I take pride in the fact that my girls have good imaginations. Nola(7) and Violet(5) don’t need a giant room full of toys to entertain themselves, not that they would be opposed to such an arrangement. When we send them outside they take toys and such, but often they will pilfer our suburban habitat for their imaginative purposes. Branches, rocks,…
Ryan Long Posts
Char and I had a little fun with April Fools’ Day last year. I scared my daughter Nola by hiding in a tent the kids had put up in the dining room a few days prior. By then it was invisible. I sat in it for about twenty minutes while she ate breakfast and let her guard down. Then boom! All of sudden she was inches…
I gave my 9-month-old Remy a uniform last week during my stay-at-home time. I didn’t really think about it, it just happened. Charity’s job was pulling her in early so I was the one that got Remy up to feed and change his diaper in the mornings. The Wednesday night before my first stay-at-home day Charity put him in the…
Currently my stay-at-home days are all back-to-back, smack dab in the middle of the week. Towards the tail end of that stretch I find that taking care of four children really loses much of whatever luster the week had started with. The shine and nobility of the task is slowly tarnished with every diaper change, every fight mediation, every drenched…
I was recently part of a “man panel” for a MOPS meeting (Mothers Of Preschoolers) at my church. It is an international organization where moms come together and…um…I really don’t know what they do. All I know is that every once in a while they get a few dads together, call us a “man panel”, put us on stage, ask us…
I was getting a headcount of all four of our kids, preparing to take the “stay-at-home” reigns, when Charity stepped out the door on her way to work and casually said over her shoulder, “Oh yeah, Remy just ate the last of the baby food. Not sure what you are going to do for lunch. Bye.” The door closed. When…
**Introducing Tidbit Tuesday. A single-serving story found in the trenches of stay-at-home dading, appearing every other week. Due to job changes I’m now watching our four children for half of the time. This is looking like fertile riffing ground. Let’s begin. Keeping a house clean is a continuous job. Especially when it’s packed with tons of tiny people that hold me responsible for…
“Hey I’m slammed here at work I was hoping you could <call, email, text> <someone> about <something> for me?” This was often a conversation I’d have with my stay-at-home wife when I was in my cushy office, alone, wrapped in a peaceful silence that was periodically marred by the smooth hum of my laptop’s cooling fan. While true, occasionally I was busy…
I released this blog into the wilds of the internet on December 17th of last year. It was more of an experiment really, to see if I like it, to see if people like it, etc. The creative outlet of writing had interested me, but it wasn’t until I started waking up early did I find the margin to give it a…
We all have probably said at one time, “I wish Christmas could be every day.” My kids that can speak have each already said this aloud. Who wouldn’t want presents and family and fun every day for the foreseeable future? My grandma Norma, my dad’s mom, has made a mark on this season for us. She passed away Dec. 14th around…