22 Weeks

Today is my last day at work before 5 months off. 22 weeks of parental leave stretches out before me. 22 weeks.

Part of the reason I started this blog was because of those 22 weeks, and not wanting them to slip by without me using them. Understand what I did with all the time.

I absolutely love this blog post called The Tail End which gives a sobering view on how long you’ve got left to spend time with the people you love. Well, what a wonderful opportunity 22 weeks of parental leave is. Not just to “spend a day” with my children where “spending a day” means seeing them for a frantic hour or two before school, and a frantic hour or so after work and before bed.

But a whole day.

Closing Up

Finishing up at work before a long time off is weird - I’ve done it plenty of times before (thanks to some very generous parental leave policies that have given me 6 months off for my other two children as well), and I’ve always found that it was hard to ‘wind down’ and I found it better to ramp up to the event.

To “lean in” (to borrow somebody else’s parlance) and remind people that you’re useful and care. It’s hard to do that while simultaneously ensuring that you’re not becoming a blocker on any project. No point in signing up for 2 weeks work if I’m leaving today.

A New Start

There are so many things that I’ve been putting off till parental leave. We’ll sort out the baby’s sleep. We’ll sort out the house. We’ll tidy. We’ll redecorate. We’ll sort out my wife’s career. We’ll travel. We’ll reorganise our finances.

There are lots of things we could do with this parental leave. Here’s to the hope - the hope that we’ll achieve lots of these things! What I don’t want to do is feel pressured. If I spend the next 22 weeks bonding with my 6 month old…well, in the long-run, I’m pretty sure I won’t regret that.