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Well. I wonder if anyone else knows what I mean:?:
I am a stay at home Dad and the children/babies just fill my waking thoughts. Feeding, nappies, illnesses, squabbles, waking at night, bored with toys etc.
Don't get me wrong, there is all the fun stuff happening: splashing in the bath; digging in the soil; throwing bread at the ducks; eating dry cat food and getting annoyed when I stop him; washing up all the plasting things as a minor lake builds up around us. 😆
As a couple we have forgotten how let an hour ago go by without discussing a cot, pushchair, nappy cream etc.
I want to have a wander around the shops without going via the baby isle and comparing nappies. 😮
Hobbies are hard to get time for: maybe some gardening so we can wander on the grass and tell the difference between flowers and tall weeds; maybe a little bit of hitting guitar strings; and having chat time on DadTalk.
So the challenge I find I keep having to tackle is how to do family living but making time for ourselves as a copule, and then myself as a spontaneous human bean.
7 days a week. Week in/week out. 24 hours a day when teething or ill. No bank holidays off.
What works for you??? How do you keep yourself and your relationship breathing??
/orange
I think i could reword my shout for ideas...
What are the sort of things other blokes out there do with their partners to let their hair down?
I think the one thing we do that helps us cooperate with eachother is a few rounds of Hoarde, in Gears of War 3.
I think the one thing we do that helps us cooperate with eachother is a few rounds of Hoarde, in Gears of War 3.
😀
Hi there Mr. Orange...
Did you get a sanity balance worked out since you posted last time?
I often think what I would do if I was the stay at homer in the family, which has looked likely many times as my career has, shall we say, a slower burning salary curve than my wife's...
Have you tried getting together with other local stay at home dads to help share the burden of the kiddies? That's what I always imagined would be my first step...
(oops, slow reply....soz)
Nah. Not getting a lot of sanity over last months (and thus been off the forum for a while).
Just busy with family life caringfor the little ones.
ho ho ho. Yes I do try meeting up with SAHDs but not getting much success.
I recently been to a couple of toddler groups and asked a couple of people if there were stay at home dads and of course the answer is yes. But that is as far as things go. They don't know their name or how to contact them. The blokes I occasionally see at toddler group are just having a few days at home and bring little one to their group.
However.
I have one long standing SAHD and we occasionally chat to eachother, but we both find appointments and childcare get in our way of meeting up. The thing we share in common is looking after a little one with special needs (this generates lots of health related visits, appointments and treatments - let alone a pressure on our relationship with our partner). This is a very very valuable friendship. When we do get to meet we are able to chat through a lot of stuff and dump the rubbish we don't tell anyone else!!
All in all things are simply busy and will ease up as time passes.
I could improve things by
- saying NO to the little extra bits of work to 'help out'
- finishing something when I have done 80% of the job (ie, not being a perfectionist about it)
- making some 'me time' and putting down that todo list (because there will always be things to do).
- and not getting stressed by the little things (who moved my cheese).
/orange
At home with family We pass our time outside the home. We go for picnic and out door games. We go with kids at play areas, kids enjoy this session very much and it better for their mental growth.
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