I have spent more time with Lucas, my third son, during his first year of life, then I did for my first two sons.
Ollie was born in May, which means that my paternity leave was used a little bit at the end of the year and mostly the next fall. This meant that including summer break, I had about four and half months (add together my leave and summer break) in that first year when I was home with him. Ethan, my second son, was born in October, which made my leave go into Thanksgiving Break, which was really nice. The timing was different but I still got four and a half months of time to spend with my second precious one.
Lucas was born in December, which meant I had a really long winter break, and then Covid-19 closed my school on March 13th. When I was home during March, April, and June, I was not fully on paternity leave. I was working, but I was working from home. If you take out my commute, which at its worst can be two hours total on one day, and being able to do work at different times of the day (e.g. late at night). In some ways it felt like I was on leave. Instead of having four and half months when I was home, seeing him every day, waking up to his smile, and being able to be present, I will have had about seven and half months at home with him.
This has been wonderful. I have seen more of his growth, had more time to cuddle him, and more time to bond with him during this special time in his life. Even though this time was fraught with stress, and there were two other boys who required my attention, I got the one thing I wish I had more of with my other sons during their first year, time.
No positive experience, no unintended benefit, and no amount of time with Lucas made the bad part of the pandemic “worth it.” This isn’t a glass half empty/half full thing. This is an acknowledgement of something great that happened in a time of great trauma and tragedy. We can and should do this to know and feel the blessings in our lives without using the good to justify the bad, or to bring meaning to tragedy.
There have been many wonderful things that happened in my family’s life during this pandemic. We watched all of the Star Wars movies together, we’ve shared many wonderful meals. All of the boys have made great accomplishments, and I feel closer to Diana than I have ever felt in my entire life.
This is one of the challenges of this time that we live in. How do we feel all of these things? I regularly feel deep sadness, and anger. I cried yesterday while watching a man describe his husband who recently died from Covid-19. trump refuses to take a break from doing awful things, which engenders great anger from me.
Every I day I feel great joy playing with Lucas’ curls in his hair. I look forward to Ethan’s incredible silliness every day, and I experience incredible pride watching Ollie explore the world. Because of all that is happening in the world, all of the pain and the trauma, I need to make sure to feel these positive things deeper. I need to make something of my time, and in the joy I am bringing love to my children.
I don’t know what kind of world my sons will inherit, but I hope that that I can empower them to create a world of love for other, like they have experienced at home.
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