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.

The tantrum was a doozie, a 30-minute episode that started out of nothing (she didn’t want to brush her teeth) and ended only after I gave L a long while to cry things out behind closed doors in her crib.

Once she decided she was fine, she was back to normal within seconds.

I, however, am still shell-shocked, and have spent most of the morning wondering about the extent to which this behavior will become commonplace over the next few months.

Some of the other thoughts that have run through my head since the disturbing 7 a.m. “wake-up call” have spanned the gamut from practical to philosophical. How can these little creatures possibly scream so loud? How can they flail about the way they do without breaking bones or dislocating limbs? Why don’t adults throw tantrums the same way?

I’m sure I’ll get answers eventually. Until then, all I know is that tantrums are not fun for anyone involved, and though I love my daughter unconditionally, this was a terrible, terrible way to start the day.

In one corner: Dreaded deadlines, many of which had piled up after extensions and other various schedule adjustments. In the other corner: L, all cute and eager to come into Daddy’s office to listen to “Frosty the Snowman.”

I anticipated how challenging it might be to get stuff done (slowly, I’m getting better at anticipating this), and had asked my mother to come up from the big city to play with L. Having Mom here definitely helped; she was the first line of defense in allowing me to focus on my tasks at hand instead of procrastinating and playing with my daughter all day.

Still, because I’d rather just hang with the kid, it was tough to resist joining in the fun that the two of them were having within earshot of my work-cave.

When the “girls” were coloring in L’s room across the hall, I turned up my music. When they played dreidel down by the tree (yes, that’d be the Christmas Tree; we’re an eclectic bunch), I inserted ear plugs.

Finally, when L was running around chanting about mistletoe, I could no longer ignore her cuteness, and sauntered downstairs for a smooch (or, as it turned out, about 40).

Call me weak. Call me easily distracted. Say whatever you want. I simply needed my fix.

Herein likes the paradox of working at home: Being here for every moment with the baby is the ultimate perk, but on days like today, it’s the ultimate pitfall, too. Just another lesson in the name of work/life balance, I guess. Does anybody ever really figure it out?

(The story’s headline, “Passengers Push for Child-Free Flights,” says it all.)

My stance: Segregating families on airplanes is no different from segregating African-Americans on buses back before the civil rights movement.

Look, I admit that some kids behave badly on planes. I also concede that in these cases, fault lies squarely with mom and dad; parents need to be mindful of other passengers when they take their children on planes. Still, to punish all of us families for the transgressions of some—it’s unfair, stupid and just plain wrong.

Oh, by the way, especially since families pay the same price as everybody else for their airplane tickets, restricting where they can sit based solely on their status as families also is a violation of civil rights.

Read the story and make up your own mind. But if you’re one of those zealots in favor of these foolish and mean-spirited efforts, hear this: You’ll find no sympathy from moi.

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.

Never mind I’ve been working crazy hours. Forget, for a moment, that we’re refinancing.

Really, the parachute-sized bags under my eyes (and the Olympus Mons of a zit forming on the right side of my face) are attributable to one being and one being only. Her name is L. Little, little L.

She’s not doing it on purpose; something about the time change has totally screwed with her schedule. Even though we only set our clocks back one hour, L has been getting up two to three hours earlier every day. When she’s up, she’s up for good (also a variation from her usual theme). Oh, and she isn’t napping any longer than usual either.

Curious, right? Powergirl and I certainly think so, and some of my other parent friends report similar realities.

What makes our situation particularly exasperating is that we actively sought to prevent it before our trip to Vegas. All week last week, we kept the baby up longer and later in an attempt to switch her to the new schedule. Before we left, she seemed to be doing great.

Then, of course, this. Ugh.

Needless to say, in college and high school, I remember loving the switch to DST because it meant an extra hour of sleep. My, how times have changed.

When we “meddle” in her newfound solo-living, she’s also content expressing her frustration with a slap. Naturally, this has become a relatively serious problem.

For me, the issue is all about a response. On the one hand, I don’t really enjoy yelling at L. On the other hand, she needs to know that slapping is never OK, no matter who she’s slapping or why she’s slapping them (except, maybe, if the person is intending to hurt her, but that’s another story completely).

To this point, I’ve taken to speaking firmly against the slapping. On some occasions, I’ll also just walk away, setting her down (if she’s in my arms when the slap occurs) or leaving her in her high chair while I go and do something else.

