I didn't realize I would be lonely. Pretty much my daily routine consists of feeding my daughter (about 10 minutes usually?), giving her a nap (anywhere from 29-31 minutes, depending on when I check my watch--I don't think I even know adults who are this consistent let alone kids), and then playing, reading books, exercising and changing diapers for 2 hours. Repeat until 5:30pm. At no point in there do we discuss politics, the weather or anything regarding me. At least not as a dialogue.
The only linguistic interaction we have would be on the phonetic level, not even the phonological level, let alone the lexical level. I recall making farting sounds back and forth with my daughter all day this week. I think we did the "b" sound and some vowels for a while during the last couple months. That about sums up our conversations.
Don't get me wrong. Hearing my daughter make farting sounds with her lips is enjoyable and makes me truly proud as a father. And we have a great time just making faces and blowing raspberries on her armpits. Yep, my lips go in her armpits and she laughs up a storm; go ahead and think it's gross but if you saw my 5-month-old laughing that hard, you'd do it too. Shamelessly.
But this is just the problem. I actually do enjoy spending time with my daughter. Even if she's ignoring me for her tupperware and I'm sitting on the couch doing something else, we both know the other is there and we're comforted by that fact. And we've been doing this for over 3 months so it's becoming our way of life rather than a temporary arrangement.
So not having my daughter upstairs flopping around in bed, or my wife reading in the family room, or anyone around was kind of lonely. And that's just for 2 hours. It's certainly nice to realize that my family is part of my life and inseparable from my self now, though, as opposed to a chore and something I have to deal with.
Here's your reward for reading my post:
