For me, a native of Long Island, N.Y., vacations to Hawaii used to be all about the sunbathing.

I’d plan my days around prime tanning time, lube up with tanning oil and reposition my body to be perfectly in line with the sun as it streaked across the daytime sky.

Generally speaking, I’d log anywhere from four to six hours a day, much to the chagrin of my wife. Oh, and if you wanted to talk to me during this transformation, well…let’s just say I wasn’t exactly responsive.

This strategy worked wonders: After every trip, my skin was a different color, and relative strangers around town (bank teller, barista, etc.) would comment on how “dark” I got while I was gone.

Naturally, L has changed everything; it took fatherhood to get me off my suntanned ass.

First, because I want to be alive to see her do stuff like graduate high school and have babies of her own, I put on way more sunscreen than I have in the past.

More important, because I’m busy playing in the surf and digging in the sand with her, there’s no time whatsoever to focus on my position to the sun in the sky, and how dark my forearms are getting.

Today, for instance, with L working up the courage to “swim” out to a shallow coral reef, I was up to my waist in seawater for the better part of 90 minutes straight. Yesterday, we were so busy attempting to build a sandcastle near our beach blanket, I don’t think I actually became horizontal at any point in the afternoon.

The irony, of course, is that I’m still getting pretty dark. Apparently, reprioritizing has its benefits. And the baby’s beachfront memories will last longer than any tan.