This is what it means to have a family: diapering, cleaning, bedtime stories, untold drinks of water at bedtime, cooking, homework supervision/assistance, school drop off and pickup, daycare drop off and pick up, scheduling play dates (including hosting play dates), comforting and conflict resolution. If you aren’t willing to do those things, why the hell would you have a family?

It would be impolite to just copy Jon’s blog, verbatim, so I encourage you to go read his post on being an “involved father” and the articles he links to.

I’m seeing these themes a lot lately, with Sheryl Sandberg and Penelope Trunk also stating that one of the most important career decisions you can make as a woman is picking a good husband – one who will be an equal partner in household and parenting duties. Though I certainly didn’t need them to tell me that. It’s been a deal breaker of mine all along.

In our family, Neil is still the only one who’s done a single-parent overnight shift. In fact, he’s done two, and I’m about to leave for a 3-day business trip where he’ll do our first multi-day single-parent adventure. I assume that there will be times in the future where I’ll return the favour.

And as the first commenter on Jon’s site says, while I feel grateful that I have found a partner who plays an equal role in running our family, luck has nothing to do with it, and neither of us deserves special recognition for being competent, responsible adults.

So far I haven’t won anything in this year’s campaign. But the other day, Neil’s cup won a donut.

And look what happened:

We were running around with the dog in the park near home, and Neil made a sudden about-face without looking, and ran his face directly into a basketball hoop stand. He split open his eyebrow, and we spent the last hours of Easter Sunday hanging out in the emergency room, where he became the proud owner of four stitches in his eyebrow.

I hadn’t said anything about the donut, thinking maybe the curse didn’t apply to him, but clearly there is some crazy roll-up voodoo shit going on with those cups.

And I feel confident in my assessment that I am not built for this place. Or rather, this place is not built for me.

I understand that we’ve been a bit spoiled with our central location and not actually having to leave the building to go to the grocery or drug store, but that’s not actually what I’m missing.

I miss neighbourhood planning that fosters community, rather than animosity.

There are no sidewalks here.

Ok, that’s not entirely true, but the roadways are fully designed for cars, and walking feels like an exercise in risk-taking, rather than a viable way to run errands or explore the area.

There is a trail nearby where we’ve walked the dog, and shared smiles with the few other dog owners we’ve seen there. But it’s all a bit soured when walking the dog to the trail, and she inevitably poops as dogs do, and someone driving by feels the need to holler (from his extra large truck, natch) “PICK IT UP!”

Which of course, we did. As we always do. But it’s obvious on that walk, and elsewhere, that poop-scoopers are in the minority. Because there are NO garbage cans to be found. There is a dumpster at a nearby elementary school if you hop a couple fences. And there is one about 750 metres down the trail (once you’ve gotten to the trail). Other than that, nothing for a few kilometres in any direction.

No there are no garbage cans, not even near the playground at that elementary school. The sidewalks (there are a few) also don’t connect in any meaningful way. They seem to be there for optics, rather than use.

Before I moved to Kitsilano, I thought that it was necessary to spend a lot of time in a community and that one had to make a big effort to get out do things to meet people. But when you live in an area that facilitates running into your neighbours while out and about, seeing the same people at the dog park, and getting to know your neighbourhood shopkeepers (because there are neighbourhood shops, not just big box stores a few kilometres away), it’s actually no effort at all.

And now that I’m in the suburbs, I’m saddened to be reminded that my most recent experience is the exception, rather than the norm.

But at least it’s a good reminder of what’s going to be really important when deciding which neighbourhood we end up in next.

Timehop isn’t particularly complicated. It’s a simple little web service you hook up to your social accounts, and every day it emails you a log of the things you posted a year ago on that date.

And I’m so pleasantly surprised at how lovely it’s been to receive!

See, I signed up for Timehop in late January, so I’ve been receiving a little daily chronicle of things I’ve posted through Isaac’s first year.

I can see it being just as neat to look back on your life a year ago after any milestone: getting married, moving to a new place, starting a new job, having a kid (obviously), etc.

Because you’ve come a long way, baby!

The volatility of the Vancouver real estate market has been bugging Neil and I for a while. And even though we still fit in our current place (just), and there are no babies on the horizon, we know we’re going to want more space eventually.

