A Rather Surreal Day

It has finally come to this. Reflecting upon it, this has been one of the most surreal days I have had as a Stay-At-Home Dad. You know it is really one of those days when I say, "I never ever thought I would be doing this." I really had to catch myself and ask, "How did I get here?"

The culminating event, or events, was at a swim lesson for my four year old daughter. We go with a Stat-At-Home Mom neighbor of ours to a local swim place where both of our kids take lessons.

I was chatting with this Mom about what my daughter and I were going to do for the rest of the day, and I replied, "We are going to the grocery store and picking up a few things. You know, we use the 'Grocery Game' and it saves us a ton of money." We then proceeded to talk for a few more minutes about the Grocery Game and how it saved us a ton of money. Several other moms were sitting nearby and they also chimed in their own comment and questions, "Does that game really work?" or "I've heard of that and always wanted to do it". Another question was, "I hear that you need to go to like 10 different stores in order to do the Grocery Game." I then proceeded to tell them all that it was easy and that we only went to two grocery stores and yes it does save a ton of money.

I then had a moment of absolute clarity. Did I really just have a 10 minute conversation about the Grocery Game with 4 moms? How did my life become this?

Several minutes later I sent my 4 year old daughter to the changing room to get out of her wet swimming suit and into dry clothes. Little did I know that she had another plan and proceeded to completely strip down in the changing room.....and then run around the pool area without any clothes. Of course I chased her all around until I caught her and promptly brought her back and got her dressed. It took me about 5 minutes to get her back in the changing room.

Again, another moment of clarity. Did I really just have to chase around my stripped down daughter in a public place? Again, how did my life become this?

To top it off, when I finally got home I discovered that the dog had pooped AND peed on the carpet upstairs. I found myself very quickly cleaning up the mess.

I just never imagined a sequence of events like that would ever happen to me. All in one day, all in one hour. How did I get here? Well, I believe my wife and I decided that this arrangement would be best.

I just laughed it off. How many Dads get to have a day and experience like this?