Emperor's new (gender neutral?) clothes

I believe the Patriot Act allows me to inflict this form of torture...

Getting by

Somedays, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. It's not that the kids are bad per se, but more a combination of fatigue (maybe no solution to this one), guilt associated with not contributing income and the fond memories of lunch breaks, coffee breaks, ice cream breaks, etc. In truth, I don't feel like a good father on days of almost nervous breakdown and wonder if quality is more important than quantity. I imagine I'll fight the urge to head back to work throughout my tenure as stay-at-home-dad. For now, I'm buoyed by the little gems of parenting and that fact that I'm rather lucky to not miss anything noteworthy that happens when the kids turn on the charm. Paige has almost completely erased the "bad baby" stigma. She's such a little cherub, smiling so hard that her cheeks get all scrunched up and it appears that she's got a double barrel helping of RedMan chewing tobacco. As for Bax, he continues to impress with amazing displays of maturity. A few days ago, he announced at 10:45 am that he was going to "go nap". He hasn't put himself to bed much at all during his stay with us, so I naturally doubted his words and tried to distract him with food. "How about lunch or a snack?"
His response, "I go lay down".
Lay down he did, and 3 hours later he woke refreshed and ready for that snack. (How 'bout cracker snack?) I wondered hopefully if our toddler sleep training was complete. (stupid optimism!)

Then a few a nights ago, I had a brief glimpse into a possible career of investigative sniffing. It was about 8:30 at night and he was having some trouble getting sleep (see?). Jennie and I had settled down into our nightly "we're too exhausted to work out so let's have a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream on top" ritual. After a few spoonfulls of CCCD (that's chocolate chip cookie dough for the novices out there), I went upstairs to coax him back into bed. I met him at the door and picked him up so he was eye level or maybe better put, mouth-to-nose level. He looked at me and asked, "Cancake?(pancake)"
"No silly, daddy's not eating pancakes at night!"
"Cookie?"
Pretty darn-near close enough from viewpoint, he had me.
"Ok buddy, you got me. I just had some cookie dough. Maybe you can have some tomorrow if you go to sleep." He was asleep in 5 minutes.

See you on the playground!