The Legend of Daddy School

Ten years ago, I found myself in a situation that I never thought I’d be in, but little did I know that that situation would turn out to be one of the greatest blessings in my life and a catalyst for how I would introduce my kids to preschool.

When I was younger, I knew what I wanted out of life when I grew up. I was going to get married, have kids, live in a nice house in a good neighborhood, have a good job, and maybe even a dog. It was all I ever wanted from childhood to the day I graduated college. But, life has a funny way of giving you what you want, even if it’s not the gift you thought it would be.

After what seemed like the most amazing, at times agonizing, four years of my life, I graduated from college in 2008 with a Bachelor’s degree. Like so many other young students fresh out of the protective womb that is college, I was thousands of dollars in debt and had no clue what to do with my life after I graduated. All I knew was that I had this very expensive degree and the most beautiful and caring girl in the world that I would one day soon ask to be my wife. And so, about a year and a half later, we got married, moved into a tiny apartment, got jobs, and started planning our life as a family.

On paper, it sounded like I was on track for reaching my “American Dream,” but the reality was that I was stuck at a low-paying, dead-end job, and we were barely making ends meet. Still, we weren’t too worried—we knew that things would eventually turn around for us with much prayer and persistence, plus we’d just added a tiny little bundle of motivation to our household. Allow me to introduce you to the real star of this story, my beautiful daughter, Jordyn, aka Lovebug!

Eventually, I found a new job that paid a little more, and we were able to move out of the apartment and into a condo with a little more legroom for the three of us. At this point, my wife and I were both working full time, and our daughter was around a year old, so she was being watched at daycare while we were away. That said, our family schedule wasn’t much different than that of any other average family: 1.) Wake up 2.) Drop baby off at daycare 3.) Go to work for 8 hours 4.) Pick up baby 5.) Interact with baby for approximately 3 hours 6.) Sleep for 8 hours 7.) Repeat. It was a routine that I hadn’t quite pictured in my head when I thought about my life, but I’d come to accept it.

I loved my wife and my new child, but back then, I didn’t understand the meaning of “quality time.” As misogynistic as this may sound, my thought process was that the husband was supposed to be the provider and protector of the household. A father gets to throw in intermittent diaper changes and a few “upsies” here and there. As for the wife, she was supposed to be housekeeper, caretaker of the children, master chef, doctor, lawyer, accountant, human resources, etc…

Of course, now I know better and have progressed light years away from this thinking—mostly due to what happened just a few months into our new life together. In 2012, the company I was working for had to make budget cuts, which led to me getting the dreaded pink slip. I drove home at the end of my shift, kissed my wife, held my child, and nervously informed them that I’d gotten laid off.

Suddenly, I was home every single day for eight hours, terrified beyond belief that I was now left alone with my 2-year-old daughter because we could no longer afford daycare. I had no clue what to do with her, but I did know that I couldn’t plop her in front of the television all day until mommy came home to rescue us both. After a couple of weeks of trips to the park, nap time, and Sesame Street hour, I realized that maybe this full-time parenting thing wasn’t such a bad job.

Once the initial shock wore off that it would just be the two of us during the day, I discovered that this tiny human would not only NOT suddenly burst into flames like the baby in The Incredibles or break into a million pieces. And even better, she was now trying to talk, point things out and get creative with her toys. With a little guidance from my wife, “Daddy School” was born. Keep in mind that this was 2012, so there were no tablets, and smartphones were barely a thing.

Jordyn used to have this little talking puppy toy that would sing the alphabet, review body parts, shapes, numbers, sing nursery rhymes, the whole nine, so that’s where I started. In the morning we’d have breakfast, watch about an hour of cartoons, get dressed and dedicate time to singing, playing, and learning with her talking puppy. As time went on, I developed a routine that included watching videos on Youtube, learning colors, numbers, and shapes, working on motor skills and of course, my favorite part of the day, nap time!

From that point on, my daughter has been my little buddy. I learned just as much from her as she did from me, and I wouldn’t trade that time together for anything in the world. That time together not only helped me understand how to be a parent, it also helped me survive her two brothers…I mean, teach her two brothers that came after her. To this day, they all wish they could come back. And that is the legend of Daddy School!