The bad news: this scenario likely will occur more frequently in the next year, so get used to it.

That’s my crass way of notifying you faithful readers that things are changing around here, and The Daddy Dispatch will be transitioning from five times a week to two or maybe three times a week (if we’re lucky).

It’s not that I’m getting bored; on the contrary, as L grows I’ve got more to say than ever before. The goal of the blog always has been to paint a realistic picture of work-at-home fatherhood, and the reality is that the whole work/life balance thing is getting tougher. With a newly active baby and new (and exciting!) clients, all of those activities that aren’t mission-critical to the health of my family or my business must take a backseat.

Please don’t take this as goodbye. Please keep reading. Please keep submitting comments. And please keep suggesting this blog to friends.

Thanks again. And Happy Holidays.

I’m not talking about the giggles they make when you tickle them, imitate an emu or sniff their freshly tubbed bellies like a dog. I’m talking about the giggles they make when they’re finding happiness completely on their own, when they’ve put themselves in a situation that just makes ‘em beam.

Such was the case this evening when L got together with the three-year-old daughter of our friends across the street. The girls giggled. Incessantly. For nearly 45 minutes. Then they rolled in the grass, looked up at the sky and giggled some more.

These giggles were so honest, so pure, and so goddamn adorable that you couldn’t help but smile.

Of course as daddy looking on, I was smiling from ear to ear. I was so transfixed by the scene that I stood there (with Powergirl and our friend from across the street), primed for a night run in my (neon) running clothes, watching for almost the entire time. The girls were giggling. Everything else could wait.

Eventually, after that run, while L and I read books before bedtime, I asked her to opine about the giggling and her budding relationship with our neighbor’s daughter.

“Good friends,” she said proudly. It was the first time she’d ever used that phrase about another human. No wonder she was so giggly.

She requests carols four or five times a day (“Jingle Bells” and “Frosty” are her favorites, though she also likes “Santa Baby”). She plays with the stockings every time she climbs up the stairs (we hang them there because we use our fireplace a ton). Naturally, she’s also obsessed with the tree, touching (and sometimes kissing) low-hanging ornaments every time she passes by.

Perhaps the pinnacle of her Xmas obsession came this afternoon, when, during a walk around town, she randomly shouted, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas” to a bunch of strangers who were walking by.

Indeed, the kid has been bitten by the Christmas spirit. And it kind of rules.

Powergirl is the inspiration for all of this, really. I was raised Jewish and gave up on religion all together in college. At this point in my life, I’m nothing more than a cheerleader, support staff for my wife. Considering how happy all of the songs and candles and pine needles and sparkly stuff make both of my girls, I’d say that job is the best gig that I’ll get all month.

He learned this immediately. After he and his wife spent their first night home with the new baby, he sent me (and, I assume, others) a text about his son: “[The boy] was the Michael Jordan of crying last night; you couldn’t stop him, you could only hope to contain him.”

After encouraging him to hang in there, that it definitely gets better, I reminded him to be good to his wife.

And really, I couldn’t have given better advice.

Let’s face it: Being sensitive, doing chores and changing diapers all are noble traits/characteristics of a new dad, but when push comes to shove and the kid is crying until all hours of the night; when your woman has cracked nipples from breastfeeding and feels fat and ugly; when your day is ruined by those car seat manufacturers who made their products so complicated, it’s critical to treat the woman as the rock star she is for giving birth and continuing to set a great example.

Even though our daughter is now pushing 18 months, I still try to subscribe to this philosophy. Sometimes, I falter (let’s say this was not the best weekend). Most of the time, I’d like to think I succeed. Either way, I’m always making an effort.

Hopefully, at some point in her life, L notices this approach, and expects nothing less from her partner down the road.

Literally. As in, she says, “Scared, scared,” and clutches me for dear life.

I wrote about the very first time this happened; it pertained to the garbage truck (which previously was a source of great joy). Since then, it’s been happening a bit more frequently.

The most recent installment came today, and revolved around the process of getting in and out of the car seat in my truck. As I was taking her out of the truck for brunch today, L wiggled about and accidentally bonked her head on the doorjam. She didn’t cry. She didn’t even flinch, really. But the experience must have scarred her, because after our meal she refused to go back in.

Ultimately, it took two or three minutes of pleading to get her to stop whimpering and clutching my shoulder for dear life. She repeated the episode at our next stop in town (despite the promise of a visit to her beloved fountain in the plaza).

In the scheme of things, these developments aren’t really causes for alarm. Still, I certainly don’t want her to be a scaredy cat, and I certainly don’t want to enable irrational fears.

Any suggestions? I’m all ears.

Such was life for me on Tuesday. After spending the first three hours of the day together, the baby I parted ways when the nanny arrived. Then I took off, heading 100 miles south for a bunch of meeting. My last session ran over, preventing me from heading home before the evening rush hour. That means I got home too late to see L before she went to bed.

