I’ve been messing around in home automation the last few months. It happened because someone broke into our garage, stole two bikes, and rummaged through just about everything else. So I got some cameras, security equipment, new locks, etc. but that’s not really what this post is about…

School is closed today, so I took the boys to the zoo. We tried to have lunch at a local restaurant, but because my 3 year old decided he absolutely had to sit on the side of the table with his brother rather than his dad, and was determined to start screaming and crawling under the table until that happened, we left the restaurant after sitting down for less than 2 min.

So after a tiring morning and a frustrating lunch, I was putting the boys in their bedrooms for some quiet time when Henry, my 6 year old, asked if he could read to George. Watching him work super hard to read to his brother brought me so much joy. Seeing how proud he was of himself. Oh, and the bonus is that all I had to do was sit back and take pictures.

And that’s the best kind of home automation.

Apologies for the blur, they both started squirming a bunch when I got out the camera.

Having children has caused me to think a lot more about happiness. Lots of folks quote studies that claim parents are less happy than childless people. I don’t really care to debate that. I guess the Atlantic did, but there are a lot of words there, so I didn’t read it.

I recently listened to the TED radio hour on happiness and it reminded me about a bunch of things that I could use being reminded about daily. Here were my takeaways.

“Slow down” Carl Honore

More specifically, he said something to the effect of “I found myself arguing with my child about what words were actually in his bedtime story because I was trying to skip parts to accelerate the bedtime routine.” I found myself in this exact circumstance about a month ago. Stepping up to two kids is hard. It’s natural to look for ways to cut corners, but I stopped, because what’s the point? Save time reading him bedtime stories just so that I can speed more quickly to him being in college?

“Less stuff = more happy” Graham Hill

I actually started to catch wind of this over a year ago. It was about the time we were starting to think seriously about a second child. We also started to think about a larger house. Instead of getting a larger house, we got rid of 1/3rd of our stuff. It was a great decision. I still need to work on not buying the stuff in the first place though. 😦

“Gratefulness => Happiness, not the other way around.” David Stendl-Rast

I first learned this when I visited my sister in her village in the middle of Niger. I met the most amazing people there. They had so little, little education, little opportunity, little water, little food. But they had community and family, which were basically the same thing there. And they were grateful for it. And they were some of the happiest people I’ve met.

“Happiness comes with practice” Nate Muller

So with all that I’m working everyday to achieve happiness and more importantly, imprint it on my boys. I do my best to slow down, minimize my stuff, and be grateful for what I have.

An update

Speaking of grateful, I never posted about bringing George home from the NICU. Well, we brought him home after a short 3.5 week stay, and yes, I’m grateful for it. Not bringing him home, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to be in the NICU. I know how lucky I am to have not one, but two beautiful, healthy boys, thanks to the University of Washington NICU team. Last weekend, we took them for George’s first run in a double stroller. It’s just a simple run around the lake, but I can’t even describe how grateful I was in so many ways in that moment.

George’s first run

It happened again. Just when I felt like everything was going so smoothly. Days after a routine checkup. So familiar, but surprisingly different.

Saturday afternoon, I was enjoying the weather, geeking out watching competitive gaming. The tournament concluded at 6:30pm and that same moment, Kate called me to tell me she felt like she was in labor. I rushed home with some help from my friend, Phil. Kate’s parents rushed over to watch Henry. By 8PM, we were discussing c-sections with the doctor because we were looking down the barrel of a 33-week preterm breech delivery.

By 12:26am on Sunday, George Philip Muller was unceremoniously tugged out of Kate’s belly. In 6 short hours, we went from “everything looks great” to c-section to NICU.

My sister, Adelle, told me something like this years ago, I’m reminded of it almost every day since our first trip to the NICU. “Being a parent is a leap of faith. You make the decision to do it, you watch how the dice fall, and you go with it.”

I couldn’t be happier with our decision to roll the dice.

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