How Did I Get Here?

How did I get here?
It's a funny question. Generally it's  a rhetorical question asked by a middle aged man when he finds himself fat and working 50 hours a week at a job he hates and not driving a Corvette. Things are not going to plan.
I've also asked the question in a very literal sense upon driving into Menominee, Michigan when heading from Houghton, Michigan to Alaska. Menominee is South, and East, of Houghton. Alaska is neither of those directions. I'm still not sure how that happened. We did get is sorted out though.
I do sometimes sit back and wonder how in a period of a year and a half I went from being a dashing college student graduating with two Bachelors degrees, one in a hard science, one an engineering degree, a rock climbing instructor, a dirty hippie and an all around laid back guy, to warming up breast milk to feed my newborn while my wife was off at work. Not only was I there, but I was really, really happy to be there. So happy in fact that I thought it was a great idea to do it three more times!
How did that happen?
Maybe I'm just wired for it. I did ask for, and receive, a Cabbage Patch doll when I was 8. I forget his name but he was awesome. He had a camouflage shirt. We went for trips to the woods. I didn't stay attached to him for quite as long as my sisters did to their dolls but it's probably pretty telling that my young mind wanted a doll and a BB gun at the same time in it's development and I didn't see any contradiction with that. Thanks Mom and Dad for being pretty liberal with that sort of thing. I had a great childhood although I sucked at team sports due to some physical defect that made it difficult not only to catch or throw a ball, but also to run. I was horribly uncoordinated on all limbs. I could sit still though, and with enough practice I could shoot a gun or a bow with some measure of skill so I managed to kill and eat quite a lot of really adorable tasty things that live in the woods. I wasn't manly like the typical jock, I was manly like a caveman.
I found my groove in college. Academics were hard but fantastic. I found rock climbing and a group of people that climbed and skied and were really easy to get along with. I discovered the joys of undergraduate research and how learning outside of class with a supportive professor can really change what college is. I also discovered love. A couple of times. The last time was in Electromagnetic Geophysics, considered the most romantic of all the geophysics classes by many. It helped my odds that of the four people in the class I wasn't married, socially inept and exceptionally hairy, or a girl. I was the normal guy and that made it easy to strike up a conversation with the girl and eventually have to make a decision. If I head to Houston with this wonderful woman will I be able to get into graduate school later if things go pear shaped? Or, if I head off to graduate school, will I ever be able to replace someone so wonderful? I decided that there were probably more graduate schools available to me than women quite like the one I was in love with, so I decided to head to Houston and work.
Heading to Houston was an ok idea. Working wasn't. It was a combination of my choice of job, the unique managers and co-workers that I found myself trying to work with, and my concept of repetitive paid mental labor. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind work. I've been working for pay in one form or another since I was a 12 year-old picking peppers to buy a football helmet for my not very successful year of playing football. Some kinds of work I really like. For a while anyway. Most work becomes a chore after about 3 months and I don't want to do it anymore. This doesn't really make me special, lots of people feel like this. It's just that the work that I was qualified for I really really didn't want to do.
A little issue with an ovarian cyst got us talking about the possibility of reduced fertility and brought out into the open that we both really did want to have kids right now. We sort of both knew that but hadn't had a good reason say it explicitly. We both also decided that one of us should stay at home. It was easy and natural for me to volunteer and for her to very thankfully accept. She loves work. Loves loves loves it. I love naps. Love love love them. The decision to have babies with each other led to a marriage proposal which is sort of backwards, but again, we both just sort of knew it was right. Romantically enough, we were married at a drive through wedding chapel while traveling back from California. We figured that since we were there, it made sense. Two engineers marrying is pretty convenient. The day after our wedding we got a plus on the pregnancy test. Yes, even though we got married in a drive through chapel in Las Vegas, I swear we found out we were going to have a baby the next day. That really makes the whole thing very proper. Almost Victorian age proper. Really.  
I think I waited until the 4th month to put in my 5 month notice at work. I was very excited to quit. My last day of work was a Friday. My daughter was born on Tuesday. The company had some sort of HR guilt thing going and continued to pay me for 6 weeks of paternity leave. I think they were trying to show how awesome they were. I really appreciated it, but there was no way I was coming back. I loved my daughter. I loved holding her and feeding her and napping with her. Even with the challenges of staying at home with kids I've never felt like quitting and getting another job.
That's how I got here, and I think I'm in the right place.