The 43

On December 9, 2003, my life extraordinarily changed. Michael was born, and nothing was ever the same. I imagine that separating life before children and after is pretty common for people, particularly as the years pass and the kids grow. The run-up to that first child takes on its own little era. Fall 2023 saw Lori and me settling into our new home, watching the Cubs get within five outs of the World Series, playing Gamehouse and PopCap online games (that was just me), welcoming my sister to Salt Lake City for a visit to paint the walls of the baby's bedroom, and readying everything that needed to be ready for a new child. Moreover, the night we went to the hospital, the day of Michael's birth, and the few weeks after through the new year are also rich with memories. I mean, how could they not be? When life changes extraordinarily, you tend to remember things ... What's a blur from this time is the couple weeks right before Dec. 9 (technically, Dec. 8, when we went to th

For the first seven years of Lori's and my relationship, we lived in Wisconsin. For the last 20 years, we've been parents, living in our current house we bought the summer before Michael was born. Two distinct parts of our lives, highlighted by different priorities, explorations, and joys, make up the fabric of who we are. In between those two eras (the second still in progress but the next entailing an empty-ish nest coming up soon) was our time in Utah after we moved here but before we bought the house and became parents. The years of 2000-2003 seem like an insignificant blip, almost an extended vacation. And the further I get away from it, the more mysterious it seems. I wrote about some of the pre-kids time in Utah a few years ago, fondly recalling the things we did for fun on the split schedules we were on. I've been thinking about those years beyond the highlights, instead wondering about the everyday things. What did I eat for breakfast each morning (given I was waki