I recently had a chance to take a day off from work and take care of my daughter while my wife took some bereavement time. While the circumstances surrounding this opportunity were sad, I thought I’d make the most of it and enjoy my uninterrupted time with her.

Here’s the story of how that day went.

I woke up early because Zelphia had to be out the door by 5:45 - not an easy task since we’ve been in the habit of getting up at around 6:30. Baby was already awake and fussing at 5am so I helped her get back to sleep. Lucky for us, she fell asleep pretty quickly after I changed her diaper.

Shortly after Zelphia was out the door she was up again.

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I am unable to produce breast milk, and babies famously love breast milk. But don’t worry, I have developed a plan.

My fear was that Lottie would get hungry too soon. If she got hungry then had to wait for me to make a bottle she’d most likely get upset and want to nurse. That wasn’t an option. So, I got her bottle ready well before her 8am feeding time.

Lottie isn’t a stranger to bottle feeding, but she isn’t a friend either.

As soon as I started feeding her I realized that things weren’t the same as when she was 3 months old. It had been a while since she last used a bottle and it was showing. Rather than me having to support her head and help her stay still, Lottie can now sit up on her own, and she did not want to stand still.

it took me a while to find the sweet spot, but after 20 minutes she finally latched and drank… 3ozs? that’s not enough, I’ll hold onto it incase she gets hungry.

Now that the morning routine was complete it was time to get into the day. I had a short list of things I wanted to do for the day:

I also had a list of smaller things I wanted to get done, but it was fine if I didn’t get to them:

These wants were secondary to the more important above, but some of them could be combined. For example, my plan was to pick up my work supplies from the office, swing by the Edison for a coffee, and then drive out to Target to get some shopping done.

After stopping by the office to get my computer, and after getting coffee from The Edison (She finished up the rest of that bottle in the parking lot here), I drove out to Target. A couple minutes before reaching Target Lottie fell asleep.

Luckily, I had my handy dandy 3DS to entertain me. However, I wasn’t prepared for the hour and twenty-minute nap Lottie had planned.

I love it when Lottie sleeps, but during the nap, I could not stop thinking about the fact that she needed a diaper change soon. As the clock continued to tick the time I had to shop slowly dwindled.

After leveling up a lot in Pokemon, she finally woke up. So I quickly got the carrier on and went into Target.

I’ll spare the details cause that doesn’t matter.

I essentially spent the rest of the day transitioning between feeding, bouncing, and playing with Lottie. While she played in her crib I was able to build that dresser that needed to be built - After I rebuild the drawers the correct way, I felt very accomplished.

This day made me love being a dad even more. I got the opportunity to take care of my family in a way I hadn’t before, and while being a little nervous at first, I found out that my capabilities to keep my baby alive were much better than I thought.

I walked away from this day with a refreshed love of my family. I can’t stress enough just how difficult the events leading up to this day were, but this day gave me a greater perspective on what my role as a father is (still feels wild to say that).

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