There are traditionally two big draws luring expatriate Winnipeggers home: reasonable real estate values and a cost of living that affords the chance for one parent to stay at home with the kids.

Million-dollar homes are a rarity in the Manitoba capital and 3,000-square-foot properties routinely sell for less than $500,000. After living in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary or Ottawa, house prices in Winnipeg seem almost too good to be true. In many cases, those moving back home are married, planning or about to have children, and are nowhere near their peak earning years.

These reasons played a role in the decision by my wife, Megan, and me to leave Toronto and return to Winnipeg almost 11 years ago. There was also the fact that I was offered a reporting position at the Winnipeg Free Press, the newspaper I delivered as a boy.

In Toronto, some of our friends who were starting families were grappling with how soon the moms would go back to work or strategizing about when to get on daycare waiting lists. Megan, a teacher by trade, wanted to give our children the kind of attention that only a stay-at-home parent can provide. So, we informed our landlord we no longer needed our one-and-a-half bedroom basement apartment.

For the next nine years, our plan worked very well. She stayed home, ran the household and we raised two kids that are widely liked — even by people who aren’t our relatives.

But Megan decided last year that it was time to re-enter the workforce. After substitute teaching for several months, she was offered a first-grade classroom at Strathcona Elementary School. While I was secretly looking forward to finding ways of spending her paycheques — after all, my salary had been “ours” for 11 years, why wouldn’t the sharing continue? — I completely underestimated the impact her return to work would have on our daughter, Mia, almost 11, and our son, Alex, almost 8. And I wasn’t even in the ballpark when it came to the changes I had to make.

With Megan gone by 7:30 a.m., it is my job to rouse our kids out of bed, tell them the weather forecast so they can dress appropriately, feed them breakfast, make sure their backpacks and lunches are packed, remind them to brush their teeth and hair, sign off on homework and walk them to school.

That’s a lot, considering that previously I hadn’t done much more than pour my own cereal and read the Free Press cover to cover, complaining if my story didn’t receive the play I thought it richly deserved. Sure, I’d help out with the occasional thing, but Megan was always the quarterback. Now, the backup is being thrown into the fray in the first quarter.

Once these jobs are done, it’s a lot more fun. The walks to school are the best part because it’s 10 minutes of stimulating — and often hilarious — conversation about who’s doing what in class, who likes who and who is, like, really annoying.

“Don’t worry,” Alex recently assured me. “I’m single.” Good to know.

When I get home at the end of the day, Megan is often exhausted from having 27 six-year-olds pulling at her sleeve, leaving me to help, at least, with making dinner. (If she’s not paying attention, I’ve been known to call our pizza friend down at the end of the street.)

We’re grateful to Winnipeg for the slower pace of life that has afforded us the chance to give our kids the love and attention we feel they deserve, all without breaking the bank. Now that we’re both doing the nine-to-five grind, we empathize with those who have had to do it all along. We’re dropping the ball pretty much daily while we learn to reset the roles of our household.

We’ll get the hang of it eventually. But, just in case, anybody know a good nanny? IE