The Spring market is the time to sell in Vancouver, so we felt like listing now was a great time to get any gains out, rather than wait until we really have outgrown the space or find a perfect place, and are forced into a sale and into accepting less than we’d like.

It also gives us a stronger position when we do find a great place to buy, since we won’t be subject to financing as lending rules tighten and banks are more reluctant to give new mortgages to people who already have one.

But what about the meantime?

We’re *gasp* moving in with my parents.

In the suburbs. The deep suburbs.

This surprises nobody more than me, but it does make a whole lot of sense. We’ll save a bundle for a few months on mortgage payments and childcare. We won’t need to cram into a sub-standard rental (since with the tiny kid and big dog we have two huge strikes against us as far as landlords are concerned) while we look for a new place either to rent or buy to stay in longer-term.

My commute will be absolute balls, but Neil will be able to take the train downtown.

Overall we’re excited about this next step, and it feels like the right thing to do, but the past week has been nothing short of total insanity, and it doesn’t look to be slowing down much.

So, wanna buy a house? (listing goes up April 6th for the interested, curious and nosy.)

After a year of maternity leave, yes I was bored a not-insignificant amount of time, but those plans? HAH.

I thought I’d play the piano more. Cook more. Have a super-clean house. Read dozens of books. Redo my website. Take amazing, artistic photos. Teach the dog how to play chess. All things I like to think I’d do with day after day to while away, beholden to nobody but that tiny baby and myself.

So what happened?

First off, I spent a lot of time outside. Fit4Two mom & baby fitness/bootcamp/aquafit classes really saved my sanity, combated a lot of the loneliness I’d have otherwise felt, and got me back into great shape – I haven’t been this fit in far too many years. And especially in the early days, getting out for the twice-weekly one-hour class between feeding/napping/diapering episodes was enough of an achievement, I didn’t feel the need to do much else.

But once things got easier, I started thinking about that original “whatever will I do with all the free time?” list. In my aspirational mind, I like the idea of doing those things. But in reality? I like sitting around, watching TV, surfing the interwebs. Those things also happen to be highly compatible with caring for a tiny human whose needs and movements are sporadic and unpredictable. It’s easy to pay limited attention to daytime TV that I don’t really care about when I know it’ll likely be interrupted. Same goes for following along with a twitter or Facebook stream, or reading brief blog updates.

Turns out rearing a baby is hard work. And while I knew this, and had heard it multiple times, I didn’t really process that it’s not hard like quantum physics, it’s hard like ditch-digging. Except you can’t put down the shovel and walk away.

I will say I’ve been fortunate: I didn’t suffer from postpartum depression, and by all reports we’ve got a great baby whose default emotion is “happy” and has never cried much. But caring for him is still a manual slog. Feeding, changing, dressing, re-dressing after he spits up on his clean clothes. Then later, playing, following, chasing, redirecting, entertaining. And then there is the whole thing about making small-talk with other moms while the babies play together in an effort to get them some different mental stimulation and socializing. I am terrible at small talk (which is why the fitness classes were great – hard to chat through pushups).

The timing for returning the work has been perfect. I am not cut out for all-day baby-wrangling, but Isaac is in a great daycare with someone who adores spending her day with babies and a couple other kids to play with. We have our little morning ritual, a few hours of playtime & dinner once we’re home, and adventure on the weekends.

So am I glad I took the year off? Absolutely. Each time we hit a milestone where in other countries I may have had to go back to work (6 or 12 weeks for the US, 6 months in many other places), I was thankful we had a little more time, another few months, weeks, days to learn, discover, observe each other. Cement the bond a little stronger. And I’m equally glad it’s done. Just enough, not too much.

Then, as I was lamenting my lack of posting, I remembered a story a lot of people ask about and I don’t think I’ve shared here yet. It’s also seasonally appropriate.

The story of Isaac’s middle name: Odin.

Neil has wanted a kid named Isaac for a very long time. It happens to be his brother’s middle name, and he likes the uniqueness of the double-vowels. I like that it’s a classic name without being particularly trendy or common. And we both love that it means “the one who laughs.” Picking it for his first name was easy.

