Role Reversal

As I stepped into the role of being a stay-at-home dad while I went to school full time I didn't realize what I was getting into.
I thought it would be easy...simple...I could work out when my wife got home from work, I would do school work while our daughter played, I would have quality bonding time with my daughter, and we would have ample family time.
Then reality set in.....working out became even harder to do as my wife gets home later and later, doing homework is a joke when she plays because she is always looking for something to get into, and family time?? Every day my wife is off I go off to do school work (I'm taking four online courses) which gives us even less family time than before I became unemployed.

The role of being a stay-at-home has a lot more than to it then fun days of being home and enjoying your children. It has endless cleaning, dishes, laundry, snotty noses, poopy diapers, baths, naps, soothing of crankines, just to name a few. Many days my wife has come home and I have been so thankful to have her home with us, just to help share the load of household chores (and help soothe our cranky daughter who has gotten tired of being in the house with me all day).

On the flip side of that, I have really enjoyed all the time I have gotten to spend with my precious little one. The moments I relish the most are when she climbs into my lap and brings me her books and I read her the books as she listens so intently to what I have to say. Those moments in our long day at home make it so much sweeter. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to have the roles reversed and spend time at home. It has definitely given me a new appreciation to stay-at-home moms. It can be so very rough, but very rewarding.