It’s the last hour of 2024. I have a terrible memory, so I will undoubtedly forget basically everything that happened this year. Let me capture this moment before it passes. But I should also mention… I was also a little reluctant to write this. Looking back at this year, I feel like I did shockingly, embarrassingly little. I usually want to have a lot of stuff to brag about, but I don’t feel like I’ve done much accomplishing this year.

This was my first full year of unemployment. I left Airbnb in September of 2023 with the goal of taking at least a year off, and the stretch goal of taking off until Hazel could start preschool (which is coming up pretty soon). At first, I said I was taking a break or a sabbatical, but now I refer to myself as a stay-at-home dad, because that sounds more accurate for how I spend my time (and how little personal time I feel I have). I almost went back to work several months ago (around September), but ended up deciding against it. Instead, we went the other way and Suzi threw herself more into professional ambitions while I took more responsibility with the kids.

If you have had young kids, I hope you can empathize with me how the season of parenting could take up a lot of time and energy. The first couple months are just “keep the baby alive”, but after that, it shifts to “keep them stimulated mentally”. At least to me and my parenting philosophy (or foibles, or boundary-less shortcomings), the kids can take limitless energy, and I want to give them as much energy as I can.

It’s become more and more rewarding and gratifying as of the last several months. Hazel’s language has really taken off. She jokes and sings songs and references books and repeats the things we say. She can follow instructions and throw away her own trash, and she can stick the shapes through their respective holes. She has her own Bun bun stuffed animal and blanket and loves following her sister around and copying her. She is still very much attached to Suzi, but if we get out of the house, she’s usually keen for adventure.. We frequented the Woodland Park Zoo, Pacific Science Center, Museum of Flight, and Seattle Aquarium. We also ran our first race together, though Hazel was not all that enthused by it!

As for Nora, we ended the chapter at her Montessori school of 3 years and started going to a new private school in Queen Anne. Honestly, the whole school admissions process developed throughout the first 3 months of the year and was something I thought about every day. I’m glad we got into the school, and I do think it’s the right school for Nora to be able to flourish, but it has been a big transition to leave her old school and start a new one. (It would have definitely been a big transition no matter what school we went to.)

Nora’s still doing gymnastics; she started piano lessons in January and got to be a flower girl for my friend Cody’s wedding! She was Glinda for Halloween. She had a very well attended pottery painting birthday party at Emerald City Fired Arts (26 of her friends came!). In the upcoming year, she’s excited to start both ice skating and swimming lessons. Her reading, writing, math, drawing, and bike riding have all improved greatly this past year, and she even started puzzling. She still does a lot of crafts and creates a lot of dioramas; her Lego building has slowed down a bit.

Suzi and I started taking coaching/counseling from someone who led a marriage/parenting seminar for our church a couple of years ago. That has been very helpful for us in being able to talk through things with fresh perspective and see each other in a new light. It has helped surface ways that we can become healthier at an individual level instead of suppressing our desires/opinions/emotions and feeling like we need to agree on everything for the sake of unity.

We traveled to Tulsa twice, but otherwise, didn’t do any other traveling as a family! Individually, I went to Austin for a weekend for my friend Cody’s bachelor party - I had a lot of fun eating BBQ, hanging out in the pool in the backyard, smashing a car, and going to my first comedy show.

We had lots of Taco Tuesdays and Family Fridays, and we hosted a lot of families, couples, and individuals for each. That sort of rhythm for our season of life was absolutely amazing as we enjoyed deep friendship. It may not ever look the same as this past year as commitments and schedules change, but it really was especially sweet, and we’ll work to preserve something like it.

At church, I continued to play keyboard for the worship team at roughly once a month. Our family was consistently part of a small group of young families that met 2-3 times a month to eat together, support each other, pray for each other, worship God together, and have some sort of teaching/training. We had one or two “retreats” as well - booking a cabin in Cle Elum for a weekend and hanging out with 5 or 6 families. I tried to help out with the church’s outreach ministry by starting up a partnership with World Relief to serve refugees being relocated to Seattle, but there were several stops and starts and that wasn’t quite able to get off the ground. We recruited for and hosted a training seminar with some 30 people, and got several volunteers further trained and approved, but some things fell through and changed and we weren’t able to get involved as we would’ve liked.

On a personal level, if I wasn’t spending time with the kids, I ended up reading a bunch of books at coffeeshops, kept up my running, and still did a little bit of leisure programming. I read at least these 6 books - The Intentional Father, Welcoming the Stranger, Jesus and John Wayne, The Love Prescription, Deeper by Dane Ortlund, and Small Groups with Purpose. (I also read about half of Second Mountain but eventually abandoned it.) (If you’re looking for a theme among all of these books, I don’t think there is a meaningful one.) I mostly went to Caffe Vita Seward Park and got my beans at Onda Origins. I ran just under 460 miles, but perhaps more importantly, was able to run without a lot of knee pain (the longest run I did all year was 8 or 9 miles, did only the 1 race with Hazel in a stroller, training was pretty inconsistent). I developed an iOS app called Words Behind Me that I neglected to do any marketing or promotion for, so it’s in a pretty sad state, and Boba Life is still up and running. I’m using Cursor as my AI coding assistant and am still having fun with the React/React Native/TypeScript/Node stack (though now I’m embracing SQLite way more than Postgres). Oh, and we also finally bought a new car - a Rivian SUV.

One final thing that I haven’t spoken much about is that my dad passed away in November. It was unexpected and quick. Over the last several years, I didn’t have many memories with him at all, but I am thankful that we took a last minute trip to Tulsa in August and I actually did get to spend some time with him, the most contact I had with him for around 20 years. Our relationship was complicated and processing his passing was complicated. The first 2-3 days, I couldn’t do much of anything. I couldn’t really feel anything or stop to gather my thoughts, but I also couldn’t just lie down and go to sleep. In the aftermath, it was good to have the family together, to have some raw conversations in parking lots and around the dinner table, tell stories, and just busy ourselves with the kids or the housework. I can’t say that my life has changed dramatically - I didn’t have some renewed conviction or epiphany or anything.

I haven’t made real resolutions for several years now, but there are some things I’m repeatedly coming back to - running, music, and posture. My hope is to make progress in each - to follow a half marathon training plan, to take jazz piano lessons (enough to hold a mini-concert, perhaps), and to just have better posture. I might return to work this year, or I might not - I think it’ll depend on what opportunities are out there, but I’m not exactly stressing about finding work. This’ll be a big year in that Hazel will start preschool. And besides Tulsa, I hope we’ll be able to take a trip or two in the summer.