I feel that this post may be a long one so fair warning!
With two weeks left until I return to work after four months on parental leave, I figure I should document my thoughts surrounding my parental leave during the spring/summer of the year 2020 considering everyone under the sun will be asking “Well, how was it?” I also feel that it’s always good to document this type of thing for future generations. If Sierra or Ezra or any other future children that I don’t know about are wondering how my parental leave was, read on!
What I was thinking about when I was approaching parental leave
My original plans were shaping up nicely. I was going to go on parental leave in April which is the start of the fiscal year at work. All projects were neatly finished up or passed along to more competent folk than I. Everything was in its place.
In the month approaching parental leave I had visions of hanging out with Ezra and getting to know him a little better. It was still winter but I had visions of visiting a different brewpub each Wednesday of the week. We were going to find a different park to try out every couple of days. We were going to learn different skills like passing a ball across the floor and how to hold a bottle up with our own two hands (he witnessed me doing this quite a bit on my own during parental leave). We were going to take off to Kapuskasing for at least two weeks and heck, while we’re at it, why not head down to Gaspe at the same time? He was going to take two hour naps in the morning and the afternoons where I would work diligently at finishing up recording some music that has been sitting in unfinished forms for the past decade. If the muse hit, I would write songs each day. Daycare was still an ongoing activity for Sierra so we would drop her off each morning and walk around Vars to get some exercise in.
A month before parental leave and I can already see how amazing it would be!
It was going to be a glorious four months of bonding and learning what it takes to ‘parent’. I already knew what parenting was…we already had Sierra under our belts. This was going to be a different beast but not impossible.
The impossible happens
Enter: Covid19 pandemic. Aye aye aye. What a gong show. As I type this I’m still in the thick of it. No live concerts. Still haven’t seen half of my friends yet and it’s August next week. Things are opening up more than they were in the beginning but still, the spectre of a virus still lingers on.
It was getting bad enough that I decided to work from home in mid-March. I packed up some things from the office and bid adieu to my colleagues as I had no idea when I could drop by to a pub with Ezra to see them again. When I left I knocked on my director’s door and jokingly said “See you in August?” thinking I would definitely see her before that.
The day I start working from home we get the word that everyone will be working from home. Ok. Things are getting a little scary around these parts.
Bam. Daycare shuts its doors permanently for Sierra. People are stockpiling toilet paper. I’m trying to figure out how much beer and pepperettes I currently have in the house. I have to hand it to Vero, she was a trooper during these times and went out to stores and stocked up the garage with essentials.
Vero, every time.
Bam. My parental leaves starts a few weeks later and my day has morphed into taking care of a four year old along with an 8 month old.
One of the first days on the job and I forget to actually strap him in. Note the lack of straps on top! Good thing I didn’t bend over too much and thank the Lord for his giant snowsuit holding him in!
A typical morning for us. Have breakfast, rush out and rush back so Ezra can have a nap at 9;30am. It was pretty brutal getting them dressed and running out to give them 15 minutes outside and return.
I doubled down and thought “Ok, what do I need to do to be the greatest parent ever?” Activities! Every morning I would bring these two outside after breakfast but then have to return quickly for a nap. Then I would think of something to do with Sierra. Then before you know it I would have to think of what to do for lunch. The days went by fast with this schedule.
This routine only lasted two weeks.
My only reprieve was that nap time around 2Pm but I can’t even remember if Sierra was taking naps at that point of it we had transitioned her to quiet time then. Either way, it gave me an hour. Gone were the thoughts of making music, watching a tv show, or doing something I wanted to do. Here were the days of just taking a nap along with them to regain my energy!
I still tell my friends that my first month was a real shock to the system. Gone were my ideas of travelling around with one kid and having fun. Now I’m stuck with two kids and one of them had a real stubborn streak to them not unlike any other four year old! I felt (and still feel) that 90% of my attention is now devoted to Sierra and Ezra is an afterthought. More of a “hey, I’m keeping an eye on him so he doesn’t lose a hand, but other than that, I have other things to deal with here!”
The first month was Hell, would the second one be the same?
