Welcome to A Father’s Voice for September 2007. In Just 16 Minutes is a snapshot of how intense everything can be when your child wakes up in the middle of the night upset.

This month I was interviewed again, this time for an article that will appear in American Baby about the baby blues and depression after a baby is born – except that it was focused on fathers and their experience. Why does it happen to dads, too, and how their partners can help them. I was very pleased that a national parenting magazine is covering such an important topic such as this. The other exciting news was that two more magazines have picked up my A Father’s Voice column for publication, Northern State Parent, in northern California, and Virginia. I look forward to growing this list of magazines even more in the months ahead.

A Father’s Voice is my chance to share my voice with you about the challenges and rewards I experience trying to be a very involved father while having to work full-time away from our home. I write during the only disposable time of my day – my train ride to and from home. I hope you will subscribe to A Father’s Voice by visiting www.AFathersVoice.net.

In Just 16 Minutes

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

4:00am

That’s what the clock read. Is it raining? I should go look out the window to see if it is raining because if it is I can turn off the alarm and sleep a little later.

But I can’t get up to go check…tooooooooooo sleeeeeeeppppppppyyyyyy…

…

“ELIJAH!” I heard myself scream. All of a sudden I am out of my bed so quickly that I forgot to get my glasses, running towards the stairs. I don’t know what I heard, but somehow I knew he was in trouble and he responded with a sound. I can tell from his voice he is on the stairs. Is the monitor working?

He started crying loudly.

I picked him up, halfway to the top of the stairs, and held him close to me, whispering soothing words, trying to calm and quiet him down. After a short period of time he was whimpering into my shoulder.

“Let’s go upstairs and check on Jordyn,” I whispered to him. I thought I heard her stirring up there and can only imagine how our outbursts have frightened her.

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It was a tentative conversation at first, the way it can be when two involved dads get together because you never quite know who you are talking to when you are talking to a father. Maybe he is a sensitive, involved father. Maybe he is one of those guys who don’t get it, who don’t understand that fatherhood is a life change, not a chore that eats into going out time or hanging with the guys time.

I could tell he was wondering which one I was, though I had a pretty good feeling which one he was.

“Two must be so hard,” he empathized with me. “I barely slept the first several months and we only had one.”

“Oh, I barely have any memory of that first year,” I explained. “I was so exhausted. I can remember sitting at work, so tired that I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get anything done. It is the one thing that really scares me about having another baby – I don’t want to go through that again, you know?”

We talked about buying our first houses and how that affected our experiences as dads and how we each had something about the first house that didn’t allow us to feel at home and how that changed with our second homes. But standing in the backyard of our friend’s house, among the swing sets, him pushing his little boy, me watching my Okapis move from one swing to another, the conversation kept coming back to what it was like being a father.

“I think it is a life change,” he told me, warming up to me, realizing we were on the same fatherhood team.

“I completely agree.”

“I have friends, guys who are fathers but still go out all the time. They don’t understand. If you have any free time, it should be spent with your kid. It is exhausting, but it is what is important.”

“I, actually, have the opposite problem,” I tried to explain. “I have not taken enough time for myself to have fun, to go out. I’m just trying to do that once a month or so.”

“That seems reasonable. We all need some time,” he acknowledged. “I work from 6am to 2pm and when I get home, maybe I run a few errands or maybe get a jog in before I pick him up from daycare.”

“But then you guys get some really good time together before your wife comes home, right?”

“Exactly. I go to sleep only a little bit after he does, but we get a lot of time together in the afternoon.”

“That’s really great,” I told him. “You’re both lucky to have that time together.”

“I know. It’s the time together that matters, that’s what those guys don’t understand.”

“It’s true. It’s true.”

And he continued to push his little boy on the swing and I continued to watch my Okapis playing.

I don’t meet enough guys like this one, but I really enjoyed talking with him, sharing our ideas, our beliefs, our passions for being good dads, for being what our children need us to be.

The only bad part for me was that he lives in another state, a couple of hours away. Bummer.

I had just sat down to put my lenses in this morning when I heard the opening of a door. There are only three closed doors inside our house and one of them is in the Okapis’ room. I turned to see who was coming. It was my little girl.

“You okay?

“Yeah,” she said, but she was still sleepy.

“Why are you awake, Jordyn?”

No answer.

I gave her a hug and she saw my lenses on the keyboard tray, ready to be inserted into my eyes.

“Can I see them?”

“Sure,” and I showed them to her.

“But I can’t see them.”

“Can you see the little blue circles? That’s my lenses.”

“Oh!”

I found her some underpants and she put them on while I put my lenses in.

“Do you want to help me pick out my shirt for work?”

“Sure!”

She picked out a nice orange shirt and when I took out my black jeans, she said, “Yeah, those, Daddy.”

I smiled.

“Want to go downstairs with me?”

“Yeah.” So I held out my hand, my little girl grabbed it, and we walked down the stairs.

“I love Just Daddy Time,” she told me. “Last night I was crying for you because I wanted you to put me to bed.” Last night was Gem’s turn to put them to bed.

My Sweetie Girl.

We sat on the couch and cuddled together before I got my cereal.

“Can I come with you to get your cereal?”

“Of course. Come on.”

We got into the kitchen and I grabbed my bowl and spoon.

“I love Just Daddy Time,” she told me again.

“Well, I get Just Daddy Time every day, but I LOVE Just Jordyn Time,” and she giggled.

We ate my cereal together (Rice Krispies this morning), her having one bite for every five of my own, all while watching SportsCenter. If I am hungry in a hour, we’ll know why.

When I hugged her goodbye, she wouldn’t let go; I had to tickle her to get her hands off of my neck. My little girl needs, wants and misses her Daddy. I need, want and miss her, too. She’s my Sweetie Girl.

But if I have to leave for work everyday, I’d rather have special mornings like this to start my day.

Oh right. I remember this feeling, this sadness, this aching feeling in my heart at leaving my family after a three-day weekend. I woke up this morning completely unsettled and I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Of course I don’t want to go to work, but honestly I have made great strides there and it is not as bad as it was. I can handle it. After some more thinking about it, I realized I was in a bad mood because I just didn’t want to leave my family this morning.

Lately, work had been so overwhelming that I slept as late as I could and quickly got ready for work, focusing on how I was going to get through the day. But, ironically, now that it is less destructive, I am more aware of the difficulty in leaving once again.

I think there is one other factor, though, involved in why this morning in particular I feel extra sadness, extra heartache. I’ve been working on our bathroom with my brother-in-law almost every night and every weekend for the past four weeks. It has been exhausting and challenging because I have never done anything like this before in my life. In the process I ended up not spending much time at all with my Okapis and they missed me. And I missed them. Last weekend, after several weeks of not doing it, I reinstituted Los Tres Amigos Sabado. I got up early with them on Saturday morning and we went to iHop for breakfast. Afterwards, we ran some errands and while it was not a lot of time, it was enough to rekindle our connection, to remember how special spending time together is. I felt like I had found a better balance between working on the house and being with my Okapis.

But rekindling that special connection I have with them comes with a price. A little Tuesday morning heartache. Fortunately, this is a short week and I’m taking Friday off to take them to school orientation and then we are going to Philly to see my family. Only three more days until another three-day weekend.