Dadstuff Diaries: of playtime and pottering

Playtime

And so the days are filled.  It's summer, despite recent hints of occasional autumn in the air (as happens nearly every January here I've learned), so it's too hot to walk around the neighbourhood with R in the stroller Lone Wolf and Cub style, and besides which the flies, these damned, damned flies are much too annoying until the cooler weather comes around in March.

So we're again settling into a rhythmn of sorts, with a bigger focus on actively playing with the boy every day.  Chasey seems to be a good one, with me stomping from one end of the house to the other, jumping out from behind doorframes to squeals of surprise.  Plus there's blocky-blocks, his first steps towards playing with my star wars lego when he's several years older.  And we usually have a crack on the piano as well, I've learned to cover up the LED lights for the different settings so he can hit the actual keys instead, insisting that his hands go where mine are as I trill various riffs and chords up and down the length of the instrument, encouraging him to sing along and just to whack whatever notes he wants and we'll call it "progressive jazz" or something.

K made a really telling comment recently where she found in her year off with him that she tended to put creative effort into cooking, and, being much less skilled than her in what could be loosely called the culinary arts in our household, I'm finding the same thing.  It seems to be the one thing that's grabbing my interest in any substantial way right now.

It feels... almost hollow at the moment, despite the daily enjoyment of getting this quality time with my son.  I'm sort of just pottering around the house most days, cleaning this, reading that, websurfing here, weeding parts of the garden there. 

So I've pulled out some uni stuff from last year with the thought of catching up on reading and note-taking I should have done in an attempt to get intellectually engaged until my next subject starts in April.  I've also got tentative ideas about drafting up a work-related paper and getting it published somewhere for the sake of the gap in the cv I'll have for this year.  And I'm holding off on any craft stuff I've got ideas about until a talented friend moves into the neighbourhood and she's around to show me the absolute basics and get me started.  But it all feels so intangible right now.  Part of me is inclined to work up a rough weekly timetable, knowing full well that something will probably change with R which will then render it nearly meaningless anyway.

So it strikes me that it's just a case of getting busy again, of forcing myself to not be lazy and just bloody well do it.  This seems to be a common theme for me, experienced a lot while I was working too.  Feeling as though I'm not achieving anything (though in reality I am), getting dissatisfied and grumpy with myself about it, and then launching into the next absorbing interest until I get bored and dissatisfied all over again.  K, in her wisdom, has observed this close hand, noting how I discover something (last year it seemed to be single malt whiskies from Islay, establishing a garden of sorts and poker with friends), throw myself into learning all about it down to finest details, and then moving onto the next thing.  I guess at the moment I'm once again in the transitional phase.  What'll it be next?