Ezra and Urbana

Hello, friends!

OK, so when I said that I had two jobs at Urbana, I forgot that I actually had a third one: being Ezra's dad. =0). This was my first year staffing Urbana as a father and boy did I learn a few things.

For all the things that Urbana does well, it really isn't a kid friendly place. Children weren't actually allowed in the America's Center where everything was taking place. I'm guessing it's for safety reasons and I ultimately don't have a problem with it. However, those policies, along with our Urbana jobs, along with Ezra still breastfeeding, made for some very interesting scheduling.

Things started with the hotel situation. The Pan Asian North American Student Lounge (where I was working) was at the Holiday Inn close to the America's Center. The International Student Lounge (where Megan was working) was at the Hyatt, about a half mile from the America's Center. Given that Ezra was going to need to eat regularly, we wanted to stay at the Hyatt for easy access. Of course, we got put in the Holiday Inn. Thankfully, there was another staff in the Hyatt who wanted to switch to the Holiday Inn so we were able to take care of that.

Another huge blessing was that my parents were in town. Actually, my brother and sister came into town too. This year we were supposed to do Christmas with my side of the family in California (my older sister was going to be in Australia visiting relatives her husband's side of the family). However, that would have meant that I would have needed to fly out on Christmas because my Urbana registration job started @ 9am on the 26th. Instead of that silliness, Mama, Papa, Phuzz, and the Kid came to St. Louis to spend Christmas with us and my Aunt Judi's family who lives in St. Louis. Mama and Papa then stayed to watch Ezra during Urbana when we couldn't. Hooray for family!

Schedule-wise, things went like this:
- In the morning, Megan took care of Ezra while I worked, mostly checking in folk who had gotten day passes from us to check out Urbana for a day.
- In the late morning/early afternoon, my parents came to take care of Ezra. 2 of the days Mama just stayed in the hotel and 3 of the days they took him back to Aunt Judi's house.
- In the afternoon, Megan and I worked in our respective lounges while Ezra probably took a lot of selfie's with his cousins.
- In the evening, I would watch Ezra at the hotel room while Meg went with her students to the evening session.

Friends, it worked but it was pretty exhausting. We are so thankful for the logistics working out with the hotel, jobs that were synced up well, and family that was willing to come and help. We're pretty sure we won't do it that way again though. InterVarsity has a nursing exception for mothers with small children. We didn't take it think year because we didn't know how much work it was going to be to coordinate everything. You'd better believe that if we have another little one come Urbana18, Megan will definitely take it. =0).

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

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