I guess today is the day reality kicks in. The blue skies have been replaced by rain and Leo and I have nothing planned. No classes and no appointments. I don't think anyone takes the parental tasks lightly, its hard work keeping a little helpless human happy and healthy, but the thing I over looked until recently is the mundanity of it all. Its 10 years since I started working, thats 10 years of defining the success of my day based on output, meeting deadlines, achieving goals, hitting KPIs etc etc. My days are very different now.
We spend a lot more time in the apartment than I ever have. When Leo is asleep I'm generally tidying up, washing up, preparing his next meal or packing up his bag to go out, all very repetitive tasks. When he's awake there are the regular nappy changes and feeding. Every two to three hours he needs to eat. Which either means simple holding a bottle to his mouth for 20 minutes while I surreptitiously check Facebook (a glimpse of an iPhone and he's distracted) or some proper food in the high chair (which actually we both enjoy).
One of the many reasons I wanted to take a long parental leave was so that Leo was immersed in English from day one. As a family we speak English and we have quite a English speaking friends around, but in the end we live in Germany and the language he will hear most will be German. Which is great, we want him to be bilingual, but for this to work I wanted to be around and talking to him a lot. It turns out this is actually quite hard, its a pretty one sided conversation! As we go thorough the days mundane tasks I have to remind myself to chat to him more than just saying "shhh" all the time. I then find myself telling the same bad jokes essentially to myself. When he gets upset about dropping his dummy telling him to "stop being such a baby about it", singing David Bowie every time I change his nappy or telling someone who can't even crawl yet not to wonder off and "oh fine, don't get up then".
The really fun times, where he is fed, watered, clean and awake, are short little windows. We spend these on a play mat in the living room (actually two yoga mats pushed together).
His attention span for this type of play is pretty small and for both of our sakes we have to go out regularly. Its extremely hard to find a balance of stimulation and rest. Too much rest and he won't sleep well at night. Too much stimulation and he's over whelmed.
Today, Leo woke up from a nap around 15:00 and I decided we needed to go out regardless of the torrential rain. I took him to the Hamburger Bahnhof "Museum für Gegenwart ". I took him in the sling and as normal he enjoyed a ride on the tram, lots of people to stare at. He also seemed curious about the rain and the umbrella. However once we arrived at the gallery he fell asleep, the Joseph Beuys exhibition did nothing for him, he had no interest in the Warhols and didn't bother opening his eyes for the Lichtensteins. Not surprising I guess, really I thought just the new environment might be interesting to him. I enjoyed myself, its been a while since I've had the time to wonder aimlessly though a gallery, but I continued to wonder if I'm getting the right balance of stimulation and sleep for him.