Daddy Tree: Tiny Footsteps

Willow and I were playing with Mr. Potato Head in the bonus room when the drier downstairs kicked off and the alarm beeped. Willow chimed, "WazZat?" "That's the laundry," I responded. "Do you want to go down with me and do the laundry?" Willow shook her head no. I stepped over the barriers at the top of the stairs (a large kitchen set and a heavy tote filled with baseball cards, a combo that has kept Willow penned upstairs for months now because a baby gate doesn't fit) then looked back and asked again, "Willow, do you want to help with the laundry?" Again she shook her head no. "OK, I'll be right back." Willow continued playing with Mr. Potato Head, and I hopped down the 10 or so steps to the main floor of the house. As I emptied the drier and folded the towels, rags and underwear, I heard Willow chirping playfully up in the bonus room. A couple of minutes passed, and I neared the end of the folding job, ...

I while back, when I had just a few months service as a stay-at-home dad, somebody asked me what had been the biggest surprise. "The bottles," I said. "Good God, the bottles!" You see, back then, I thought I spent half the day in the kitchen preparing and washing and preparing bottles for Willow. The bottles are nicely tucked away in a plastic box in the attic. They've been up there a while, actually, but my answer to the same question isn't all that different. The busy has relocated, that's all. Willow turns 18 months tomorrow, and to me, she and I are as busy as ever. Actually, it seems to me every day has been busier than the previous since the day she was born, or at least since she was a week old (that first week is brutal). Let me share a few topics of busy with you. Dishes These things never stop coming. I feel like I'm hand-washing dishes at a Golden Corral ... AND I'M USING AN ELECTRIC DISHWASHER! I have no memory of how we di...

I want to show you two pictures, but a little later. First I want to introduce you to chaos (or at least what I consider to be chaos) via a handy, dandy list: I am sitting at a laptop, pounding out a blog's letters as quickly as I can think of them. The laptop is only three months old, yet some of the keys stick sometimes. These sticky keys are the ghostly reminders that a toddler's sticky fingers have been pounding on them. Four loads of laundry lie in various states of "unfinish." One load is wet. One load is wrinkling. Two loads await their spins. A fifth load already has been tucked away in drawers, cabinets and closets (then untucked by a toddler then tucked again by me). Cups, plates and bowls hang for dear life to a hastily stacked pile of dirty dishes in the sink while a clean set of dishes sits in the dishwasher. A pile of pictures and postcards blanket the floor beside the desk in the guest room. This was the work of the sticky fingers that pounded on...