When Mom is away!

I was thinking today, what is a typical family in this day and age? In my day it would have been dad working and mom staying at home looking after the kids and house. I am fairly certain this is now more a dream to many people and the reality is something totally different.

In our household, this is certainly not the case, in fact it is a total flip of the coin. Mom is the professional, working long hours and traveling extensively, while dad looks after house and kid. Not an easy adjustment initially for all, but once we decided that is how it will have to be, we accepted the fact, and moved on with our life. There is no value in living in the past.

So what do we do when mom's away?

I guess the short boring answer is: "We keep going as normal, to make the adjustment as uneventful as possible."

This is the aim and for now, not a lot of things the boys can do to rock the boat, yet! A 11 month baby does not really have the mobility to be able to do anything really mischievous with dad. We can have really messy fun though ....

and then we added a few new interesting toys...

and I guess we did not bother too much about when to bath, eat, sleep and all the rest of the boring stuff.

Technology

Another huge difference to my day, is technology and how it has made the world seem not that big anymore. Usually when mom is away, Monday, or rather Sunday night, become a little bit of an issue with Boeta waking at least once and sleeping less peaceful, even during the day. This changes by Tuesday and everything settles down into routine again.

We do however have the technology advantages today with products like Skype, to talk and see one another. This is great for mom, dad and little one. Even at 11 months he recognizes her and she gets lots of screen kisses, he also shows and plays all around the screen (notepad), which I take to the ground level and he has the choice to come and see or play. My wife took these screen pics in Asia and sent it to me.

In the process we spend nearly 40 minutes playing as a family. As you can see he did enjoy the interaction as well.

It is not easy being alone with a baby, especially as a man, not easy being away, especially as a mom, but it can be done and we try to make it as easy as possible on Boeta, use it as a learning experience and we focus on when we will be together again, rather than the time apart.