Coming down the slide on the bouncy castle at the Esquimault Rec Centre. That’s what.

When we moved to Victoria in 2006, owning a home suddenly seemed more achievable, and in February, 2008, the two of us (not yet even a 3 of us) bought our first home. It felt great to finally have my own walls. After chasing the market for so long, I could finally kick back, rest on my laurels and watch my asset appreciate. Soon after that, though, in September, 2008, with our fresh new mortgage 6 payments in, Lehman brothers was bankrupt and the financial crisis was well underway.

Piffle.

It’s turned out we’ve done okay though. Our home hasn’t decreased in value substantially. Doing all of the math, I figure our housing costs haven’t been much more than if we were renting for the past few years. Financially wise, the purchase has pretty much been a wash, at least for the past few years.

So, the 2 of us lived in our 2 bedroom 847 square foot condo until it was the 3 of us. Then, with the good news that another on the way, I worried it wouldn’t be enough space for the 4 of us. The first half of 2011, I tried my best to make a new house purchase happen, but we just couldn’t quite do it. Business wasn’t as good in the second half of that year as in the first, and with the pregnancy underway, a move started to look less and less likely.

Double piffle!

My obsession with real estate started to turn into a neurosis. My mind was constantly trying to fenangle new ways to swing getting a bigger place. As I compulsively checked MLS listings and my bank account balances, I became more and more dissatisfied with our little apartment. There didn’t seem to be a place for anything. Nobody vacuumed. I started to hate the place I lived in. It sounds awful, but it’s true. I felt myself becoming a very bitter man.

I’ve got a pal whose motto is “if at first you don’t succeed, change your definition of success”. I’m not sure if hearing that phrase helped me realize I should do the same, but somewhere around that time, I did.

After some navel gazing, I realized that there is a cumulative and negative effect for the guy who has spent the better part of two decades always hoping to move somewhere else. I’ve termed this self diagnosis “hope fatigue”. It’s good in this free enterprise, dog eat dog world to stay hungry, I suppose, but only to a point.

So, I decided I had to stop it. It started with a cold turkey cessation of my MLS browsing habit. Later, I embraced the fact we’d be living in our condo for at least 6 months. Then I figured on a year, then maybe two, and now it’s indefinite.

I realized I needed to come to terms with what I didn’t like about my house. It’s messy a lot of the time, and it’s packed to the gills with stuff. So, I’m trying to declutter and live tidier.

I’ve received some wonderful support from my brother. (I use the word wonderful for two reasons. First is that it’s an apt word to describe the support, and the brother. Second, he just loves the word, wonderful.)

He flew in to help me put in hard surface flooring in July, 2011. Two whole days of his time, spent on his knees on the concrete firewall subfloor. He says he loves doing it, but I’m in awe anyway. The gift of one’s time is the most generous gift one can give.

In December, 2011, when I was freaking out, thinking about where our new baby would sleep, I was chatting with him online. I needed help, so I asked for it.

Here’s how it went:

me: how about you come out and help me build something like this: http://www.robertogil.com/kids-furniture-beds/new-design-a-crib-under-the-bunk-bed/

Paul: yes.

Paul: when is good for you? perhaps jan or feb

When I asked for help, he replied within seconds. There was absolutely no hesitation at all. Support like that is incredibly meaningful in those moments. That was when I really realized I could do this; I could give myself a break from the hope fatigue; our baby would find a place to sleep on our house and everything would turn out fine.

As it turned out, Julie and I decided a bunk bed wasn’t a great idea right away. It’s probably best for Coop to maintain his bed as his own on the turbulence of change coming his way, and every bunk bed at Ikea has a big sign saying it’s not recommended for kids under 6.

Instead, I used my brother’s help to focus on stuff management issues. Again, in January 2012, my brother flew in and stayed for 2 days, helping me install cabinets from Ikea in our dining room. Here are some photos of the finished result and the process:

See, here’s the thing: I was born and bred with some upper middle class privilege and expectations for the single detached house I’d live in. The fact is we can be comfortable here in our little condo, and on the global scale, we’re in the very lucky 1%.

And now that I’ve come to peace with this being my house, I find myself motivated to keep it clean and tidy. I enjoy improving it, and as I do, instead of looking at it with disdain and dissatisfaction, I instead feel a sense of pride, and can really enjoy living in it.

