After more than a dozen solid years teaching social studies, as well as a number of other subjects here and there, at the junior high and high school level, my wife, for the first time, turned her back on the school year well prior to graduation, and we don't know when she'll go back. As of 5:00 p.m. this evening, she's officially on maternity leave, in theory, resting up until the big day when our twins are scheduled to launch in early beta.Our home is by no means ready. We're still in the process of converting our odds & ends/junk room/guest room into something resembling a place for our kids to stay. For the most part, this has consisted of us carting box after box to Public Storage, and becoming ever more generous to Good Will. In the meantime, we've had good friends and colleagues donate clothes, diapers and all manner of toys for the as of yet unseen youngsters.
In the next few weeks, we still need to move out some furniture, bring in a crib, dresser, changing table, and rocker with matching ottoman. Some of these things have already been ordered from Babies R Us or Amazon. Others, we'll get from friends. But as the days go by, and my wife gets a tad bigger and a tad more fatigued, this is getting more and more real. After five years as a married couple, offering shelter to only ourselves and a cantankerous old beagle, who refuses to step down from her post, we're going have to learn how to go from two to four overnight, and how to take one income and make it do more than what our two once did.
We're absolutely looking forward to this challenge. I can't say I'm ready. I don't know that anybody I've ever met says they were 100% ready to transition from being without kids to with kids. I believe I have a great chance at being very prepared, and with patience, I just might be an adequate parent. My wife should be excellent as well, but we didn't exactly set ourselves up to have a trial run, going from no dependents to two immediately.
In the last few months, after revealing our big secret, the chorus has been overwhelming, as a good number of parents have said, often with smirks on their faces, that "life as you know it will end". It's been predicted that activity here on the blog will slow or altogether disappear. My priorities will be turned completely upside down. And... don't I know it! As much as I want to display bravado, and plan for a minimum level of disruption, inwardly, we're realistic. We know we're looking into the light ahead, and it just might be an oncoming train.
This coming Monday, I'll be the only one going back to work. And the week after that. And after that... and so on for a while. We've already agreed as a family that my wife will take the upcoming school year off, and depending how well-behaved our kids are, or how well we're doing financially, or if she's bored out of her mind, who knows what will come next... but I'll do my best to keep you posted, as best as we can. Because, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'll do all I can to keep the blog a priority, sleep be darned. We don't know when the twins will come, but the doctors are saying it could be mid-June to early July. Watch this space.