I Can Hear That Whistle Blowin'

Today is the last day of my paternity leave. Before Ivan was born, I was joking with Dinka that it would be great to be on vacation, to be at home all day with nothing to do (like she has all the time—ha!), although I knew full well that that would not be the case. As it turns out, it was kind of a vacation and one of the best I've had. When you're on vacation, you do things you can't do during the work year, right? Well, spending that kind of time with my family is not something that I can do while I'm working. I'm sure that when kids reach a certain age it doesn't work as well but if I had five weeks of vacation like certain Europeans, I would be happy to regularly spend a week or two of it at home like I just did.

When I started thinking about returning, I realized that the thing I will miss most is my time with Veronika. This probably sounds strange, since I took the time off to spend with Ivan and help out with everything Ivan-related, but as it turns out (and this is something that I had forgotten in the last two and a half years), the first few weeks of a baby's life are a frustrating time for a father. Newborns—and Ivan in particular—do two things: eat and sleep, and they are very much intertwined. This doesn't leave much room for a father to help out or spend much quality (i.e. awake) time with the baby, despite his best intentions. In the first few days, I mostly found myself trying to distract him and kill time while waiting for Dinka to arrive or wake up or whatever. The situation has improved in the last few days but only to point where he'll stare at my goofy faces for a bit with a perplexed expression (not unlike when he's studying the pattern on the couch) before deciding that it's time to eat again.

So where does that leave me, where can I be of most assistance? With Veronika. In the eleven days since we returned from the birth center, I've spent almost every waking minute of the day with her. And how has it been? Better than I ever could have imagined. She is at such a terrific age (two and a half) for doing things, so articulate and imaginative and engrossed in everything she enjoys, that after spending a long stretch of time with her, I often felt that we could go on like that forever, just her and me. When the time would end or be interrupted, it would even sadden me that it wasn't just her and me, that so many other things existed that kept us apart.

Part of what was so great about hanging out with her was that I could make her every wish come true, which is really an amazing way to spend time with a child. Every night before bed, I would ask her what she wanted to do the next day. Her response was always some subset of the following: blow bubbles, watch Thomas/Baby Songs/Mary Poppins, go to the park, ride the bike, go swimming, take a bath. We could do all of that and then some in a day, and often did. Whenever I needed to add something to our schedule, it was always met with enthusiasm. Want to go to Target? YEAH! Can you help me unload the dishwasher/set the table? OK!

So that is how my days off went. Veronika and I are just the best of friends and I wish I didn't ever have to spend one minute away from her. And I'm sure that pretty soon it will be the same with Ivan and I'll feel the same heartbreak when leaving him every morning. I can only hope that one day they'll understand why I always had to go.