Daddy Daycare: A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Dad

The alarm sounds. It's 5:45 a.m. on Monday morning. My stomach offers a reminder of the Super Bowl party that ended just seven hours ago, and my first daddy report arrives 10 minutes later when 3-year-old daughter shuffles into the bedroom while I'm checking my e-mail.

"Bono poop in room." She points to the living room, and I know it's not good. Bono is a 6-month-old Irish setter, and he ordinarily does his business outside. Once every week or so, he has an accident, but he always runs to a far corner of the house to make his deposit. So a deposit in the living room is a clear sign of trouble. He made no effort to hide his work. I check the weather report, which tells me what sort of clothing I'll need to gather for our morning walk to the nearby elementary school. Then I head for the blast zone. Sure enough, there's a fat pile of disgust smack in the center of the room. It's not yet 6 a.m., and I'm standing in my undies wondering which end of the dog produced this unpleasantness. It's an exercise in futility. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. It simply means I'll be using the steam cleaner today. So I snag a roll of toilet paper and carefully dispose of Bono's morning surprise.

"I want juice. Dora cup."

My next mission is under way. I shuffle to the kitchen still not fully alert. In the fridge, I find a carton of fruit punch and snatch it. I'd rather not dirty a glass. So I hand the half-gallon carton to my girl, who looks at me as if I had two noses. She's clearly puzzled. So I go to the cupboard and find a cup. The Dora cup is nowhere to be found. So I substitute with Snow White.

"I want Dora."

Suddenly, I'm an attorney defending my client.

"But Snow White is a princess. This is princess juice."

It works, and I'm off to wake up the prince. I find him covered from head to toe. His TV is still on the Cartoon Network, and I'm reminded that the wife doesn't like the station's late night programming, which she calls "adult programming." I shake my 5-year-old boy's leg, and his entire body leaps off the bed a few inches. He's stunned like a deer in headlights, and he's glaring at me in that way that suggests I've crossed a line. I stare back. After a few seconds, I break him. He wipes his eyes, and I think he's about to hop out of bed. Instead, he rolls over to face the wall and pulls the blanket over his head.

"Dad, I'm still tired. You always wake me up when it's dark."

I wonder if he knows how I feel about this daily process.

The princess arrives and flips on the light.

"Hey Ben, it's wake 'em up time."

I figure he'll budge soon, but he doesn't. So I wander off to dress the princess. We can't spare any time. Ben is left to decide whether he'll be punctual, and I know he dreads upsetting his dear kindergarten teacher, to whom, I believe, he wants to be married some day.

Ten minutes later, though, Ben is still in bed. I holler for him to start moving before he's late. Then I hear a thud. His feet have hit the floor. He appears moments later. His fists are rubbing his eyes as he stumbles to the couch. I sternly remind him that he's supposed to be in the shower. So he heads off to the bathroom, where he discovers that his mom's lukewarm shower water is still pooled in the tub.

"Dad. There's water in here."

I tell him to pull the plug.

"I did. It won't go down."

It's not a surprise. It happens at least twice a month. Usually, it's because the kids knocked a bar of soap into their bath water and allowed it to drift chunk by chunk into the open drain.

"Just get in there and wash your hair really fast," I grumble. "Don't let the water pour out of the tub."

"I hungry." It's the princess again. I rush off and fix her a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. Then I return to my e-mail. The wife passes by half-dressed. She's on her way to the kitchen for coffee. She'll leave me two or three cups, but I likely will have no more than one cup. I'm usually too preoccupied with an in-home crisis or some work project that I must balance with the princess's strong desire to turn her bedroom walls into a Crayola art canvas. Even if I wanted some coffee, my brain is so scrambled by 8 a.m. that I often forget what I'm doing as I walk from one room to another.

Today, I'm writing a story on a 6-year-old gymnast who spends 20 hours a week learn how to do things with strange names, like a double-back. It's a fairly typical day. As a freelance writer, I generally have enough time-2 to 3 hours-to write a few stories before the school day draws to an end. Then I leave to retrieve Mr. Grumpy. A Kool-Aid spill (or a clogged tub drain) cuts into my time. Plus, there is the never-ending supply of folks who stop by every day or two to make sure my soul belongs to Jesus.