There is another realization I’ve made through this process. This might seem obvious to some, but it wasn’t to me. If the problem is that my house is too messy and I have to much stuff, the solution probably isn’t to get a more space. Decluttering is an arduous and continuous discipline, and there is never a point when you are done. I now know that if we bought a place with more space to fill, we’d just wind up with a bigger problem when we inevitably filled it.

I used to spend a lot of my time feeling dissatisfied with my house and trying to figure out how and when to move. These days when I see something dissatisfying about my house, instead I make up a new home improvement project to fix it, or start a new bag of stuff to donate to thrift. I still know I’d love to have a bigger place someday. Who wouldn’t? Even though that’s true, I’m feeling much better about my place now, and I know I’m developing better habits that (I hope) will serve me for the remainder of my days.

And so it is now, I see what the cars look like in the streets, and I see the world changing devices (like this one I am typing on), and I try to imagine what it will be like for this child when they’re all grown into adulthood and watching period movies about this time we are all living in.

A year or two before I was born (in 1972) my dad saved up his pennies and bought himself a fancy new electronic gadget – a handheld pocket calculator. At the time it was hard to imagine such technology, I’m sure. When Cooper was born I’d recently acquired an iPhone. What will be in the next generation’s pockets? Will they even have pockets?

Man, a world without pockets. I fear for the future.

It’s a self centered activity, though. It’s all about me as I sit here thumbing this into my iPhone. It’s presumptuous. I’m presuming you give a flying fart what I’m writing here. Actually scratch that; because it’s so about me I don’t give a flying fart for your flying fart.

In related news, the air here in my blog is fresh and clean.

When Coop was born, I found I had a lot more priorities and a shrinking amount of time to do them in. The blog sort of fell by the wayside. Oddly, I think my writing actually picked up. I’ve been writing more, but it’s been for self therapeutic reasons. When too much is swimming around in my brain I get out a pen and a letter size notepad and I just write whatever it is out of there without line breaks or paragraphs. It works wonders. Takes me about 15 minutes first thing in the morning and then I’m a better man for it all day.

I’ve never read anything I’ve written that way. As soon as I finish the last sentence, I tear the sheet up and throw it away. The purpose is served, and I don’t want anything incriminating lying around for others to see.

It’s a pity, because I bet there are some fine blog posts in those torn bits of paper.

But I miss the blogging, I really do. And the process of writing and destroying those sheets of paper has reminds me that writing is good for me.

It was true, by the way. I don’t think you can really understand how life will change when you have kids. If I could go back to a childless me 3 and a half years ago, and try to describe to myself what was coming, I wouldn’t be able to. There really aren’t words.

So, this with this baby, unlike the last, I have previous experience. I’ve done it before, and I think I have a better idea of what it will be like this time around. While I still don’t think I could fully describe to someone what it’s like to go from having no kids to having a kid (to the point they’d really get it, anyway), I do know that this time around there are a few big things I’ll be aware of:

When the kid is born, personal time will vanish.
There will barely be 10 minutes in a day that won’t be applied to parenting, working, or commuting between the two for the first while. That might seem exaggerated, but that really is my perception of how it went for me after Coop was born. (Those 10 minutes though? GOLDEN.)

My life will become less about myself.
When I had no kids, I felt my life was pretty much all about me, and I was right. After Coop was born, it became very apparent I was no longer quite at the center of my universe anymore. I am still a celestial body in it, but off to the side from the middle. With another kiddo, I anticipate I’ll be a bit further off to the side again.

Somehow, those 2 points above will be okay.
Sounds scary as I see it in print, but In fact, it is all is completely worth it by a longshot.

Life changes: it gets easier, less intense, and more fun.
I remember the first week with Coop as one of the best and worst times of my life. The Happiness was euphoric; I felt complete, and more capable of love than I ever would have imagined. I also felt fatigue like I never had before. Because of that, my body felt older, I was irritable, there was strain on my relationship with Julie, and it all made for a pretty tough time. When that’s all happening, you don’t know how long it’s going to last. You wonder if it will always be like this.

It’s not.

With this new arrival, I know it will be tough at first, but then in a few months I will be sleeping more, I’ll get used to the new definition of ‘us’, and I’ll start to feel the relief that comes with a sense of normalcy.

Later, that infant will become a person, complete with personality, and it will be fun to hang out with them (that is, if experience is anything to go by).

It’s a real trip to hold a tiny infant and contemplate your place in the vast universe, and to try to grasp the meaning of all the circumstances that had to culminate to allow you and this precious child to share this moment. It’s a real trip, and a wonderful thing, but it’s also really intense, and not really fun.

