Realizations

 

Our family scrapbook starts in 2006, a year after Matt and I started dating. The other day I was completely unmotivated to do anything else, so I started flipping through the scrapbook.

 

The book contains page after page of adventure. There are trips to Baton Rouge for Spanish Town Mardi Gras (complete with elaborate and fun, hot-pink costumes). There are camping road trips to Utah and Idaho and Vancouver and California. There's a sailing trip around the Greek Isles (with a stop-over in Paris). There are Random Acts of Kindness Scavenger Hunts and trips to the mountains of Colorado to celebrate birthdays with friends.

 

And then there's a picture of a pregnancy test and shortly thereafter pictures of Henry start appearing.

 

I don't often flip through our family scrapbook. It's much more common for me to flip through Henry's scrapbook which fills me with gratitude and joy and nostalgia.

 

Looking at our family scrapbook felt different because the transition from life before babies to life after babies was so transparent. It was a very different sensation to transition from our days as an independent, adventurous couple to our days as a family. Although I don't have a single regret about deciding to have children, I do miss what feels like a very distant life.

 

Part of the distance is absolutely necessary. Matt and I believe that providing the best possible environment for infants and young children involves a certain amount of sacrifice. For example, we try to honor Henry's need to nap regularly and his early bed time. We go to bed by 11pm on weekends, so we are ready to greet Henry (and the day) at 7am.

 

But part of the change came from choices that we made. I chose to stay home with Henry for 14 months to provide a solid foundation for his future development. At the same time, we chose to move to Austin, while also deciding to buy land and build house (so we could hurry and put down roots as a family). Once Henry started school, I chose to work only part-time, so that I could continue to spend quality time with him in the afternoon, while also having enough time to focus on my long-time dream of starting a school.

 

With baby Tate on the way, these kinds of choices (the ones that distance us further and further from our former life) continue. I am choosing to resign from my part-time job, so that I can provide Tate with the same solid foundation that Henry had.

 

And although all of those choices make sense to me, sometimes I am struck by the enormity of how much difficulty Matt and I have invited into our lives. We left a really strong network of new families in Houston and moved to a completely different city, right when I most needed support as a stay-at-home mom. We bought land and built a house, right when our income was at an all-time low.

 

Again, I understand why we made these choices: I didn't want to postpone my professional dream any longer (which is why we needed to move to Austin) and Matt was eager to move. We wanted to buy land and build a house when the market was still stagnant and the mortgage rates were low. Plus we wanted to put down roots in a neighborhood as soon as possible.

 

But stretching our budget so thinly has made this stage of life so much harder. Because we are in a new city with fewer connections, it took us a while to get a free babysitting co-op up-and-running, which means our date nights as a couple have been few and far between. Because we can't afford babysitters, we have to stress a lot when I have work obligations that don't fit within the typical structure of my work day (such as board meetings in the evening when Matt has to travel to Houston or meetings in the afternoon when I'm supposed to pick up Henry and Matt is supposed to be working). And not being able to go on vacation has disrupted our yearly rhythm of adventure and newness.

 

There's not really a single decision that I can look back on, pinpoint, and wish we would have done differently. I understand every choice we've made and still think that the sacrifice will be worth it once we're settled in our new house in our new neighborhood with two full-time jobs and two boys in the school I'm working at. But, darn, we've made the transition into parenthood even harder than it needed to be! (And don't even get me started on our choice to live in Austin as opposed to Florida where my family is or Indiana where Matt's family is.)

 

I'm so thankful to be able to see the end of this tunnel. Our house will be finished mid-July. Tate will be here any day. I'll start receiving a part-time salary again in October and a full-time salary in January (assuming the charter gets approved). I see paid babysitters on the horizon (when we need something in a pinch and no one in the co-op is available). And vacations! And date nights!

 

[Caveat: As I write this post, I recognize that none of these things are real "problems" and that perhaps I should delete this whole post and instead write it from the perspective of gratitude. I mean, Matt and I are healthy and we have a healthy son and hopefully another healthy one on the way. And we have maintained employment through the economic downturn in the United States. And our families are healthy. And we are incredibly privileged in so many ways. Taking a second to highlight the difficult parts isn't intended to subtract from the gratitude I feel on a daily basis; it's just a chance to say to myself, "Yes, new parenthood is hard; you've chosen to make it even harder; but the benefits of those choices are about to come to fruition--knock on wood. Just be patient."]

Share |