Conversations out of context

K: I need something Dada.

J: What do you need buddy?

K: Something to flip the Tardis over with.

J: Use your hand.

K: No, I need a hooker.

Conversation I wasn't planning on having for a decade yet.

Spring break

Spring break is awful.

Suddenly the streets/aquariums/scienceworlds/playgrounds are swarmed with little heathens that should be chained to a desk learning cursive (or some other pointless subject).

Ok, that might be a bit of hyperbole (well... a whole lot of it...).

It does make things more complicated.

Add in the rain and suddenly the days are a lot longer and a lot slower.

It would be easy to just go head off into the forest for a good and relatively quiet hike... But with a three year old and a three month old, that becomes more complicated.

There's no way we go near one of our regular haunts as they are swarmed with those that would regularly be in school.

So... Then what?

I'm sorry, it's not you... It's your kids.

Watching the general feel of the play field. Watching the little ones get run over by bigger kids with no one really watching them. It's not a whole lot of fun.

For the kids, it's stress and drama they don't need.

For me, well... It's stress and drama I don't need.

So we wait for the two weeks to go by. For the animals to be put back in their cages... So our regular life and rhythm can resume.

I'm sure we'll be a lot more ready and experienced once summer vacation comes.

Or maybe we'll just spend two months in Iceland.

Hmm... That has potential.

Truth

I am doing the most important job I've ever done.

The pay is lousy but the benefits are impossible to beat.

The journey begins... continues... ends?

The first day was easy. The girl slept. The boy was his awesome self...

So for the next days, I said lets make this more of a challenge.

We went to Seattle.

It was my wife's first trip actually in to the office. So, granted... I wasn't actually solo until 11am... But once I was, there was an unfamiliar feeling in my chest. I think you might even call it fear.

My heart was beating hard.

There was no home base. There was six hours to kill. Two bottles of milk.

I can do this.

I don't normally know fear in these situations. I tell myself I'm a seasoned pro.

I could be wrong.

K was no problem. I had no worries. N though... That was a different matter.

Luckily for me, she slept. She likes to sleep. A lot. More than her mother even...

But it wasn't an easy one for either of us. B, my wife, kept sending me texts that she was worried. I had a worried feeling in the pit of my stomach as well.

Even though I was wearing N and I knew she was ok... I had to make sure. You're still breathing, right? You're still warm, right?

It actually turned out to be a fairly stressful day even though everything was alright. Everything was good.

But it was a test... and one that I repeated again the second day.

It's amazing how your view changes when you don't have a home base.

The second day was easier in that we had a place to start from. So, a somewhat lazy morning... as lazy as these things can be...

K went in the stroller. N went in the tula. We walked.

And we walked... and we walked... and we walked.

Take me to the zoo.

The Woodland Park Zoo.

I hadn't been to a zoo since Berlin, many years ago. I'd never been with an almost three year old and an almost three month old.

The zoo itself was great. K was psyched about seeing gorillas... lions... giraffes... and of course, the elephant.

N for the most part slept.

The only stressful moments were those when she wasn't sleeping. Looking in to the milk supply in the bag and seeing the bottles had leaked. Knowing that was her food supply for the day and if she ended up needing more than what was left... I was in trouble

The fact that I just don't have boobs leads to more stress sometimes than I ever would have imagined pre-kids.

When she did wake... she drank... and she screamed some. We walked. I hoped for her to go back to sleep. She's pretty chill... she doesn't tend to get too upset. She's kind of the opposite of what K was like at her age.

I think I got more 'Aww!' looks over the course of the afternoon than I did 'Poor guy!' looks.

I did get the older woman who asks 'How old is she? *surprised at answer* Ohh. My Son-In-Law would never have taken out the baby when it was that young!"

The milk supply lasted just long enough.

Day two ended up being a success. A little bit of trial by fire. Certainly not the easiest way to go on our starting week... but I think I had as much hair as when I left, so it's all gold.

We walked back. I ended up with nearly 20000 steps on the day. So this Stay-At-Home-Super-Dada think is definitely going to have an effect on my waist line.

They survived. I survived. We saw giraffes and elephants.

That can only be seen as a win for me.

ReB(j)orn

I'm Jon.

I'm a Dad.

That's likely the number one thing you need to know about me. As it is certainly the title that is most important to me.

Dad. Husband. Owner of fish.

I write this post with a three month old sleeping on me in the tula. A three year old watching Dinosaur Train on our WiiU Gamepad.

My wife working away upstairs in her closet office.

This is our new normal.

This is our life.

Not that long ago, I was one of those guys... putting on a suit for 40 hours a week. Working crazy hours. Home at 3am most nights. Missing a lot of most important times with our first. The one now addicted to Dinosaur Train. I was tired. I was missing my family. I was unfulfilled.

I was on a direct path to nothing I wanted. Working for a soulless company. Neither appreciated, nor properly utilized. There was really only one option.

An exit.

Now, I'm a Dad. Full time. The pay is lousy. The benefits are great.

Straight out, I'm doing the most important thing I can be doing... and on a certain level, making up for the failures of my own father.

I don't wear a suit anymore... and really can't even imagine the next time I will. Instead, I wear baby puke... and other bodily fluids. I do it with pride.

So this is a blog about our adventures. Our wins. Our losses. This thing we call life. I don't know exactly what voice this blog will take, we'll find that out along the way.

I've never been one for walking the normal path everyone else does. I've always been more of the forge my own path variety.

This is the most important path. Our kids are my passion. So, here we are trying to give them the knowledge and the love they need to challenge their ways through life. To forge their own paths.

We do certainly look at various philosophies when it comes to child raising. However, usually I just go with what seems like common sense to me. Maybe we'll get into that sort of thing later.

For now, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. Let's see where the path takes us.