was done.

2. If you need structure and fear boredom, schedule appointments out of the house - regardless of what they are.

3. Cook dinner. Stirring a pot with one arm while holding Baby with the other is the ultimate in multitasking. More enjoyable than what any boss would require.

Here's to happy landings for Week 2.

Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough - and goshdarnit, I have interesting things to blog about!

Two leaps of faith have been made.

First, I became a stay-at-home dad last week. Second, I stopped being so neurotic and actually started this blog. Presumably, the first leap will be interesting to blog about.

I'll introduce myself later. Thanks for reading.