I’m not entirely sure what changed my attitude come the second month but it was a complete opposite direction for me. I felt elated (not gassy!) and I was the happiest any human could be.
Perhaps it was seeing this Guy Smiley every day?
Perhaps it was seeing these two interact each day for all hours on end instead of maybe 30 minutes if Sierra went to daycare every day?
Perhaps it was because Spring was in the air?
Perhaps it’s because I finally got some spicy eggplant for my sandwiches?
Whatever it was, I was a changed man. I didn’t care if I didn’t get any personal time. My time was 100% devoted to my kids, my wife, and trying to maintain the chaos in my house. I tip my hat to my good friend Holly who I drew inspiration from. I can only imagine she had moments like these raising three kids for five years. Maybe I’m completely wrong and she was hanging on by a thread every day.
The last two months
I felt that the last few months balanced out a bit. I wasn’t riding a high of being with my kids and spending time with them on the back porch all the time. It was still amazing and I still cherish the moments I have with them. I had more time to do simple things for myself like return phone calls to friends. Claude still was surprised to hear my voice after me telling him I would call back the next day (that was two months ago). I started finishing some books that were on my nightstand for years. I even started a new book called The Stand by Stephen King. It was new to me at least. Who knew it was about a pandemic? I had no idea. I’m only a few hundred pages into it so a lot more to go. I started watching movies more and more. I started watching special features of movies. I can tell you a lot about the first Hobbit film.
Getting some inspiration to write music again
I tried my best during all of this to find activities to do with Ezra and Sierra during the mornings. I mentioned how when we started out I tried to take Sierra and Ezra out on activities in the morning before Ezra’s nap. That crashed and burned after two weeks on the job and I convinced Vero to take care of Sierra during the mornings. She could take care of breakfast and have her watch TV until Ezra took a nap. That was definitely the modus operandi of the first couple of months.
But after awhile I started seeing Sierra sneaking into my routine again. I would prepare her some Cheerios if I had the time. I would let her watch TV upstairs instead of watching Your Morning on CJOH. She was starting to become part of the morning team of Ezra and Dad. As I type this, a typical day consists of getting up with Ezra, giving him 8 ounces of formula while watching the news (unless Sierra is up and then we watch something on Disney+). Ezra and Sierra then get fed and we figure out what activity we want to do before Ezra’s nap. He’s old enough now that I don’t need to get him back around 9:30am. I can push it to 10:30am without any major repercussions and we’ve also pushed it to 11am a few times and there’s nothing earth-shatteringly different about our schedule. I have searched out good forest areas to explore.
Searching for dinosaurs, crocodiles and bird houses was our adventures in Tweed conservation area
Du Moulin park, while small, offered up some great view of the Ottawa River
Barnett Park was a quick favourite as it got our feet into the river. We didn’t end up here a lot but we were happy when we found a spot of our own to have a snack.
There was one area that I fell in love with so much that I had to bring Eric and Mike one Thursday evening so we could have a beer while sitting in the river. As of July 28, 2020 as I type this, I have deemed this to be the night of the summer. Ezra, Vero and Sierra love this spot as well.
After our morning activity Ezra will go down for a nap and Sierra and I will find a small relaxing activity to do. If it’s sunny outside that may be learning new words. If it’s rainy or really hot outside, it will be playing a computer game.
Lunch comes and goes and then we either play in the living room for awhile or go for a bike ride. Ezra’s nap comes along with Sierra’s quiet time and I either have a nap which I don’t really need anymore (I suppose I have gotten used to the chaos which is two kids?) or read a book.
After quiet time Sierra and I have a snack and wait until Ezra wakes up and generally Maman is off of work during that time which gives me time to make supper while she plays with the kids.
That’s a typical day, of course!
What did I not enjoy?
It was ridiculous how much stress could come from making lunch and supper every day. I don’t know if it was the thought of making something extraordinary or not, but I would say this was the major headache of each day. But let’s be honest, I’m living a pretty good life if that’s the worst part of my day!
Ugh…suppertime.
