Month: January 2019

When I first created this “blog” (never been a big fan of calling it that) we were on our house hunting trip to California. I knew we were moving and I wanted to create a way for our family and friends to keep in touch with us. I told Liz it was “our” blog and she could post whenever she wanted to write. She’s a talented writer and has a good sense of humor so I was hoping she would take me up on it.

Liz works for the federal government so she was impacted by the shutdown. When we heard the news this past Friday that the government would be open on Monday I was working from home. I peeked my head out the window a few times between my 1 million conference calls and saw her sitting on the patio writing furiously on a legal pad. I jokingly texted her asking if she was writing her letter of resignation. Well, two and a half years later she wrote a post! All the words below are hers.

I haven’t worked in 35 days. I haven’t been paid in 25 days. I’ve walked my kids to and from school 15 times. I went to 4 doctors appointments (I haven’t been to any doctor in 2 1/2 years). I went to 3 happy hours with my wife. I went to the library and got books for all my kids, and then actually read every single book with them.

For an entire week I picked up my seven-year-old from school early with a baseball bat and our gloves and we just headed to the park until we lost daylight. I yelled less, way less. I got down on my hands and knees and looked my baby in the eyes when he was having a meltdown, and we figured it out together, no matter how long it took. Because I finally had the time.

I said yes all the time. Yes I’ll play air hockey with you in our pajamas at 7 am. Yes we can go to the skate park after school. Yes I’ll sit down and draw with you. Yes I’ll go get you a different pair of socks because you randomly hate these ones today. Yes I forgot your water bottle but I’ll drop it back off while I’m walking the dogs. Yes I’ll get up with the kids so you can run your conference call at O’ Dark 30. I said yes because I had the time and I didn’t feel like The Man was holding a gun to my head and whispering in my ear “you’ll never make it on time, hurry! You’ll be late!” 

I have a high stress job, one where if I slack or get careless or simply don’t care people’s lives can be affected. I have to work early hours and I have to show up even when my kids have fevers, when my wife is 3000 miles across the country, or when the pipes are frozen  in our rental property. I always have to be there and I have to be there now. But the thing is, this is our normal. This is always how our life has been. And while I understood that our life was stressful on an intellectual level, I don’t think I really understood what it meant and how it took me out of my life. 

It took a full two weeks for me to relax. I was unable to stop myself from bulldozing situations because I believed they had to be done now or we would never get everything accomplished that needed to be that day. Simple things like tying my kids shoes or getting their breakfast together in the morning,both things that I regularly do, became enjoyable. I stopped frantically shoving their shoes on their feet and reminding them that it should have been done 15 minutes ago. I stopped chanting at them “take a bite, take a bite” “We have 5 minutes. 4 minutes. NOW!”  I just did these things as they were needed and finished them when they were finished.

I stopped setting my alarm clock, but rather was awoken by the bony knees and elbows of my five-year-old as he asked us things like “can all birds fly?” And “do fish have noses?” And instead of screaming at him for interrupting my last 15 minutes of sleep, I would laugh out loud at how the kid’s brain literally never turned off. I would allow myself to wake up my hibernating seven-year-old 15 times over the course of an hour until he finally opened his eyes and asked, ever so hopefully, “is it the weekend?” 

His inability to wake up used to drive me insane. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. I was never going to make it to court by 8 AM if he didn’t wake up, brush his teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast,. Now. Now. Now. 

I used to stand outside our son’s daycare waiting for the clock to strike 7:30 AM so I could thrust him into the (loving) arms of our wonderful daycare providers. These past five weeks I took him when it felt right, sometimes that was 8 AM, sometimes that wasn’t until 10 AM. It did not matter,  I had the time to just idly following behind him while his little mind went from screaming “No” to pointing out the squirrels, to hopping on his scooter. I let him just go until he looked up and said “I go see my friends now.” 

I have to go back to work on Monday, and I am dreading it. Besides the fact that work itself is going to be utter chaos, I am dreading the rush, and imposing the rush back onto my kids. The early drop offs at morning care with their bed heads and half eaten bars, then zigzagging in and out of traffic, begging Waze to tell me I’ll make it downtown by 8 AM, and the constant calendar shuffle my wife and I play. All the while trying to figure out who can manage to extricate themselves from their work responsibilities to pick up our three boys before it’s pitch black out. 

It makes me sad, but I’m also hopeful. Hopeful that I’ll hold onto this feeling of letting things go on their natural course. Knowing that my 7-year old will eventually put on his vans, my five-year-old will stop bouncing off the walls enough to finish cereal, and my baby will eventually agree to sit in his car seat. I am hopeful then I won’t bulldoze through every situation with my kids, and I will sit back and enjoy their quirks, enjoy the process, enjoy those little moments. I used to think the little things were worth sacrificing to accomplish the bigger task of the day but I have been missing the best parts. 

