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Daddy Duty is written by Richard Harris, publisher of The Tri-County Journal & Chattahoochee Chronicle.
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Sleep When the Baby Sleeps?
... Yeah, Right!!!
... Yeah, Right!!!
The book doesn't give an average amount of sleep for new parents, but I'd guess it's about 16 1/2, too. Unfortunately, that's 16 1/2 minutes rather than hours.
Due to this fact, new parents receive all sorts of advice on how to catch up on their shut-eye. The most popular is "sleep when your baby sleeps". That would be fine, but for the fact that there's this pesky little problem of work. You know, the thing you have to do to have enough money to buy replacements for all those diapers the baby is soiling between naps.
To implement the sleep-when-your-baby-sleeps plan, my day would go something like this:
"Jean, would you please hold all my calls. I'm going to start the day with a nice little nap."
"Jean, I'm awake now, but I need you to call Mr. Doe and tell him I'll be about 45 minutes late."
"Jean, this is Richard on my cell phone. I'm about 15 miles from Mr. Doe's business, but I'm going to pull off on an old logging road and nap for about a half hour. Please call him and tell him I've been held up a little longer, but I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Jean, this is Richard. I'm sitting outside Mr. Doe's office and I'll be a while. For some reason he's seeing someone else. Will you please call Mr. Brown and tell him I won't be back in the office for our 10:30 appointment and ask him if he can come in at 11:30?"
"Jean, this is Richard. I'm done with my interview with Mr. Doe, but I'm going to sit down in his reception area and rest my eyes for a while. Will you call Mr. Brown and tell him I need to push his appointment back to noon?"
"Hey, Jean, I know I'm 20 minutes late getting back in – is Mr. Brown here? ... What? He left? Okay, call him back and ask if I can see him tomorrow at 9 a.m. sharp. Oh, and I've had a long morning. Would you mind postponing your lunch and covering the office for me?"
"Jean, this is Richard. I'm on the way back from lunch, but I'm going to pull over on the sidewalk and stretch out in the back of my pickup for 45 minutes or so. Will you please call Mrs. Smith and reschedule my appointment for 2:00?"
"Mrs. Smith, I have a few more questions for you, and we still need to take a photograph to go with this piece, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to wait out in the lobby while I nap for a bit. What? Okay, well, I guess I'll call you to make arrangements for the picture at that time, but it may be quite a while before it gets cold enough to actually freeze down there."
"Jean, I'm not going to make it to the City Council meeting. Would you please call the mayor and ask him if he'll hang around City Hall for about an hour after they adjourn so he can brief me on what happened?"
"Jean, I didn't have time to get these pictures identified. Would you mind running down to the school and getting the names of the kids in these 10 photographs. Be sure to get them in order from left to right, starting with the first row and working to the back. And don't forget to get their grades, too. Oh, and hurry back, I'm going to leave a few minutes early today to catch up on my sleep."
"Jean? Jean? Where's Jean, I've got an assignment I need her to complete while she's out tonight and I need to make sure she knows to be in an hour early to help me get caught up on some other stuff. ... What do you mean she quit? .... You just can't get good help these days. Well, call that lady who came by here looking for a job last week. Oh, and when you remind her to bring a resume ask her if she's allergic to No-Doze – she'll probably be working some long days for at least a year."
