Some Unrelated Questions

Hello, I have an eight-month old boy that I have been staying home with for five months. So far, so good. I have the childcare part under control for now. These questions are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, so one person probably can not answer all of them.

1. My child is uncircumcised. My wife left the decision up to me, and that's what I chose. Since birth, our baby's doctor has been telling us to try to pull the foreskin back every night when we bathe him. It has been over eight months, and it does not pull back at all. Most websites I find on the net say there is no point in trying this in a baby, because the foreskin will not separate when you have a young baby. The doctor has managed to do nothing but scare me. Any advice?

2. I am a multi-instrumentalist. I play about ten instruments, though none of them do I play particularly well. My kiddo has taken to my ukulele, and has actually made tiny bits of progress. He used to just grab handfulls of strings with his fist and pull as hard as he could. He is now to the point where he gently plucks the individual strings with his thumb and forefinger. Keep in mind he doesn't hold it correctly when he does this, he's only eight months old! He just crawls up to it and plucks the strings with a huge grin. At what age can a child actually begin to learn a stringed instrument? I have gotten great enjoyment out of it for most of my life, and I would like to pass that on.

3. I can't clean. I do all the dishes, all the laundry, but I suck at cleaning. I can find motivation to do a lot of things (walk the dogs for an hour a day, do grocery shopping with the kid every week, 5 loads of laundry, run the dishwasher twice a day), but I can not find motivation for picking up after the boy and vacuuming, stuff like that. Any advice? A reward system for myself, maybe? I suppose the "tough love" answer would be to get my butt off this forum and go clean, but I generally use the child's nap time to catch up on sleep myself. I also maintain a blog, The Stay-at-Home Dad (it's not spamming if my site has no ads, right? =]), but I limit myself to 20 minutes a day maintaining my sites.

Thanks in advance.

[Hockeyfan]

#3. Get a cleaning lady.

[Bjorn74]

Originally Posted by elavnave

1. My child is uncircumcised. My wife left the decision up to me, and that's what I chose. Since birth, our baby's doctor has been telling us to try to pull the foreskin back every night when we bathe him. It has been over eight months, and it does not pull back at all. Most websites I find on the net say there is no point in trying this in a baby, because the foreskin will not separate when you have a young baby. The doctor has managed to do nothing but scare me. Any advice?

Everything I've seen says not to touch it for a couple years. It should manage itself. Pulling it back can damage the merchandise and cause infection. That's what I've read and it's what we've done so far with our boys.

2. I am a multi-instrumentalist. I play about ten instruments, though none of them do I play particularly well. My kiddo has taken to my ukulele, and has actually made tiny bits of progress. He used to just grab handfulls of strings with his fist and pull as hard as he could. He is now to the point where he gently plucks the individual strings with his thumb and forefinger. Keep in mind he doesn't hold it correctly when he does this, he's only eight months old! He just crawls up to it and plucks the strings with a huge grin. At what age can a child actually begin to learn a stringed instrument? I have gotten great enjoyment out of it for most of my life, and I would like to pass that on.

I think they start Suzuki lessons at 2. I wouldn't push on tunes or proper positioning until at least that old. With our boys, we're giving free access to instruments suited to toddlers and exposing them to a wide variety of music, especially live. Seeing an orchestra play makes it a different, empowering experience to kids, I think.

3. I can't clean. I do all the dishes, all the laundry, but I suck at cleaning. I can find motivation to do a lot of things (walk the dogs for an hour a day, do grocery shopping with the kid every week, 5 loads of laundry, run the dishwasher twice a day), but I can not find motivation for picking up after the boy and vacuuming, stuff like that. Any advice? A reward system for myself, maybe? I suppose the "tough love" answer would be to get my butt off this forum and go clean, but I generally use the child's nap time to catch up on sleep myself.

I think you need to pick your battles. Things will get more difficult as kids grow up. They get into more and more and use more and more dishes. I think someone on here posted a link to The FLY Lady a while back. Using her methods made things a lot easier and divided rooms into manageable pieces. The "motivational" part of the site really didn't work for me and even turned me off of the system for a while. I also think that one of the first things we SAHDs need to do is set a reasonable expectation with our wives. Sure, we are at home more and can do more than what our fathers may have done, but we're men, have different priorities/standards, and methods of accomplishing things.

Good luck with all of it.

Originally Posted by Bjorn74

I think you need to pick your battles. Things will get more difficult as kids grow up. They get into more and more and use more and more dishes. I think someone on here posted a link to The FLY Lady a while back. Using her methods made things a lot easier and divided rooms into manageable pieces. The "motivational" part of the site really didn't work for me and even turned me off of the system for a while. I also think that one of the first things we SAHDs need to do is set a reasonable expectation with our wives. Sure, we are at home more and can do more than what our fathers may have done, but we're men, have different priorities/standards, and methods of accomplishing things.

Fair enough, but these are not standards my wife is imposing on me. She is very understanding and never mentions a word about things that I "don't do," but only mentions the things that I manage to get done. See, we both think the other person is getting the short end of the stick. I do not envy her working 40hrs a week, and she does not envy me chasing around my child all day.

I'll check out the fly lady. Seems an interesting enough concept.

[sao95]

1) same as bjorn said, and our ped has said the same thing, I'd suggest getting a new ped.

[moviedad]

#3 It sounds like you are doing a great job. It seems like you are in the same boat I am when it come to the wife. I don't always get everything clean but what I did do is make a schedule. I assigned a piece of the house to a specific day over a 2 week period. For instance- Mon. Hallway, down stairs bathroom. ect. Now I know a bathroom has to be cleaned more than once every 2 weeks so major areas such as bathrooms and kitchen are on a need be basis but a hallway gets a good dusting and the walls washed and base board cleaned. Takes maybe 30 min. as they are not that dirty it is just a touch up. Keep up the good work.

[Ctrain]

I can recommend the fly lady book, "Sink Reflections." Some of her tips are on her site, but I liked the book better. It helped me enjoy cleaning and food preparation more. Oh yeah, and we have a crew come in every two weeks that cleans all over for $55. I still have to fill in the gaps between visits, but that helps a lot.

I seem to get in the mood to clean when
a) I've done something I maybe shouldn't have (out drinking with the boys -- or the moms, lazed around watching TV instead of working while the kid was at school, etc.)
or
b) People are coming over.
So do what you please to make either happen, as both are worthwhile. And don't try to do it all at once.

[tt3]

Greg that is funny, the only way I get the house tidied is by inviting someone over.

[Electriclime]

It took me about a year to get over the frustration of not getting things done right away and realize I have limits. I can cover all the day to day stuff, laundry, kitchen ,etc. However, when it comes to the bigger projects like painting a room or cleaning out the basement/garage, it's hard to find the time.

My wife works midnights 7 days in a row, which pretty much throws my schedule out the window. I can't work on a lot of things while she's sleeping during the day and have to scramble once she's off to work and the kid in sleeping.

I've been thinking about a cleaning service like some other guys here. We have three bathrooms and it's a PITA to keep them all clean.