Fun is going swimming with a (nearly) 3 year old who has just discovered the joy that is jumping into water, and shows boundless enthusiasm for it with a 20 minute toothy grin that just won’t stop. Fun is being completely absorbed with the game of catch. Swimming and catch: totally fun, and not so intense. Also: that’s what I did this morning with Coop, and it was awesome.

Julie is roughly 14 weeks into this pregnancy and we will be expecting a new baby sometime in May 2012.

So far everything is going along well. Julie’s been tired and nauseated which we’ve been accepting as good news. This is easier news for me to accept as good than Julie.

We told Coop last week and he’s been taking it well. He hasn’t grasped the full profundity of the situation, but slowly it is sinking in. I did lots of Internet research on how to tell him about his new baby sister or brother, but when we told him his only reaction was to ask, “Okay, now can I watch the Backyardigans?”. Fair enough.

With Julie’s recent narcoleptic tendencies and new full time employment, life’s been a little hectic in our world lately. It’s been a crazy time.

I’ve been doing my best to enjoy the slow parts of my day where I can find them. I know that when this kiddo arrives, these days will seem like a pretty easy time in contrast, what with all the sleeping and the conspicuous absence of diapers.

We’re excited and eager to meet the new baby, and I’m pleased to be telling the world the big news!

I wouldn’t call this a site redesign; I am still using the default template that installs with WordPress, but I’m already finding writing a blog entry easier, so hopefully this will be an improvement that will result in more blog writing.

You can still find all the older entries here: http://mikelathrop.com/oldblog.

Lately though, it’s become more contextual. Now when he wants everyone to laugh, he just picks a word at random from whatever conversation is at hand, laughs as hard as possible, and chases it all with a “That’s funny” at the end.

So, today, here’s what I heard from the back seat of the car while driving with the radio on. The program was a panel of pundits talking about the Gaza Strip and the West Bank:

“Palastinians! HAHAHAHAHAhahaha! That’s funny.”

“Situation! HAHAHAHAHAhahaha! That’s funny.”

“Colonization! HAHAHAHAHAhahaha! That’s funny.”

So that makes at least one person who sees the goings-on in that part of the world downright hilarious. Oddly comforting, that.

Recently, shortly after a provincial election, the incumbent BC Liberal party passed a tax called the HST, which restructured sales tax in my province. The net result was an extra 7% on a number of goods and services, with a decrease in hidden taxes elsewhere.

During the BC Liberal party’s campaign, a few months earlier, this plan was not mentioned. When critics of the HST questioned why it was not discussed during the election, the party denied having any plans they’d do this before the election. When evidence came to light that they did indeed have plans to implement the HST before the election, the Premier’s popularity fell to 9%, and he shortly thereafter resigned.

A petition was launched to collect signatures to force a referendum on the HST, and it was successful. So now we’re all given an opportunity to vote: “Are you in favour of extinguishing the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) and reinstating the PST (Provincial Sales Tax) in conjunction with the GST (Goods and Services Tax)?”.

There are a lot of compelling arguments for the HST. It’s simpler, it’s meant to help businesses create jobs, and as a consumption tax it’s harder to evade.

And I feel all the pros and cons of the HST are irrelevant.

What’s relevant is that our government attempted to implement taxation without representation. That’s something that’s inspired revolutions in other countries.

It bothers me that most of the debate I’ve heard about the HST was been on its merit as a tax, and not about how it was legislated. I voted to extinguish it because I don’t want governments thinking that they can implement tax like that again. It’s just not cool.

If you’ll pardon the analogy, let’s say, for example, you were to put a bag over my head and throw me in an airplane, only to dump me out on a warm, sunny Mexican beach. I wouldn’t consider whether or not it was a nice beach. I’d just try to undo what you had done and get myself home, to pursue whatever legal means I had of rectifying the situation later.

And that’s what I did with my “Yes” ballot today, as much as I could anyway.

here’s a link to the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/bigmikestudios/BestOf2010#

In other news, Cooper got better, then I got sick, then I got better, then Julie got sick, then Julie got better. I am VERY glad to be past that plague.

It was our first experience with a sick kid when both of us are working. We worked it out, but a few observations on that experience:

1. “I can’t work because my kid is sick” isn’t an excuse that cuts it in today’s workplace.
2. When your kid is sick, you can’t leave them at daycare.
3. You can’t just tie your kid to a tree, and head on in to the office.
4. Raising children is a necessary factor in the continuing survival of the human species.

Can anyone else out there spot the problem?