It's now 6:30 a.m., and the clock's tick doubles in time. We have one hour to make it to the school. I quickly respond to a Facebook friend request. Before the Web site loads, I hear some terrific racket. Then I hear the wife ask if my girl is okay. She suffered a coughing fit. The wife reports that my girl got sick in her bowl of cereal, but she's on her way out the door.

"Bye, honey." The door slams shut. The wife is gone. Until the late afternoon, I'm alone, a stay-at-home dad overwhelmed by kiddie vomit, doggie crap and a long list of responsibilities. The pantry is almost bare, and that means I need to make a grocery list and prepare for an evening trip to Publix, which receives my homemaker seal of approval because it has the freshest produce and the best meat. Before the day is through, I'll have to clip coupons from the Sunday paper, which I haven't read yet because I spend most of my Sundays in a slobbery daze on the couch. Kids do that to a guy.

Anyway, back to the vomit. Joy, joy. Lucky me. I rush to clean it up. When I finish, I spot my son walking across the room in his birthday suit.

"Stop right there."

He stops, and I can see that he's afraid I'm angry. But I'm not. I point to the floor and tell him to avoid the spot where the dog had his accident. Until I can shampoo it, that area of carpet is Area 51. I go through two gallons of carpet shampoo each month. If I had more time, I'd go through five gallons, but the juice spills often receive only a quick rubdown with a paper towel. When you're on deadline, you can't stop mid-sentence to spend an hour on household chores. So paper towels have become my crisis prevention tool. I go through four or five rolls every each week, and I don't know where half of the rolls go. I suspect that the dog eats a few sheets with each meal.

"Your clothes are on the couch."

I point to the neat sack of clothes I set out for Ben. Then I cross my fingers and hope he'll overlook the purple stripes on his shirt. He thinks purple is for girls. Today, he's too sleepy to notice. He plops down on the couch. Meanwhile, I call the girl, who seems to have recovered from her coughing spell. I pick up the girl and deposit her on the couch next to her brother. Then I turn on the TV and find the most recent recorded episode of Blue's Clues.

"I don't like Blue's Clues," says the boy as I shuffle off for my own morning grooming. I find the tub nearly filled to the top, but I manage to shower without any overtopping. Midway through washing my hair, I hear someone calling my name, but I can't hear the other words over the rush of the shower water.

"You'll have to come in here," I shout.

Moments later, my son peaks his head in the bathroom and tells me that my girl got sick again. This time, she hacked up phlegm on my bedroom floor. My shampoo duties are growing by the minute.

"I'll be right there," I say.

Now I'm hearing screeching from my girl. I imagine her covered from head to toe. In a fury, I rush out of the shower and run into the bedroom while trying to dry off. It turns out that Maddy is relatively fine despite her stomach issues. The screeching stems from a dispute with her brother, who has turned the TV from Blues Clues to something called Naruto on my bedroom TV.

It's 7 a.m. when I finish scrubbing the carpet in my bedroom. The kids are back in the living room, where my girl twice nearly sits in Area 51. The first time, I calmly explain the mistake. The second time, I bite my lip and hold back an urge to run for the door.

"I hungry."

It's the princess again. All I can do is laugh.

"What's so funny?" The prince is grilling me for information again. He's at that age where he must understand everything. There are lots of questions. When I take out the dog, I return to questions about what the dog did or didn't do. Even when I'm not dealing with bodily functions, I'm being grilled about them.

"You need to brush your teeth," I say. His mom almost never remembers, and I'm forced to play the bad guy. Sometimes, he can't squeeze out the toothpaste and beckons my help. Other days, he simply wants me to do all the work, the actual scrubbing. I'm something of a pushover. I actually cup my hand under the faucet to supply him water for rinsing.

It's 7:15 a.m. when we finish. I whip around to find Bono eating cue tips out of the box. As I make my way toward the shoe stash, I spot the girl. She's sitting on the living room floor just inches from Area 51.

I look for the boy's shoes, but they're not where they should be.