But we had no idea what to choose for a middle name.

Going through web pages and books of names weren’t generating any inspiration. But inspiration did strike in an unusual place: the middle of a joke.

Depending on how my pregnancy was measured, my due date was either the 15th or 19th or March. Split the difference, and it’s St. Patrick’s day. So, I declared, should we have a St. Paddy’s day baby, we should give him the middle name “O’” (yes, O-apostrophe), so he could be Isaac O’Watkiss.

After a good laugh, we realized we really liked “Isaac O. Watkiss,” and started digging into “O” names.

Let me tell you, there are not many of those I like.

Oliver? Octavius? Oberon? Oedipus? No thanks.

We did like the cadence of how Owen fit into things, but happen to know a TON of Owens who were born recently, so weren’t super keen on using it.

Then, while paging through an old book of Gaelic and Scottish names my mother-in-law found on one of their many bookshelves and brought out as a lark, we discovered “Odin.”

Similar cadence to Owen. A little different without being too weird. We liked the juxtaposition of a name meaning “the one who laughs” with “the god of fury” – furious laughter? – and with our wanderlust and perpetually itchy feet, also liked the idea of Odin the Wanderer.

So Odin it was. And Isaac O. Watkiss he is.

And yes, he does fancy a Guinness, when his dad will share a few spoonfuls.

Happy Birthday Isaac! You’re super keen.

I have been fortunate enough to do some of the amazing things that are on other people’s lists, like visit the place my family is from, swim with dolphins, ride an elephant, visit some stunning world sights, eat incredible things in incredible places, and meet & marry the love of my life and become parents.

But the world is so incredible and amazing, there are still so many more things I’d like to do. I’ve tried to collect them here, but I expect the list will have more additions over time.

Neil and I have also had a very interesting experience with writing things down; somehow every time we make a list or commit our goals to paper they have an amazing way of working out faster and more spectacularly than we planned.

So I’m looking forward to seeing where the creation of this list leads…

Family Things
Complete our family (one kid down, one to go?)
Go camping as a family
Wake up before the sun and take the kid(s) fishing
Live abroad for a year
Take my parents on a vacation with us
Read the Harry Potter series with the kid(s)
Celebrate my 10th, 25th, 50th wedding anniversaries with Neil
Live on a small farm or rural property for some amount of time
Become millionaires
Help the kid(s) find a cause that’s important to them, and volunteer with them
Take a family trip to Disneyland
Teach the kid(s) to cook well enough they can make a meal for the family

Travel Things
Visit every continent (so far: Asia, Europe, North America, Africa)
Spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Hike the West Coast Trail
See belugas in the wild in Hudson’s Bay
Visit every Canadian province & territory
See the Fall foliage in New England
Tour distilleries in the Scottish Highlands
Visit Italy (Rome, Vatican City, Venice, Tuscany, Florence, Cinque Terre)
Visit Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto)
Bicycle winery tour in Napa
Go on Safari in Africa
Sail Across the Equator (and get corresponding Anchor tattoo)
Roadtrip down the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to Baja
Visit the Great Wall of China
Visit a great party city, party until sunrise
Visit the Galapagos Islands
Visit Australia

Fun Things
Go somewhere for High Tea
Compose a song on the piano (which requires learning anything about composition)
Attend Camp Mighty
And a Mighty Summit
Participate in the Vancouver Sun Run (ideally running the whole way)
Eat a bug (cricket flour does not count)
Host a beachside clambake
Pay for a stranger’s meal in a restaurant
Make it to 100 blood donations (currently at 10)
Participate in a Cattle Drive

Learnin’ Things
Learn how to use my camera in manual mode
Learn enough of a second language to have a conversation with a native speaker
Learn how to sail
Learn how to code enough to create a simple app
Learn how to drive a standard transmission car

Making Things
Finish Isaac’s baby book
Make an advent calendar book collection
Cook every recipe in a cookbook
Grow a vegetable garden

Career Things
Earn a 6-figure salary
Give a major conference presentation
Become a VP of Marketing
Make a proper portfolio of my work
Mentor someone
Get a mentor (or two)
Do an MBA

What’s on your list?