I'll admit it I'm a typical guy or at least was when it came to my idea of what it meant to be a stay at home mum, I had agreed with my mates when they commented about how easy life must be for their wifes at home all day just having fun with a kids, I mean how hard could it be.
That was until I became a stay at home dad and before I go much further let me just say to any full parent well done and congratulations.
It's Strange.
I know the world is changing and there are more and more fulltime dads in the world but among my friends and colleges not one of them has had or taken the opportunity to cement a bond with their child, from the moment I informed my mostly male superiors that I would be taking parental leave for six months there was a resistance hadn't seen when my female staff had taken the same leave.
Ok, so I was still granted the leave but it didn't feel particularly gracious.
Planning Ahead
Don't get me wrong I'm not doing it all by myself, my wife and I have just recently adopted our first child (probably our only) it was a long process you can read some of it here because it was such a long process my wife and me where able to save and plan a strategy that has allowed me to say at home full time for the first six months with paid parental leave and for my wife to be able to work three days a week.
No Body warns you
Toddlers can either best be described as wither tiny drunk assholes or charismatic psychopaths, they have zero impulse control, zero understanding of boundaries, and I'm pretty sure that they have no concept of anything outside themselves.
They throw tantrums to be picked up and then throw tantrums to be put right back down and then repeat the process, their possessiveness of anything they put their hands on borders on obsessive and when you're certain that they have learned the meaning of the word no they will look you dead in the eyes and proceed to ignore it often giving you a smirk as they do.
It's a good thing they are cute.
Honestly, I think its entirely likely that their cuteness and smiles, and sweet laughter are evolutionary tricks to ensure that parents don't murder them.
Every day our little man a freshly adopted 16-month-old Thai boy come more and more out of his shell every day and every day I'm blessed to get to see him learn new things, copy a bunch of things dad does, starting to work his tongue around new words despite only hearing English for the first time just over a month ago.
Above I said that being a fulltime parent was heaps more work than I thought it would be but the truth its amazing, and rewarding and staying at home with him is much better than being at work.