The Great Paternity Leave of 2007: Prologue

Can a man change his ways? Are we destined to relive the mistakes of our fathers? Does the apple fall far from the tree? Am I seriously not at work right now? When my small clinic got acquired by a big corporation I went from a business owner to an employee. As an employee in California I get 6 weeks of paid family leave a year. I decided to take 4 of them. I am truly in a strange land.

I woke up this morning and looked around my house and thought...shit I live here? Nice digs. I got to see my house again as a place to raise a family rather than a place to spend time with my family between days of work. Make sense? It was a feeling of ownership...I'm regaining ownership of my life. Yeah I know...I'm like a broken record. This is now and will always be a perpetual theme in my life...the rock to my Sisyphus.

BabyJ has been home a few weeks now. For those of you who don't know...the first two weeks a baby is home is like the lull before the storm. It gives you just enough time to fall madly in love with your child right before all hell breaks loose and they turn into balls of insanity. Me and the Mrs have been passing strange looks at one another wondering when the honeymoon will end. So far...it hasn't gotten ugly yet and frankly we're shocked. We've been getting good stretches of sleep, 3 hours at a time which is really really good. BabyJoey sleeps well throughout the day and just gets a bit feisty between 12 and 3 am. I've started taking that shift so that my wife could sleep. Besides I'm spending this time writing anyways. Oh did I mention I'm writing the great American Novel?

To Do List While on Ridiculously Long Paternity Leave

1) Be with my Family
2) Write Great American Novel
3) Fix every broken thing in the entire house
4) Start painting again
5) Solve Rubik's cube
6) Blog ridiculously boring minutia of every day
7) Start a new business every week
8) Eat a vegetable
9) Teach Constar Algebra
10) Get a physical
11) Build a wine cellar
12) Build a fence
13) Paint the house
14) Build Dormer windows
15) Master the Lambada
16) Learn to play the accordion
17) Win the Lottery

Yeah I know...ambitious list. Maybe I'll have to skip number 8.