A Summer Without Adventure

I didn’t even let COVID stop me, packing the kids into the car and dragging that trailer through all 48 states and up into Canada. We’ve had some epic adventures.

I say this a lot to people. I love travel, talking about travel, planning travel, finding amazing adventures and opportunities for my kids. I love to see their eyes light up when I show them dinosaurs, space shuttles, and sharks. I love the challenge of getting out of my routines and figuring out how to make these adventures happen.

But last summer, we didn’t really travel. We stayed home. Skye went to a variety of local summer camps (which we are lucky to live where there are so many options). River went to his normal preschool. We had weekends where they went camping or canoeing, but mostly, we were home.

Why? Because I had another baby. This pregnancy was rough. I was sick (baby was fine). I was so exhausted that the last minute decision making during the lead up to delivery was way more taxing than it needed to be. Even afterwards, when my energy came back, I was still trying to figure out how to balance life with now three children, many projects (no, I didn’t get much time off, more on that in a moment), and the basic necessities of life. I cut my hair short so showers could be short. I optimized meal prepping so we could eat somewhat healthy even when I was too exhausted to cook (which still is frequent).

Many of my friends and clients asked why I didn’t take much time off (I took off about two weeks, one on either side of the delivery, and had planned to take off even less). The reality of being a freelancer, running your own businesses, is that there is no such thing as maternity leave. Even with Skye, the small business I worked for accommodated me, but didn’t pay me for the time off. This is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed as it makes it that much harder for women to own or even be employed by small business.

That said, I also wish our concept of maternity leave was more flexible. I didn’t really need three months off after the birth. I needed flexible time during my first trimester (and really the whole pregnancy) when I was sick. I needed time to go to appointments and follow-ups. I will need flexibility in the future on the days when school randomly decides there’s a chance for snow and so cancels. And thankfully, my workload has that built in. But that’s not true for everyone.

So sure, the arrival of a third little baby, as happy as can be, was certainly an adventure. Just one that happened without having to go too far. We nested at home as I slowly became more and more sleep deprived, the older kids adjusted to life with a new sister, and Geoff and I just tried to keep up.

I did take one small adventure, driving Skye down for a weekend of mermaid camp. We went slow, rented a house, and I was able to work from there. We did a day at Epcot, Cedar’s first experience riding around in the baby front-pack. She did fine, met a princess, and generally didn’t care.

Now, half a year later, I’m still heavily sleep deprived but starting to see the light at the end, starting to anticipate sleep, taking a little time for self-care, planning some upcoming adventures. Sharing more on Instagram where I can record a quick video rather than type with a baby hand reaching out to try and help.

This is a phase. The last times I’ll be waking to feed a baby in the middle of the night. The last time watching my little boy discover that he loves a brand new baby. I will focus on first laughs and smiles, the first time she pushes up to crawl, and the first time she stands up, holds on to the edge of her crib, and attempts to topple out. I will try very hard to pay attention to this adventure of 3 small children and not focus my attention solely on planning the fun adventures to come.