Talk about disappointment. All day, all I wanted was to get home in time to read the kid “My World” and “Goodnight Moon,” her new favorite pre-bed combo (followed, of course, by a last-minute glimpse out the window to say goodnight to the real moon).

Instead, by the time I got home, she was fast asleep.

I recognize that many fathers (and mothers, for that matter) deal with these kinds of work/life balance challenges every day. I recognize that some parents are lucky to see their kids for three waking hours on any given day. Quite honestly, I don’t know how these moms and dads stomach all that time away. I simply don’t think I could do it.

Then again, I’m totally spoiled. Thankfully, time apart in this house is more of an exception than the rule. Because I’m self-employed, time apart also is reconcilable: I get to make up for Tuesday by spending most of Wednesday afternoon with L.

At this point, our afternoon plans likely will consist of a trip to the plaza downtown and a long session tossing leaves in the fountain. We also may visit L’s favorite machine, the Zamboni.

Whatever we do, so long as we’re together, I’m set. You can’t put a price tag on that.

Daddy, it turned out, was only a last resort.

I’d be lying if I didn’t internalize this treatment at least a bit. In general I’m a bit emotional, but throw into the mix a milestone birthday and very little sleep and you better believe I’ve been a bit raw.

That said, at least fundamentally, I understand this is simply par for the course for those of us lucky enough to experience parenthood.

The rational part of my brain knows that L is going to go through dozens (if not hundreds) of phases of this kind over the next 18 years. I also know that as she gets older (read: as she becomes a teen-ager), I likely will find myself on the other side of this equation frequently.

Still, at least here and now, swallowing the pride can be rough.

To this point, I’ve “dealt” with the situation poorly; making snide comments to Powergirl about how L would rather hang with her. Ultimately, however, this type of reaction is unfair to L because it implies blame. The baby is doing nothing wrong. Neither am I. It’s just a phase. The more easily I can remember that, the better off everyone in this family will be.

L would wake up stoked. From the moment she looked out the window and spotted our cans on the street, she’d yammer on and on about the garbage truck. Every time she heard something that sounded remotely similar, she’d make a bee-line for the door in the hopes of catching a glimpse of that magical beast taking our trash.

Whenever she actually spotted the truck, she went into a waving frenzy, doing her best Queen Elizabeth impression until the truck driver waved back. The little wave exchange became the highpoint of her week. The garbage man was her hero.

Recently, however, something has gone terribly awry.

I first recognized the change a few weeks ago, when I brought her to the door to see the garbage truck and she howled in disgust.

Last week, I was racing to the curb with a blue sausage of dirty diapers from the Diaper Genie when the truck pulled up, and L (who was in my arms at the time) acted as if I was about to throw her into a pool of molten lava.

That day, I had to tell her, “It’s okay,” over and over again to get her to chill.

Well today, every time she heard one of the trucks in our hood, she cowered behind me and said, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Clearly, the garbage truck is no longer her friend, but I’d love to understand why. Is it because the trucks sometimes wake her up from her nap? Is it that she’s now old enough to be freaked out by the sounds? Is it because she’s now girly to the point where garbage isn’t something worth liking? Something tells me I may never know.

The missing increased exponentially over the course of our trip.

On Day No. 1, as we were enthused by the mere prospect of some time alone, we didn’t really miss the kid that much. Day 2, however, we started wishing she were there, and found ourselves talking about her a ton. By Day 3 (my lone day of work on the trip), we were openly discussing how odd life felt without her. Today, Day No. 4, was excruciating, pretty much non-stop.

When we finally got home, the two of us couldn’t smother the kid with enough kisses. It had been so long since I picked up L that her 27 pounds felt a bit lighter in my arms.

She was a bit shy at first, but within minutes was back to her usual silly (and smoochy) ways.

In short, tonight’s was precisely the kind of homecoming we needed to have. Thanks again to Grandma and Grandpa Villano for making the weekend possible. Happily, neither I nor Powergirl has plans to spend significant time away from L again for a long while.

Considering the developments of this afternoon, I’d say a celebration is in order today.

For the first time ever, the baby uttered the phrase, “I love you” on her own accord. Previously, she had gotten as far as “Love” and “I love.” She never had added the “you” until today.

Thankfully, both I and my wife were present to witness the milestone. As you might expect, we cried.

Of course since that moment, we’ve been encouraging L to repeat it again and again, virtually chanting, “I love you” as if it were some Yogic mantra. Most of the time, the baby has obliged (which, of course, has made us slap each other with delight for a fairly major chunk of the afternoon).

The true test will be to see if the kid is still uttering the phrase tonight. Our fingers are crossed.