(My first guest writer is Brian, my husband.  I thought it would be good therapy for both of us if he were to write something on my blog.  He agreed and here is his first ever appearance on I Should Be Folding Laundry.  Let’s give him a warm welcome!  (Both he and I will be reading the comments as they come through, so feel free to leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you.)  Brian is my first guest writer of many – I can’t wait for you to read all of my guest writers throughout the next week or so, I am so excited!)

As Beth described earlier, it did take a quite a bit of persuading to get me to
write something on her blog. But hey, pizza is a magical food. So here I am.  I
must admit it is intimidating to have such a large audience and the pressure to
come up with something profound is weighing heavily. Beth says not to worry
about it and to enjoy the pizza. 

As you are most likely aware, Beth
is having guest bloggers this week since we are moving. This also happens to be
the only week that I am home out of a 5 week span where I am traveling for work
for 2 weeks at a time.  I just got back from the first 2 week trip.  This was
the longest I had ever been away from the kids and the longest I’d been away
from Beth since before we were married. We were extremely busy during the day
which made time fly, but the nights were rough.  I never realized how much I
took for granted being able to put the kids to bed every night and read them
stories.  I really missed Beth and it was hard to hear her be so sad and not be
able to do anything about it.  Not that I could do much about it if I were home,
but I would certainly feel less helpless if I were sitting next to her.   

As
most of you have figured out, most men are fixers.  If you tell me something
that is wrong, I will most likely respond with a way to make it better.  If I
can’t figure out a way to fix it, I will then resort to finding a silver lining
in the situation.  You know, the "yes, you wrecked your car but at least no one
was hurt and you really wanted a new car anyway."   However, in the situation
with James and Jake there is no fixing and no silver lining.  Which makes me
feel pretty useless.  There is no comparison to the connection a mother has with
her unborn children. As a father, you love those children inside her belly with
all your heart and soul, but it still doesn’t touch how much their mother loves
them.  For me, watching the pain the Beth has gone through during these past 4
months has been every bit as difficult as actually losing the twins.  I
understand why it is so difficult for her that I am going on these trips,
because she knows I wouldn’t be going if she were still pregnant, not to mention
the chaos of starting a new business and moving into a new house.

I truly wish
that I did not need to go on these trips but I feel that some excellent
opportunities will arise from them. And it all comes back to the work / life
balance.  I don’t want to be one of those guys that is constantly on the road
and never gets to see his family or someone that might be home a lot but is
constantly working and completely disconnected to what is going on with his wife
and kids.  Its funny how that sort of stuff can sneak up on you without even
realizing it.  You want to provide for your family, so you go above and beyond
at work, which only leads to more work — then your manager quits and you have
to start all over proving yourself to the new management and so it goes..  its
easy to completely immerse yourself in work (especially when you like what you
do) — its not so easy to put the brakes on and take a step back and ask
yourself  why you are doing it and assess if the trade-offs are actually worth
it.  It didn’t use to be this hard. 

When we were little (that’s what Beth and I
call our early 20s) I had the best job ever.  I had no production
responsibilities (that means that if a computer broke, I would never be
called).  I worked a normal 8 hr day, had amazing benefits a great boss and
rarely worked late and pretty much never worked when I was home.  Beth also had
a full time job so we just enjoyed ourselves when had time together doing things
like eating mac and cheese and lots of crescent rolls.  I think we appreciated
how easy things were, but not to the extent we should have. I remember how sad
Beth was when I when on my first business trip, it was for all of two nights
down in Houston.  I bought her a TV for the bedroom to keep her company.  It was
our first time apart since we had been married and it was a really big deal. I 
traveled two other times in the 6 yrs between the first trip and my current job.
In the past two years I have traveled 6 times for my current job. Talk about
backwards, at a time when my kids could most benefit from my influence and my
wife needs the most support.  But then again, we are moving into a new house.
So there you go, a catch 22.

I know this is something I will be struggling with for the
majority of my professional career, but I hope that I will be able to keep
things in balance. As GI Joe says.. knowing is half the battle.  Before I go, I
do want to thank EVERYONE who has been so supportive of Beth while we have been
dealing with the lose of James and Jake. Even the simpliest gesture of leaving a
supportive comment have meant the world to her and we are forever grateful to
you.

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