1. There is nothing like the birth of a child!  We are blessed to have a healthy baby girl, Tess Gertie Nanka. Getting to spend the first three weeks of her life together as a family has meant everything to me. See pictures of our adventures with Tess (so far) here on Instagram

2. I have gained a huge appreciation for how hard moms work!  I appreciate my partner, Blake, more than ever. She is an amazing mother and a resilient and inspiring human being. I’ll work very hard to tell her that.

3. You can integrate your child into many things.  I start most mornings with meditation. But now, my morning meditation comes second to Tess’s morning feed. I am learning to be more flexible and even try and incorporate some after-feeding quiet time with Tess into my meditation practice. I don’t always win, but I try.

4. Exercise has been important to me and will always be important. As sleepless nights and responsibilities prevail, I made it a priority to get at least 20 minutes of exercise per day. Take care of yourself first.

5. Baby time doesn’t have to mean mindless time. I read a lot with my time off. Two books, in particular, kept me busy: Unscaled by Hermant Taneja (Book and Audio Book) and The AirBnB Story by Leigh Gallagher (Book and Audio Book). Read the first if you want to fully understand the consumer and life applications for Artificial Intelligence and read the second if you want to hear the untold story about how three guys just trying to make rent, created the billion dollar company we know today.

6. My to-do list has shifted from quantity to quality. I have become more realistic about the number of things I am able to get done in a day. My time is now more valuable because Tess is in it. I’m treating it as such. To that point, I am going to reduce my commitment to the blog in the summer to three times per week, while I focus more time on Tess, family and other projects. More to come on those.

Thanks for the support these past few weeks. It’s great to be back.

Colin