The Anderson Column

Work for my wife. Staying at home watching the little guy for me. So I guess it would be fair to give it a little evaluation, mmm.

It’s been pretty great all in all. We’ve managed to play together a lot and although he’s also been crying a lot it’s never really been push-the-panic-button bad. I’m pretty optimistic about the next weeks going forward especially since his verbal communication seems to develop at the speed of Usain Bolt right now. He’s spitting, he’s finding new sounds, he’s (still) screaming like a pterodactyl – at least the way I imagine they would scream if I ever met one and he’s starting to discover consonants. It’s not throwing a football around, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun anyway.

I think he’s doing OK and I think he’s generally pretty happy. We do a mix of play-time, story-time, August-in-his-jumperoo time (usually watching sprout tv or listening to daddy read aloud from random books) and nap time. It’s hard to gauge what the proper amount of stimulus is, to be honest, but I guess it’s good to just try and see whatever works. At least I can tell when he’s fed up with Mother Goose, cause he’ll start looking at something else, yawn, sulk and then usually fall asleep.

As for me, I’m not getting a damned thing done. I thought I was going to be able to be fairly productive since I read that babies sleep 14-16 hours per day, but this has not been the case. Granted, some of it has to do with my attention deficit disordered personality, but focus is hard to keep when there’s a diaper to be changed every half hour or thereabout. That, too, is just fine though – he’s an important piece of work and it’s not like I have any deadlines to meet on anything right now. All just ideas and concepts – all of which I’d like to work harder on, but nothing concrete anyway, so we’ll see how it goes.

Not working has turned out to be a great decision and a great experience. I wonder if other people have alternate views..

He's a pretty happy guy - And not just when Mommy comes home.