I would be remiss in not mentioning how incredibly fortunate I am to have the luxury of even having this experience. I have a spouse who works and could  pay the bills while our lawmakers waged war on one another and held 800,000 people hostage in the process. I had coworkers driving for Uber because landlords don’t take credit cards. And while I am dreading Monday, I am grateful that I have a job that helps support this beautiful family for whom I need to slow down. 

Love, Liz.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m sitting in the Target parking lot with two sleeping kids while Liz shops. She’s buying extremely exciting shit like a trash can, microwave, and picture hanging materials for our new house. Yep, we are moving again. 

We have spent the last few days painfully moving everything we own from one house to the next. This is our 4th move in 11 years. We moved to our first home in Baltimore in 2007, 2013 to Arnold, Maryland, 2016 to California, and this transition…still in California and only 3 houses down from our current one. For the 2 moves prior to this one, one of us was pregnant. Although our last move was across the country it was fairly seamless. My company paid for it so everything was packed, boxed, and moved for us. We got onto an airplane and 10 days later had our stuff. 

This one has been a 2 woman operation. We hired a moving company for 3 hours to move all of our really heavy furniture but everything else has been us. It’s always mind boggling to me how people accumulate so much crap stuff. There are some things that mean a great deal to me. My dad’s oak sideboard, a framed map of Baltimore that Liz gave me when we first started dating, a painting my grandfather gifted me of an old Scottish castle, a map of Bald Head Island and the Frying Pan Shoals, my dad’s old racing helmet, and all the pictures of my family hanging on the walls. The rest of it could perish and I would not care. It’s just stuff and I’ve learned to let go in my old age. Ha. 

If nothing else…moving at the end of the year forces you to reflect on life more than you are already inclined to do at the end of a chapter. Tragedy struck families close to ours more times than I’d like to count. This summer my very good work friend and mentor died a few days after beginning treatment for blood cancer, a friend of my brother’s from back in Maryland was senselessly gunned down working on at a model home. He had a wife and two young kids and it seems the motive was to make money off of his laptop and cell phone. A friend of ours here in California lost her brother on December 20th. He was night surfing and they think he had a heart attack. He left behind two young kids and a wife as well. Even though I was not directly impacted by these deaths the pain of losing my own Dad in December just before Christmas is always just below the surface. My heart aches for these families that will never be the same.

And there have been peaks as well…a little boy in our community who was fighting for his life due to an e-coli related virus turned a corner and was released from the hospital. So many people donated blood or platelets in this boy’s honor that I have to believe that many lives were saved from those donations. Our best friend had her second baby, a little boy named Ryder. They are healthy and I can’t wait to meet him. So life is gut wrenching and beautiful all at once.

In 2018 we had our fair share of trials and tribulations…more health scares from Christian and still no solid answers. We had 2 surgeries between 3 kids in less than an 8 week span. Nothing prepares you for watching your child as he is wheeled away to the surgery table. Liz’s dads health took a turn for the worst. He was diagnosed with PSP (a much more rare and degenerative disease than Parkinson’s) and he is now in a nursing home for Veterans in Pennsylvania. My uncle was diagnosed with cancer. 

I have never been one to say good riddance to a year because it would feel strange to wish away the good that came with the bad. Although this year was close…there was still plenty of good. Christian started walking and running in 2018. He is talking up a storm and getting bigger and stronger every day. Gabe started Kindergarten and is literally crushing it. He’s working hard and is immersed in learning. I’ve always said the kid could cure cancer if we could just channel his energy. McKay is reading and loving first grade. We get compliments from teachers, coaches, and neighbors on what a kind, polite boy he is. It’s still one of the things that makes me most proud as a mom.

Liz got picked to be on a specialized unit on her team at work, which should make 2019 a more fulfilling year for her. I made it through my first year in HR and earned A-list or elite status in just about every travel rewards program I’m signed up for. I’m still debating whether that’s an accomplishment or depressing based on the amount I had to be away from my family to earn these rewards. We took two kick ass vacations…one to Mexico just the 5 of us and one to Bald Head with my sisters in law and their girls. I would kill for more time with them because I’m obsessed with the bond of cousins. 

For 2019 my biggest wish is for health…for my family immediate & extended. I want answers or a cure for Christian’s health conundrum. I wish for less travel for me. I want to be more connected to others and less attached to my phone and social media. I wish for more peace in the world and a less divided country. More love, more tolerance…and so much less hate.

Liz and I want to get out for more dates and get in shape again. McKay and Gabe resolved to learn to play the piano this year and watch lots of movies. Christian resolved to play at the park.

Happy New Year from the Biswolds. Thank you for your love and support this year. We felt it from near and far. Peace out 2018, thanks for the memories!