Vancouver, BC: August 2019 - The Lottery

In 2017 my husband and I ran SeaWheeze together. It's Lululemon's half marathon in Vancouver, one of those races that's become as much a festival as a finish line, and he coached me the entire thirteen miles. It was one of the best weekends we'd had.

I got a spot in 2018 and was realistic about it. I had just had a baby. I deferred and told myself 2019 was the year.

I won the lottery again in 2019. One year post baby, one year into all of it, and the race fell on my son's first birthday weekend. He was turning one. I decided on the spot that this was how we were going to do birthdays from now on. A trip. Every year. Somewhere.

I just didn't know how I was going to swing it.

I was back at work by this point and everyone could see it. I was back. Raising my son alone, managing daycare and swim lessons and a full-time job in tech and not dropping anything. I mentioned to a couple of people at work that I had won the lottery and wanted to run but couldn't figure out the logistics of doing it with a one-year-old alone. I said it out loud and then waited to see what happened.

A coworker solved it for me. She hadn't been to Vancouver, she loved kids, she was waiting for grandbabies of her own. She offered to come and watch him while I ran. I said yes before she finished the sentence. Another long weekend, two PTO days at most. No questions asked at work. No balls dropped.

This was the first and only time I brought a stroller on a flight. I checked the UPPAbaby in its stroller bag, broken down at the counter. No car seat since we wouldn't have a car. One checked bag since I was already waiting at the belt. Just a backpack on the plane. He slept in my arms the whole flight. We took the train into the city and checked into the Fairmont, which was the only hotel with rooms left by the time I figured out we were actually going.

SeaWheeze puts on a real show. The expo had vendors and swag and hair braiding and people on stilts and the whole thing, and we did all of it, stroller in tow, my coworker game for every bit of it. We explored Vancouver between expo runs. We took the water taxi to Granville Island, which was his first time on a boat, and bought a squeaky puppet at the market that was completely overpriced and made both of us laugh the second we squeezed it. It still lives in our house. We saw a raptor with a naturalist at the public market and ate fish and chips and he loved it. We drank beers in bed that night and he got blueberries absolutely everywhere. It was a girls trip plus a one-year-old and it was exactly right.

Race morning I got up and went. My coworker took him out for coffee and exploration. How lucky am I.

I ran the whole thing and I was not trying to beat my 2017 time. I was trying to finish. I was trying to be present for every mile of it, the crowds and the performances and the people cheering from their porches, and I was. I crossed the finish line feeling strong and accomplished and deeply in need of a nap.

We napped.

Then we went to the SeaWheeze after-party, which is a concert in Stanley Park the evening of the race and one of the best parts of the whole weekend. We explored the booths and bought cedar and sage smudge sticks and other small treasures. We had drinks, found a patch of grass, and stayed. He went completely wild. House music and open grass and a one-year-old who had just discovered dancing to his dad's type of music, and he danced until nine-thirty and then was flat out asleep by eleven-thirty and the hotel had set up a crib next to the two beds and we all slept beautifully.

We flew home the next day and walked straight into birthday mode. My mom came over. We baked cupcakes. Family came with presents. He turned one surrounded by people who loved him in a house that had made it through the year.

He had been to two countries. I had run the race. We had done the whole first year.

That was enough. It was so much more than enough.

Notes: SeaWheeze lottery opens in the spring, enter early. UPPAbaby checks well in a stroller travel bag. No car needed in Vancouver, the train from the airport drops you downtown. Fairmont books out fast during SeaWheeze weekend, get there early. Granville Island by water taxi, not by foot. The after-party concert in Stanley Park is not optional. Start the birthday trip tradition early. It only gets better.

One important note for anyone traveling internationally with a child as the sole parent: bring your child's birth certificate and a notarized letter of consent from the other parent authorizing travel. You may never be asked for it. You may be asked at the border, at the gate, or not at all. For us, that documentation is a death certificate. Have whatever applies to your situation ready and accessible. Border agents have the authority to ask and occasionally do. It is not worth being turned around at the airport.