Four weeks ago, we had a perfect, beautiful baby boy.

And since that moment, a lot has happened.

We introduced Squishi to his siblings.

We realized how damn hard paternity leave actually is.

And, apparently, we doomed our baby to a terrible life.

With my paternity leave coming to a close in just a few hours as I write this, I thought it would be a good time to reflect back on the past four weeks.

So here goes…some notes from four very full weeks of paternity leave:

Health Days I Planned To Work Out: All of Them Days I Actually Worked Out: None of Them Sodas Consumed: Zero Seriously, I picked the worst time ever to give up soda. Good for health, but ROUGH on life with a newborn.

Late Night Cravings Boxes of Batman Cereal Consumed: One The Superman cereal was caramel-flavored. Pass. Industrial Sized Bags of Kettle Corn Consumed: One McFlurries Consumed: One Bags of Target’s Monster Mix Consumed: I Plead the Fifth.

Sleep Nights Spent On Hospital Couch: Two Most Consecutive Hours of Sleep: Four (3 times…I think) Times I Slept So Hard My Face Hurt: Ten

Bodily Fluids Average Minutes After Putting On A Clean Shirt Before Amzi Spit-Up On It: 0.32 Times Amzi Peed on Me: Seven Times Amzi Spit-Up In My Mouth: Just Once. Thankfully.

Daycare Commute Hours Spent Doing Daycare Drop-Off/Pick-Up: ~ 1.75/day Songs My Older Kids Now Know From Me Driving Them To School For A Month: “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey Songs I Now Know From Driving Them To School For a Month: “Cake By The Ocean” by DNCE That’s gotta mean something filthy, right? Justin Bieber’s entire album Shockingly good!

TV Seasons of House of Cards Watched: One The Price is Right Conclusion: Drew Carey is better than I expected, but no Bob Barker Daytime Talk Shows: Ugh… Favorite Middle-of-the-Night TV Shows: Robot Chicken 12-minute episodes for the win Caribbean Life Nothing But Trailers 60 minutes of movie previews…a 3am treat!

Home Improvement Trips to Home Depot: Three New Sink Faucets Purchased: Three New Sink Faucets Installed: Zero Flowers Planted in Front Yard: 27 Solar Panels: Thinking About Them

Baby Snuggles All the time. Hours and hours each day. Perfection.



I got to stay home for full four weeks with my wife, my newborn, my two older babies, and my dog. What else could a guy ask for?

I’m sad to leave my wife home “alone.” It’s been great to spend so much time together – not just in the middle of the night for diaper changes. We’ve had sushi date nights (with Squish). We’ve gone to fun lunches (with Squish). We’ve even worked on a lot of these blog posts together (with Squish). It’s been phenomenal.

In addition to my wife and baby, I had so much fun with Beanie and Bug. Instead of rushing from home to school to home, we got to take our time and enjoy the journey. Sleep in a bit. Take the long road. Snag some muffins for breakfast. Skip school for family fun every now and then. Without the stress of being on time in the morning or going to bed at night, we had FUN together.

On the other hand, going back to work is exciting. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with my team and clients. I’ve missed the daily action of my career and feel motivated to jump back in.

To sum it all up: Four weeks went by. My family size increased. I barely slept. And I’ve never been happier.