I do have to admit that I didn’t get to spend the time I wanted with Ezra. Even when I found myself alone with him from time to time, I was either exhausted or there were bottles to be washed or activities to plan for Sierra who I knew would be coming every two minutes to demand our attention. Can’t blame her…a kid living within a pandemic needs something other than TV to entertain them. Wait, is that true? I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure if I armed her with a TV and an iPad for three months she would be happy!
You might think this is an adorable picture, but she constantly stole my hat and ice cream. COME ON!
I didn’t enjoy being a man taking care of kids full time. You get no sympathy from anyone. It was a very strange experience. I would talk about some of the hangups to various people and most people would offer up a response like “Well, women have had to do that forever and I shouldn’t complain!” or something like that. I realized early on that I should just shut up when trying to express how frustrating my day could be taking care of two kids.
I tip my hat to my pal Ben who was a stay at home dad (SAHD) for many years on his own and he also told me tales of weird things that would happen to him while taking care of his kids. My favourite story was being at a public library and his kid needed changing but the kid’s changing table was in the women’s washroom and they told him he couldn’t go in there so he said “Well, can you find someone who can change my kid’s diaper for me then?” I could be mixing up the finer details of this story but I do remember laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
I didn’t enjoy how sometimes I would feel that I didn’t accomplish much personally. If all I accomplished during the day was make my kids laugh, keep them fed and unhurt, and not have the house burn down, is that an accomplishment?
What did I enjoy?
To respond to the question above, I would say yes. I did accomplish a lot while on parental leave. While I didn’t come up with amazing activities each and every day, I did try my best to get the kids out and do an outdoor adventure each morning. Whenever it was windy we would try and fly a kite. If it was rainy, we would play pretend we were the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs (this morphed into a daily fun activity for awhile). When the days were 40+ degrees we would jump in the best pool that $15 could buy.
Mom taught me how to fly a kite
I would spend time with Sierra learning new words and looking at videos on YouTube about apples and acrobats and any other word with the letter A. We finished King’s Quest together which was a big moment for me. I taught her how to use a mouse on Mixed Up Mother Goose.
Ezra can now roll a ball pretty well across the floor. He has managed to stand up on his own quite a bit and is almost ready to walk. He is always after my beer or glass of wine.
They play together quite well (although Sierra can be pretty rough on him!). They are learning to be a brother and a sister. That wouldn’t happen as easy if they only had evenings and weekends together.
Parental leave has been great. If I won the Lotto Max tomorrow I wouldn’t say that my life would be much different than this and that’s pretty awesome.
Of course, I can’t end this without mentioning the other parent in this equation. Let’s be honest, the pandemic has actually been quite nice to me (I say this now while giving my deepest, deepest condolences to all those who had a hard time during the pandemic), it allowed Vero to stay at home with us while she worked.
A common sight after 4PM hit. Vero taking the kids off of my hands.
Let’s be honest here, being on parental leave when you know another parent is in the other room if you REALLY NEED THEM is a pretty easy job. I didn’t have to rig up any elaborate hoist mechanisms to hold the baby while I took a shower. I just asked Vero if I could take a shower while she took care of the kids.
After lunch, Vero would give me a break for a bit before she returned to work.
After work, she would take the kids off of my hands so I could do whatever I wanted to do (typically this consisted of preparing some supper in silence which was awesome, downloading some new bootlegs that I stumbled across during the day or listening to Rebel Force Radio (best podcast ever)).
“Whatchoo lookin at?”
After supper she would give the kids a bath so I could relax.
I suppose what I’m trying to say here that if Vero was a piece of music, she would be the part in Mind Flood by the Sam Roberts Band after the song slows down and then explodes with the energy of a hundred typhoons…she’s the one that gives me the most energy and keeps me going each day! THANK YOU!
She’s also the one who puts up with the hair that I haven’t cut in seven months.
Short version elevator pitch of this entire post: Before parental leave if someone would have asked if I would like to take care of my kids during a summer I would have said no. Put them in day camps.
After parental leave, I have completely changed my opinion and if I had the opportunity to do so in the future, I would do it every time.
It’s been a parental leave ride and I encourage anyone to take time with their kids whenever they can!