{"id":48079,"date":"2021-08-21T10:02:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T14:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48079"},"modified":"2021-08-31T10:02:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:02:51","slug":"2-under-2-critical-mass-060","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48079","title":{"rendered":"2 Under 2: Critical mass (#060)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-48080\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_2257.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"559\" height=\"258\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_2257.jpg 600w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/IMG_2257-300x139.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 559px) 100vw, 559px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">This is my general schedule:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">wake up at 7:20 so I can have ten minutes to let the dog out, feed the dog, take a piss, and get #1\u2019s milk ready<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Get #1 out of bed and pray to god (1) she hasn\u2019t leaked out of her overnight diaper because she sleeps face down and butt up and no diaper company has figured out how to solve gravity<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">If she hasn\u2019t wet herself and I don\u2019t have to strip sheets, change outfits and give her a comprehensive wipe down, I bring her down to start her day<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Between 7:30-9:00 I hang out with my kid and pray to god (2) she\u2019s not in a cranky mood and going to whine and fuss all morning like she is at the time I\u2019m writing this down. On weekdays, I\u2019m also technically on the clock as of 8:30, so I low-key act like I\u2019m active at work but I\u2019m just monitoring work on my work phone, and praying to god (3) that nothing substantial happens, but if it does then I have to actually work while placating a toddler for until our nanny shows up or my wife relieves me<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">On weekdays, by like 8:50 I\u2019m in my office so that I can prepare for my workday for a job I\u2019ve completely soured on and want out of. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have 9 am meetings where often times I\u2019m the one driving them because in spite of the technical competency everyone is required to have in order to have their jobs, I\u2019m the one most capable of actually utilizing WebEx, Acrobat and Outlook. All other days, I may actually have a few minutes to breathe and compose myself on company time, but those are few and far between as I am often playing catch-up on the work that doesn\u2019t get done because I\u2019m often playing dad throughout the workday (despite having a hard paid nanny and wife home on maternity leave).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Throughout most workdays despite being on the clock, I\u2019m pulled away multiple times to assist with #2, which are usually burps and diaper changes because mythical wife is doing her duty of pumping so that #2 can eat. However this often puts me behind on my workflow and has a trickle down effect to where I have to make up the time somewhere<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At some point during workdays as well as weekends, I try and spend some time to begin cleaning the numerous bottles and pump parts we go through in order to feed and provide for #2. If we didn\u2019t have two sterilizers, I would literally never be able to catch up ever<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At noon every day, #1 goes down for her nap. This is a 2.5 hr window where only one child has to be cared for, provided her frequent screaming and crying doesn\u2019t wake #1 up, to which I pray to god (4) daily does not happen<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">By 2:30, #1 is awakened and it\u2019s back to 2 under 2 time, except now the nanny is clocked out, and it\u2019s my wife and I dealing with things with me back to low-key pretending to have full undivided attention to work for the next three hours and praying to god (5) that my bosses who have no respect for core hours or late afternoon meeting etiquette don\u2019t drop a 4 or 4:30 meeting on my head<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">5:30 is when I\u2019m officially off the clock, but often times due to my juggling acts there\u2019s always a few somethings that need to be resolved, and I might have to punch in an extra 30-45 minutes to settle things down, provided my children will cooperate<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">6:30(ish) is #1\u2019s bath time, followed by wind down for a 7 pm bedtime. Mythical wife and I have been having to divide and conquer between two kids here and she\u2019s often caring for a screaming #2 while I\u2019m taking care of #1<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">By around 7:15, we\u2019re back down to one kid, but #2 is still too early to have any routine since she\u2019s more or less in survival mode, of eat, sleep, scream bloody murder, and any order of those three activities. It\u2019s at this time mythical wife and I talk about how starved we are, indecisions about dinner, and how most of the local restaurants we like seem to close at 8 and we\u2019re too late to put in a takeout order because I probably won\u2019t get there by 8, so we eat Chick Fil-A or Zaxby\u2019s all the time if we don\u2019t have any palatable leftovers in the fridge<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">From dinner to bedtime, mythical wife and I play hot potato with #2 because this is the time she\u2019s been getting colic-ky and screaming bloody murder and I\u2019m praying to god (6) she won\u2019t wake up #1, but the majority of the physical caring falls on me since she still has to pump a few more times to keep up with #2\u2019s increasing eating<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Anywhere from 11-midnight, we migrate up to the bedroom which usually feels like a meat locker now that our HVAC has been replaced, and wind #2 for the night with final feeds and diaper changes and praying to god (7) that there\u2019s no colic or stomach aches and she\u2019ll actually go to sleep before 1 am<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Once #2 is down for the night, it\u2019s typically far too late and I\u2019m usually so gassed that I\u2019m not even in the mood to hate-stay up late just so I can feel a shred of having two seconds for myself to not be in dad mode, and then go to bed anxious at not getting to have any me-time to unwind and feeling fried because I\u2019m 6-7 hours from starting all this over again while also knowing there will usually be one mid-sleep wake up to feed and change #2, and I pray to god (8) that it\u2019s just one time<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">If you\u2019ve read this far and have been keeping count, you might notice that there are usually at least eight prayers to god and fewer minutes in the day where I don\u2019t have to be a dad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m sure that last part sounds selfish and gives off the impression that I don\u2019t want to be a dad, which couldn\u2019t be any further from the truth. However, one of the pieces of advice I was given going into parenthood was the importance of not losing one\u2019s identity to it, to which I definitely agree that there\u2019s definitely a balance to try and maintain when it comes to being a parent and being ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m in a stretch where I\u2019ve been incapable of having the time at all to be able to switch off being dad, and having any time at all for myself to be myself. I haven\u2019t run in over a month now, I barely have the capacity to watch any television; only really getting to when stacked on top of less effort baby activities, and most importantly to me, I have next to no time at all to write.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In fact that only reason why this post even exists is that I\u2019ve composed it entirely in a note on my phone, while #1 was literally strapped to my head because she\u2019s having one of those days where if dad\u2019s not carrying her, she\u2019s going ballistic, and I\u2019m up to her current height off the ground at how over her bullshit I am right now, well at critical mass at how fried I am at being in dad mode for so long, and so I just strapped her in and began writing on my phone while monotonously walking in circles. At least she\u2019s not wailing anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Like most topics I write about that sound like they suck balls and might deter other bros from thinking about having kids, this would go into the category of \u201csomeday we\u2019ll look back and laugh at this,\u201d but in my case I look forward to the days when I can tell my kids how much they made my life pretty insufferable when they were babies.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is my general schedule: wake up at 7:20 so I can have ten minutes to let the dog out, feed the dog, take a piss, and get #1\u2019s milk ready Get #1 out of bed and pray to god (1) she hasn\u2019t leaked out of her overnight diaper because she sleeps face down and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48079\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2 Under 2: Critical mass (#060)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,193,37,192,52,105],"class_list":["post-48079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-dad","tag-job","tag-kids","tag-owned","tag-rage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48081,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48079\/revisions\/48081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}