Lessons learned from a father of two...

Well, I am back to work today.  =) One of the great things about working for Microsoft is that they give fathers a month off paid leave for having a new baby.  I was nervous about doing this - how I was going to handle a 3 year old all day long let alone a newborn? It has been a month since my second daughter was born - and I have no regrets taking off the time, although I could have used a little more sleep.

Lessons Learned:

· My wife is amazing, I truly understand what she will have to deal with now on a daily basis and am in awe.

· I could never be a full time mom

· My 3 yr old does not have an off switch

· I thought I would be able to get some work done - e-mail, blogging, Silverlight videos, etc. over the leave.  I was wrong - my kids consumed every moment I had unless they were asleep and then I was too tired to do anything anyway. =)

Highlights:

· My daughter asked if she could have her own computer.  I hooked up an old laptop and put windows on it.  She was on NickJr and clicking away with the mouse on games, videos, you name it.  I was so impressed – expect a video on Facebook soon.  She is definitely daddy’s girl!

· Being able to calm my newborn every night at 3am without any bottle (my wife is breastfeeding so no bottles for dad yet)

· My oldest holding the baby and telling me how happy she is to finally have a sister

I have a photoset on Flickr here and you can view some videos I took on my Facebook profile here.

I'll be catching up on e-mails and such over the next few days and posting here as I found stuff I think would be interesting.  There should be some really exciting news coming out of Redmond soon as we move into Mix08 in just 2 weeks as well!

-Dave