Rookie

I finally hung out with another stay-at-home dad today. It feels like I've been strolling around on Mars for four-and-a-half months and suddenly encountered another human. Not that my mom friends aren't human, but you know--they're from Venus. He and I work at the same school, and his daughter is three months old. He's taking off the fall and winter trimesters to stay home with her. His wife went back to work yesterday.

He's so screwed. If only he possessed an ounce of my wisdom. I remember staying home with a three-month-old. You're like this giant mental case taking care of a tiny mental case. Three-month-olds don't know how to sleep properly, they can't put the binky back in their mouth, and you're still afraid that you're going to accidentally maim them somehow. I got entire blog posts out of incidents that seem ridiculous to me now. A whole post on turkey-basting out a booger? Please, I can do that blindfolded while bowling now.

He and I are the same age, we work in the same school, we live in the same city, and our wives work for the same company. Yet, the five months that separate our daughters' ages might as well be decades. The baby crams so much information into your brain during those months that you basically go insane. You come out of it, and of course he'll come out of it too, but the thing is, he's not even in it yet.

I think I'm jealous.