"Find your shoes," I say rather sternly.

At 7:30 a.m., after 15 minutes of ransacking the house, my boy walks out of his sister's room carrying his shoes. Just a few minutes later, we're on our way down the street. But it won't be an easy trip. The girl is no longer having the coughing fits that greeted me earlier, but her cold has zapped her energy. She is groggy and grumpy. She throws herself on the sidewalk and begins to cry twice. Each time, I carefully balance between coddling her and making her believe that I'll leave her behind. When she's finally stopped with the drama, the boy accidentally mows her down with his bike, which he's supposed to be riding ahead of us.

"Good morning," says the crossing guard after I pick up the girl, whose shoe fell off when she tumbled over.

I grumble something about wanting to skip right to Tuesday.The rest of the trip to the school is eventless, ethereal. Moments later, at 7:45 a..m, I wave goodbye to my boy and spin around for the walk home. The princess reaches out with her arms.

"Pick me up."

I chuckle. Six months ago, when my son started kindergarten, I'd carry her on my shoulders to and from school most days. The girl, though, eats like a horse. She once ate an entire package of bologna when I was too involved in my freelance work to notice the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing every 10 minutes. So I take breaks every few hours to ensure that she has a snack. That usually keeps her out of the fridge, but she's still added a few pounds. She weighs 40 pounds, some 10 pounds more than she weighed just six months ago.

"You gotta walk," I say in my sweetest voice. As I'm talking, I notice that she's pulled the band out of her hair. I use a band every morning and every afternoon to give her a basic ponytail. The mothers I meet every afternoon at 1:45 p.m. give their girls all sorts of fancy dos, French braids, big, soft curls. I know nothing about grooming women's hair, and I sometimes worry that I'll be judged because my girl's hair is a wild, poofy mess when she pulls the band off her tight ponytail. And she takes it off every damn day. Usually, she leaves it on the sidewalk. Several times, I have passed by a band that was discarded on a previous day. On rare occasions, she leaves the band just until she walks back into the house. Then she removes it, and it disappears forever. I have a feeling the dog eats this, too.

It's now 8:15 a.m., and I need to start writing. First, though, I spend an hour shampooing carpets and fixing a second breakfast for the princess, who screeches when Bono leaps and tackles her while I'm making eggs and bacon.

At 9 a.m., work begins. The dog is asleep on the couch, and Playhouse Disney takes over the parenting duties. There's a load of wet linens in the washing machine and a load of dishes in the sink. There are a half-dozen bills to pay, and I still need to make out that grocery list. All of it, though, goes on the back burner. This is my time, at least until the dog wakes up or a commercial comes on. I write frantically, and the time flies past. At 10 a.m., the princess taps me on the shoulder.

"I hungry. I want breakfast," she says.

I'm convinced she's not human. I persuade her to wait until lunch by supplying her with another glass of fruit punch, and I mumble to myself about needing to finish my story. At 10:30 a.m., I do just that. The story is behind me, and it's time for the real work to begin. It's cleaning time. The dishwasher beckons. So I grab the punch cup and head to the kitchen. The cup still has a few ounces of punch in it. Also in the cup is a Batman action figure and Shrek's baby, a McDonald's toy that burps and farts.

Over the next 90 minutes, I remove crayon scribbles from the front of the refrigerator, change the water in the fish tank, cut coupons and share my thoughts on religion with the person who rang the doorbell while I was scrubbing the toilet. I enjoy a twisted sense of accomplishment as I shake John's hand knowing that mine is covered in grime and, potentially, toilet germs. After a quick exchange, I shut the door and hunt for Bono, who is eating an entire stick of butter I left on the kitchen counter when I made breakfast. He does this anytime someone leaves food within reach. In this case, he pulled the butter dish down from the stove. Yesterday, he ate two loaves of sandwich bread. That might have something to do with my morning surprise, and I wonder just what a stick of butter might produce.

The early afternoon brings a bit more freelance work. I make some calls while Bono snatches a toy from Maddy. It's a little cardboard horn left over from New Year's Eve. She recovers it and begins to blow into it while I'm talking to the mayor.

