Today, Malcolm and I had a marathon session of baseball at the park (yay!). During our two and a half hours of batting practice and catch, we discovered that we each needed to pee. I thought about this and realized that we stay at home dads have some altogether different choices that we need to make when we are out in the world. Here are a couple of them:
Where Do We Pee?
As a veteran stay at home parent, I should always ask my child before we leave whether he needs to go to the bathroom. However, we are usually late to wherever we are going and I am usually yelling at him, so I am not as composed as perhaps I should be. I often find that he has to go to the bathroom, and after a bit of checking, I realize that I do too. Today, when it became apparent that we needed to pee, i realized that the bathrooms are located about a half mile away. So, it was either gather up all our stuff, walk across the park, and interrupt what was a stellar hitting session, or drop trou and hide behind the tree. 
Malcolm once peed on the grass at Pier 39, so this wasn’t the most public place that Malcolm has gone.
Should I Have a Second Beer?
I go to a playgroup every monday. It is chock full of stay at home dads, and after we make small talk for around half an hour, we wander over to the picnic area, start up the grill and open the cooler. Our coolers are quite extraordinary, filled with half juice boxes and half beer, and that is on a good day. Usually, we forget the juiceboxes and make the kids drink out of the fountain. Lately it has been pretty hot during the day, and the cooler beckons often. I try to resist its siren-like calls, but when it is 97 degrees (like it was on Monday) sometimes I give in. I feel guilty, not because drinking 2 beers in 4 hours while at the park is dangerous, but because when I reach into the cooler to grab a cold one, the kids are all disappointed that there is nothing in there for them.
Do I Talk to Random Guys at the Playground?
There are a lot of stay at home dads out there. There are also many dads who have alternate schedules which allow them to chaperone their kids to the park during the day. I never know what to do when I come into contact with these other guys at the park when I see them. My conscience tells me to strike up a conversation with them and spread the word that there are many of us out there. My brain tells me to shut up, because, I don’t know if you know this, stay at home dads are weird. It takes a certain something to buck societal roles, and that something is not something that I ever want to come into contact with. I worry that I would get stuck talking to some bizarre personality who would distract me from my real duty, playing with my IPhone. So, most of the time, I ignore every other fella I meet. Unless he is playing with his IPhone, then I know he’s cool.
Tags: dad's group, drinking, parenting
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