The beginning of this year I made a commitment to write at least once a week . For those few people counting, that has clearly not happened. While I don’t like to make excuses, I think I have some really good ones that certainly trump blogging in my internal scale of importance. The tl;dr is that life got in the way and I’m totally OK with it.
First off, my wife is pregnant! This will be our second kiddo and we’re both excited and a little freaked out. We have clearer expectations than with our first kid, but at the same time, that also means we remember how hard it was that first year or so. When you add in a 4 year old that needs a lot of attention alongside a serious lack of sleep, the result is a wild ride. Thankfully our kiddo is excited about a new baby brother. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
The other big news is that we bought a new house! This was probably the worst time to try to make a move. We’ve been casually looking for a while now, but pretty consistently we’d shelve the search as it seemed like it wasn’t a great time. We couldn’t find a good house or felt that the market was a little too hot. HGTV doesn’t help in this regard because you start looking as if you have The Property Brothers or Chip and Joanna around to help you with a major remodel, when in reality, that fixer upper is more than you can handle. In any case, we found a great compromise. It needed a little work (which is almost done!) and we’ll be looking to move in pretty soon. We’ve been getting our current home ready to sell as our new home has been getting some finishing touches.
We also had scheduled some big trips prior to buying the house. My wife and I went to Hawaii and had a great time celebrating our 20 year anniversary a little early. We knew we weren’t taking any European vacations with a 4 year old and a 2 month old! It was a really relaxing time. My one pro-tip is to not get a red eye flying home. I didn’t sleep on the plane on the return trip, which effectively canceled out the extra sleep I managed to get while we were on the island. Oh well!
There is other less exciting news as well. Some folks may know that my Dad has Alzheimer’s. His condition has been going down hill pretty quickly, so much so that he is likely going to be put in a home. While I haven’t had to deal with the brunt of this battle like my sister and Mom, I know it is an extremely hard decision after a lot of hard times. I think it is likely for the best though. Knowing my Dad, he would not have wanted this burden on anyone. Even amidst the gibberish sentences he says, I sometimes wonder if part of his frustration is his emotional response to the fact my Mom is so overwhelmed. He often tries to talk about how some situation with the people is not good. One thing about my Dad is that any sort of broken relationship puts a huge toll on him. It would eat at him until it was resolved. So, when he talks about these situations, I can only imagine how much pain he is in. I’m hoping that in a home, where my Mom doesn’t feel overwhelmed, my Dad can find a little peace that his wife isn’t miserable.
On the bright side, I do hope that getting this help for my Mom allows her to spend more time with my own kiddos. She has said how she feels bad that she hasn’t been able to be around very much. Even when we do visit, she can’t really dive into being a Grandma because she still very much needs to be taking care of my Dad. With that burden gone, my hope is my kids will get to know their Grammie better.
That is about it! In all honesty, I probably could have forced myself to make time for writing over these last few months. The truth is, there isn’t much bang for the buck. I have other things to do that have more impact in my daily life, so those are the things I’ve been doing. I’m sure when I get moved in and things settle down, I’ll try to write a bit more. Until then though, I’m just too busy and that is OK by me.