It’s my last weekend of my paternity leave with my baby girl Ariana and I thought I’d ruminate a bit on life. Not that I get much time to do that these days.
Ariana is fantastic. She’s extremely active and is always reaching for things just beyond her grasp. She loves standing with assistance and has great posture. She’s more social and activity-oriented than Reece was: always needing a parent or a person around and wanting something new going on in order to be entertained. Her communication in terms of laughter, cooing sounds, facial expressions is pretty advanced for her age. In fact we even had her first words while I was on leave: “go kart” :). I couldn’t ask for a better baby - well, except for my sleep schedule.
Right now Ariana and Reece’s relationship is amazing as they clearly love each other deeply and always want to be around each other. I suspect Ariana’s going to torture her brother when she gets older as she seems just as capable as her big brother of understanding exactly what’s going on with other people but much more mischievous than he is.
I also got to spend a fair amount of time with Reece over the holidays: taking him to Disneyland, planning his third birthday, transitioning him from daycare to preschool, riding my sweet new cargo bike with him, starting soccer class, and helping with potty training. He’s turned into a really sweet, intelligent, focused kid who can understand exactly how you’re feeling and wants you to feel better. His active imagination and sense of wonder at the world keeps me feeling great. Of course he’s also in the Big Feelings phase and can start crying at the drop of a hat, but he can actually be reasoned down towards positive actions now. He’s already got quite a wide and precise vocabulary, enough that we’re asking “where did you learn that?!” every day or so.
Outside of babycare, I started scheduling 3 major home projects, did some biking, started working on a new app, and spent time with some old friends. Didn’t get as far with them as I’d hoped as with two kids and the holidays I didn’t have as much time to myself as I did with my last paternity leave.
I’m grateful for my team at work making sure nothing exploded at work in my absence - I really needed this transition time. I dropped a product launch announcement and GTFOd so the team had to clean it up and make it real and they did a fantastic job. Work also dropped a huge drama bomb while I was out soI hope I can return the favor by making their lives easier when I go back.
The next few years are going to be tough but I’m sure I will look back on them fondly. Many things will happen from every direction, the kids will grow up, and the family/myself/friends will get older. I wish I could just pause time for a few days at a time to savor everything and give it a chance to breathe. Short of a time machine, let’s just hope that in a few years I have the professional, mental, and financial freedom to actively be engaged in only the things that mean the most to me.
Now to make sure to caulk the balcony before this huge rain storm comes in tomorrow night…