For those of you parents who’ve been there and done this before, what do these slaps mean, and what is the “right” way for dealing with them?

Enquiring and neurotic minds want to know.

Especially on the subject of language, because I’m a wordsmith by trade, I’ve just assumed I’d be a freedom-of-speech type dude.

Then, during last night’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” (yes, I admit this is one of my absolute favorite hour-long shows on television) my bubble burst in dramatic—and almost Puritanical—fashion.

In a nutshell, writers worked the word, “dick,” into the script four times over the course of the 60-minute show. As in, “Don’t be a dick,” or “You’re being a dick.” This is a phrase that I lob to my friends all the time (hey, we are from Long Island). It is not, however, something I think young children should be hearing their favorite prime-time vamps say.

If the show were on at 10 p.m., when most young kids are asleep, the curses wouldn’t have bugged me at all. But because the program is on at 8 p.m., when just about every 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old is up and watching television, Powergirl and I totally flipped out.

After I Tweeted and Facebooked about my ire, it hit me: I totally sounded like a parent, and an uncool one at that.

“Come on, guys,” I could almost hear L saying. “Everybody says it, and it’s not that bad.”

And on some level, it’s not. On another level, though, it’s horrible. I don’t care if everybody says the word, “dick.” I don’t even care if I say it myself. While my daughter (and subsequent children, for that matter) is still impressionable, while she’s still learning the attributes of good language, it’s not a word I want her to know.

In other words, just because language in general seems to be de-evolving these days doesn’t mean my kid has to contribute or embrace the new slang.

(As an aside, after hearing all of these vamps and werewolves say “dick” on primetime television, I couldn’t help but think about the 2006 Mike Judge film, “Idiocracy,” where a future President of the U.S. incorporates words like “shit” into his State of the Unions.)

I contemplated writing a letter to the CW about all of this, but that would make me even less cool (it also undoubtedly would do nothing). Instead, I’ll consider this a valuable lesson, and vow to be even more vigilant to monitor the language that L is exposed to when she’s old enough to copy it and make it her own.

Sure, there were highpoints: L’s smile of wonder when the Dumbo ride took flight; her excited pointing at the ducks in “Small World”; and her awe at Baloo the Bear when he “greeted” us during a “Character Breakfast” inside the Disneyland Hotel (she actually gave him a fist-bump, a skill I’ve been teaching her).

There also were definite low points: A near-choking incident before lunch in New Orleans Square, a Defcon-1 meltdown during breakfast on our first day; a four-hour delay at SNA on the way home.

Still, considering L came down with a nasty cold about halfway through our one day in the park, I suppose the whole experience could have been much worse.

Overall, the trip reminded me of a few important facts about traveling with infant:

• When you don’t stay in a hotel with some sort of efficiency kitchen, mealtime is complicated and can get very expensive. The first night, we ended up ordering her a room-service dinner; the last day, breakfast consisted of puffs and a cheese stick on the bed (we didn’t bring the travel high chair).
• No matter what kind of stroller you’ve got, lugging a camera and associated diaper bags around a theme park is tiring. Thankfully I managed to balance the baby on my right arm and this other stuff on my left.
• Plane flights are a cinch if you bring lots of books and endless amounts of patience.
• Everything is new (so while the aforementioned four-hour delay in an airport is annoying for grown-ups, L had the time of her life ogling airplanes and spying suitcases roll by).

Also, I’d be remiss in posting about Disney without sharing some thoughts about my first experience in the park as a Dad:

• “Stroller parking” is ingenious, and should exist everywhere (though it did take a few “parks” for this New York-native to lose his paranoia about someone stealing our wipes).
• There is no way in hell an average working-class family with kids can afford to visit that place more than once a lifetime. The 2.5 of us were there for a grand total of 45 hours. Including food, it cost us nearly $1,000. That’s more than $22 per hour.
• I’ve got no problem with the way Disney merchandises (more power to them), but find it despicable that very few of the stores sell books. After L fell in love with Mulan during one of our Character Breakfasts, I looked in six different stores for a book about the character. Five of the stores had no books at all; the sixth store only carried books that were sold with some other piece of merchandise, such as a tiny doll. Is Disney subtly anti-literacy? (Perhaps this is the subject of an essay down the road.)

Taking into account all of these pros and cons, the trip was a mixed bag. Ultimately, though, the visit made both L and Powergirl very happy. At the end of the day, that’s really all that matters to me.