Thanks and without further ado here is Kate Foley Hardage...
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Hey everyone. My name is Kate and I know Craig through his baby mama. My firstborn is four months older than Sierra, so we’ve gone through a lot of the same things at the same time. My usual haunt is Four is the Magic Number, where I usually spend time writing about the day to day happenings and milestones with my two little boys, Dex and Kiery. However, today I wanted to take some time to write about the other boy (um- I guess I should say man) in my life.
Logan and I pretty much put our relationship on fast forward
from the start. From the day we first hung out, we pretty much lived together,
were pregnant a month later, and two weeks before our bundle of joy arrived we were
married. Being unmarried and pregnant at 22 (he was 25) was pretty scary.
However, from the first moment when I told him there was a possibility of a
baby in our future, he was all in. Five years ago he spent most of his nights
behind a bottle of alcohol, most of his “outdoor time” was smoking cigarettes,
and he lived in a house where three of the four stories were inhabited with a
bunch of guys that shared interest in those pastimes as well. If you knew him
now, I don’t think that would be how you would picture him at all. He has gone
to every doctor’s appointment, every baby class, and being a great father and
husband is always at the front of his mind.
He works hard. He works often. He is the Assistant Manager
at a local coffee shop and is greatly invested in its growth and future, and
also lives the closest which means he is pretty much always on call. He puts in
his barista hours behind the bar, but is constantly running numbers, doing
paperwork, checking in on employees and running errands. I couldn’t even tell
you the number of hours he works a week. And yet- he still finds the energy to
be a stay-at-home dad two and a half days a week with our three and a half year
old and sixteen month old. (We are so lucky and grateful for all the help we
have had to have both of us able to work full time and not have the kiddos in
daycare). He does most of the grocery shopping, many of the errands, often has
dinner ready when I get home, and more often than not, shows up at my work with
a treat of some kind. He does art projects with the boys, takes them to the
playground and teaches them how to respect women. He sleeps five hours at
night, spends nine hours with the boys and then goes into work for the night.
While balance is not always had, there is always a lot of love, and he does it
99.9% of the time with no complaints.
I think that things are hard for all parents right now. We
are figuring out our “roles” in a society that has greatly changed in the last
thirty years. What was true for our grandparents is definitely not the norm
anymore. This means different things for each family, and it means that each
family looks a bit different from the next. I can only speak for myself and my
own family and say that a lot of our success comes from lots of communication,
working hard pretty much all the time, and being a true team. (Yes, we even have
a team name). I am so lucky and so grateful for the dad I have as a father to
my children. As a woman, I look at him and other men like the Hipster Dads here
and know that we have great role models for our children, and I couldn’t ask
for more.