As usual, I explain to the person on the other side of the line that I am a stay-at-home dad. Nobody lets on that they think it's odd, but I can sense it in their voices. Why is this guy calling now to ask if we fired the city manager? Can't he wait until his daughter is asleep? Can't he afford a babysitter?

After I finish my phone calls, I glance at the clock. It's 1:15 p.m. I rush to find my girl's clothing, which the princess has discarded throughout the house over the course of the morning. In 15 minutes, I have retrieved her pants, shirt, socks and shoes. But I can't find the hair band anywhere. So I pluck a new one out of the box and begin searching for the hair brush, which turns out to be tucked under a couch cushion. By 1:30 p.m., we're ready to depart.

I grab my keys and rush out the door and onto the sidewalk. Fifty yards down the road, I'm met by the neighbor, a staunchly conservative wing nut who shaves his head and talks a lot about his service in the Marines, which another neighbor once told me amounted to three years of non-combat duty that occurred more than a decade ago. One morning, I caught him tossing beer bottles out of his truck into a thickly wooded adjacent lot. According to the neighbor, that's his regular routine. It's what another neighbor said, though, that bothers me. Apparently, the guy told her that a woman's place is in the home that a real man goes to work to support his family. The glare he shoots my way indicates he thinks I'm a loser, an unemployed deadbeat unable to provide for his family or a sissy who doesn't know how to work a circular saw or skin a buck. It bothers me, but I let it go. I nod and smile, and he does the same.

The neighbor isn't the first to give me dirty looks. Perhaps I'm self-conscious, but some women look at me as if I'm a child molester. Others seem to have pity for me. "Poor guy. He must be out of work," their faces seem to express.

Most days, I wonder myself what I'm doing. I have to foot the bill for my own health insurance. I spend the day as a personal servant to a pair of snot-nosed turkeys who only express their appreciation with hoots and hollers on the rare day when I break from protocol and allow Pizza Hut to supply our afternoon snack.

At 2:15 p.m., we walk through the front door. I spend the next 15 minutes on a short walk with the dog. Because the kids are home alone, I only go a few houses down the street. Even that worries me. All sorts of terrible scenarios pop into my head as I turn my head away from Bono half-expecting to see smoke billowing from the roof.

At 2:30 p.m., I return to find the kids fighting. Both of them are grumpy and demanding. They want drinks and snacks. So I shuffle into the kitchen yet again and pour some beverages. I'm too beaten down by now to make any real stab at a snack. So I hand each of them a yogurt tube.

At 3 p.m., I march the kids into the bedroom for a nap. As usual, they kick and nudge each other as they fight for a space nearest to dad in a queen-sized bed. I read a quick story. Before I'm finished, both kids are sleeping. Their chests rise and fall in rhythm, and I'm overcome by the peacefulness. I drop the half-finished book onto the night stand and drift into dreamland. My slumber lasts just 15 minutes. This is how it usually goes. I don't know why. It's as if my brain tells my body to wake and take advantage of the silence and freedom. So I curl up on the couch and find a TV show to watch.

At 4 p.m., the wife walks in the door.

"How was your day?" she asks.

"Oh, just fine," I say. But it's all a cover. Part of me wants to collapse on the floor in tearful sobs. Part of me wants to cave in and assert that I can't do it any more. I want to tell her that it's too much. Instead, I smile and say nothing.

At 4:15 p.m., I check on the royalty. The princess is resting her head on the prince's stomach. Both are deep into dreamland. It's been a long day for all of us, but mom is home. She'll cook dinner, and I can return to normal male duties. I'll camp out on the couch eating peanuts and drinking a bottle of Heineken. I'll go into the garage and bench press 250 pounds to the sound of trash metal's crashing angst. Then, at 10 p..m., I'll crawl into bed and drift off until the alarm sounds again. The mere thought provides the motivation I need to drank the remainder of my beer.

"Honey, can you get me a beer?" I get no answer. After repeating myself three or four times, I rise from the couch to investigate. What I find is that the wife and both kids are now sleeping in my bed.

Suddenly, I understand the Calgon commercials. But there's just one problem. I forgot to unclog the tub drain.