Today is the big day. No, not just because I launched a brand new blog (this one, of course), but because today starts me on the road to being a work-from-home dad. My wife has been home on maternity leave for the past nine weeks, but she’s going back this week and I’m definitely intimidated. See, in addition to staying home and watching our two month old daughter Lucy, I also am a freelance writer. I get paid to write about comic books, toys, movies, video games and the like for places like Comic Book Resources, Marvel.com, Wizard World, Topless Robot and a few others. It’s a pretty cool gig that thankfully keeps me pretty busy.

Everything changed on May 2nd when our daughter was born, but today it REALLY changes. My safety net will be gone. It’s just going to be Lucy, me, our cat Milo and my assignments. It will be interesting. I have faith that Lucy and I will get into a good routine, but it’s getting to that established series of events every day that makes me a little nervous. My wife is breastfeeding, so she’s been taking care of the night feedings and gets up with Lucy in the morning. I tend to sleep in because I like staying up late. Sometimes I do work, other times I just watch TV. I am a night owl. With her going back to work and needing to leave pretty early, I will be taking her spot in the early shift. It’s not something I’m excited about necessarily, but something I know I’ll get used to. Eventually. I hope.

Aside from getting up early, the other aspect of being a stay at home dad that worries me is figuring out how to squeeze my work into the day. She’s so young that most of the time one of us is holding, feeding or changing her. She does nap, but not consistently or at a specific time every day. Part of my job involves interviewing comic book writers and artists. Most of that is done via email, a method that might not get as good results, but definitely makes writing these things easier. All that will be workable, no problem. I am worried about the occasional phone interview. Scheduling those things will be interesting. I keep having flashes of a really good phoner being interrupted by baby screams. I’m sure people–especially fellow parents–would understand, but it doesn’t sound very professional.

Don’t feel too bad for me yet, though. Thankfully, my wife is working from home today. The holiday week took out Monday, so we didn’t have to worry about that. She’s working from home again Wednesday, then going into the office on Thursday. Then, on Friday we’re heading to New Hampshire for a wedding that weekend, so things won’t be too bad. Yet.