Consistency is key

By | April 24, 2006

Last Saturday was officially the 1st daddy daughter day!  Sonia was off on a well-deserved personal day so I had the honour of sharing my day with Olivia:  from 8:30 to 5:30!

What’s the #1 thing I needed to be sure of?  Consistency.  Sonia has educated me (as well as “The Baby Whisperer”) that babies are creatures of habit.  They need routine and if/when at all possible, do not stray from that routine.  Simply put, I needed to follow the E.A.S.Y. routine (Eat, Activity, Sleep and then Your time).  With that in mind, it turned out to be far from the crazy day I thought it was going to be.  In fact, as you all would have likely suspected, we had a wonderful day.

The plan was, at some point in the day, to exit the house and watch Dan Van and his posse play in the squash league finals over at NorthField Racquet club, where the elite go to exercise and then drink cocktails in the private bar.  Sonia laid out a general guideline I could use to plan my day:

  • 8:30 breakfast
  • 9:30 bottle of milk.  If she’s too tired, then after nap
  • 10:00 nap
  • 12:30 lunch
  • 2:30 nap
  • a bottle after wake-up

That left a potential exodus anywhere around 3:30 or 4:00…perfect for the approx time Dan was to play his match.

Well, the guidelines were bang-on.  Here’s how it played out:

At 8:30 we had a breakfast of cereal, cheese, and a yoghurt/fruit combo.  Quickly followed by play time on the floor until 9:30.  She was not interested in the bottle, so to settle down I put on the “Charlie Brown Easter Beagle” cartoon.  Right after Snoopy has his “Dancing with Bunnies” delusion, I noticed Olivia was nodding off so we promptly went off to bed for a nap.   Now for “My Time”:  I put together a pot roast in the crock pot.  Welcome to domestication.  Unlikely:  those who know me can attest that cooking is a past-time for me.

After the nap (10:30) Olivia wolfed down a bottle of milk and then playtime until 12:30.  This entailed some quality jolly-jumper time and a little bit of the play-saucer while I made sure the arcade game was still functioning properly.

Dinner at 12:30 prompt lasted until about 1:15 – Olivia was not too interested in the Chicken and vegetable mush with pea mush on the side.  But she did eventually finish.  Just in time to get her ya-ya’s out on the floor while I supervised / watched my pitcher in the Yankees game  (Shawn Chacon – a flyer $2 bid.  So far he’s 2-1 with a decent 4.50 ERA and a mitt full of K’s.  Well worth the coin when you factor in he’s a Yankee and that offence alone should guarantee him 10 wins no matter how bad he is) .

As 2:30 approached, I noticed a couple of yawns and the start of a shift in attitude:  what was once a challenge to try and reach objects on the floor started becoming a nuisance to her.  So, since it worked well the first time and since it really is a good cartoon:  on came the Easter Beagle.  Right on cue, after the bunny dream sequence, she was nodding off and was sleeping in her crib by 2:40.

A shower and some menial tasks done in time for her wake-up at 3:15ish.  A bottle of milk and we were off to the gym by 3:40 – about 15 minutes early for Dan’s game.  Perfect.

We stayed for about an hr (Dan lost but put up a good fight) and then were home in time for Sonia’s return at 5:30.

How’s that for my first lengthy daddy-daughter experience?

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