For many stay-at-home parents, finding something to enjoy in between changing nappies and cleaning up spilled juice can go a long way towards helping them stay happy and balanced. Which is not to say that staying home with kids isn't fulfilling, just that it can be a nice thing for parents to have interests and hobbies that they enjoy outside of taking care of small people. When author Chris Illuminati became a stay-at-home-dad in 2010, he started Message With A Bottle, a blog that documents his experience raising his kids. His blog quickly became one of his passionate projects.
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Along with writing posts, he also began sharing the funny and relatable messages he left around the house on Post-It notes. Some are reminders for himself, some are notes for his wife, and others are pithy observations about parenting in general. Unsurprisingly, his down-to-Earth commentary became an instant hit on the internet (though, tbh, sometimes the line between "funny" and "casual misogyny" is pretty fine when it comes to his observations, and I'd love to see his wife have a more humanising nickname than "the permanent roommate"). Over the last few days, however, Illuminati's words have gone viral, letting lots of people appreciate his sense of humour and love of being a dad.
For his part, the dad of two kids has been sharing all the press coverage he's been getting on his Facebook page, telling his over 66,000 fans that he is "humbled and honoured... by all the attention [his] notes have received." Parents, more than anyone else, understand that sometimes, you just have to laugh to avoid crying. Illuminati's notes can help us do just that, adding an element of levity and solidarity to the often isolating and thankless job of raising up small humans into decent people.