Thursday, February 10, 2011

Not the Momma

It must be tough to be the daddy. At least, it must be tough to be the daddy in our house.

Poor Tom. He does a lot of the work but gets none of the glory these days.

Since he's been in the house with the girls and me full-time (it will have been a whole month on Sunday) he's taken over a lot of things I was doing. He almost always gets Olivia's food for her at dinner time (usually after I've cooked it) and feeds her before he eats.

His efforts have helped us make huges strides in O's potty training.

He makes sure Alyssa does enough math and reading for her logs each week.

But at bedtime?

Both of these girls declare him, "Not the Momma!" And they flock to me, wanting tucked in just right and back rubs that aren't the same when administered by Daddy's rough hands.

He's definitely good enough for building snow forts with and for checking the air in the tires on my car. He's expected to fix the furnace when it breaks and to maintain the level of the coolant in my car to make sure the girls and I stay warm each day.

But the girls have declared that he can't quite make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese right. He's also banned from manning the hair dryer in the mornings.

Some of these chores he's glad to leave to me.

But others, the tucking in and the holding when tired and needing a back rub? Those are things I think he wished they'd let him do.

I've reminded him that this is new to them. Having him there all the time, every single day, is new. It's great! But it's new.

And they're used to the way I do certain things. And they're little.

So we share laughter over their heads and each carry a sleepy girl to bed, knowing that even seven years later, we're still learning our way.

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