I'm a little sleepy, but I've been wanting to write a post about something for quite a while now. Here goes.
Our lives are busy, you know; I'm working on my Ph.D. in computer science, and I have a lot of deadlines. However, we have been hugely blessed to have people who care for Rowan and do such an amazing job; Yolanda kept him two days per week until her second baby arrived, and Erin has kept him two days per week for more than a year now. She'll be having their second baby soon and Rowan will be making a transition to half-day preschool at a Spanish immersion school within walking distance of our house. Well, that's just a little background, but it isn't what I wanted to say.
What I wanted to say is that I don't know anybody in the world that has a better life than I do. Take for instance the past week. My mom was here, visiting from Georgia and keeping Rowan last week. She has done this for one week out of every month since he was born, so that I could catch up during that week (thereby making up for only working two "regular" days per week for the rest of the month). Don't even get me started on how ridiculously amazing it is that my (quite busy and popular mom, I might note) would drop her normal life for a week out of every month for two and a half years (and still counting) so that I could finish this education I'm passionate about, and so that I could have such amazing quality time with Rowan during the first few years of his life. Also don't get me started on how generous my dad and sister are with regard to Mom's sacrifice; it has passed on plenty of sacrifice to them too.
Mom left Saturday morning, and shortly after that Uncle Tim arrived to play in the snow with Rowan and Tom. I was still working very long hours on a paper submission, but I did run outside and snap a few pictures, which you can enjoy as pictures of the day. I also put a snorkel and scuba mask on a snowman, the first snowman I've ever touched in person! Ha. Well, I sat inside all day and worked, upstairs in the loft with earplugs in so that I could hear a little bit of what the boys were up to, but I wouldn't be too distracted. There was a fire in the fireplace all day, snow outside, and do you know what I was doing? I was working. But I was happy.
I was happy because I was doing work that I love. I love it because I'm pretty sure it's what my brain was made to do. And I love it because it can make the world a better place. And, I love it because I wasn't sure I could do it, but I definitely, definitely can.
A few days later after I had stayed up 'til 2am getting the paper submitted (its deadline was midnight Pacific time; you do the math), I woke up at 7:30 in the morning to find a just-waking Rowan next to me in the bed. I think he had gotten up at 6 but Tom felt so bad for me that he brought Rowan straight in to snuggle me in hopes that he would go back to sleep, and I was thrilled to find that he did. That day, we had such an amazing time. We went shopping and ate a pretzel. We watched some snowboarding and some curling on the winter Olympics. We turned off the hockey because it was a bad influence. (Rowan has developed quite a pushing, shoving mean streak, especially with Ander, so anything that encourages that is strictly off limits for now.)
I went from writing up cutting-edge computational linguistics research one day to shopping for "big boy underwear" with rockets on them, and singing "Zippety-doo-dah" the next day. Of course, I guess I make that kind of transition many times per day most days, and it is absolutely what I hoped for when I learned that we were going to have a baby in the first place.
Another thing I hoped for was a that Tom would turn out to be the kind of dad who was hands-on and unafraid. I thought it would be true, but I wasn't sure. He is, though, and even more than I realized he could be. When I worked all day Saturday and Sunday, Tom took care of everything -- Rowan's bath, meals, naps, potty, all of our laundry and dishes, and many of those things he does on a regular basis even when I'm not working hard on a deadline. I'm not sure I would have believed all of this without seeing it. But it's what I hoped for.
Actually, all of this is exactly what I hoped for, plus more.