I know all of this is normal for being a parent, first time or not, and it's a shame that it has to be this uphill battle for so long since having a family is such a blessing. How is it that I (and I think many mothers) barely get any time to myself? My husband still gets a decent amount, and he's not a lazy or uninvolved dad. In fact, he's one of the most involved dad's I know by a long shot! It's just the way things fall with our schedules.
He's often off during the week, so I'm at work and our daughter is at daycare; therefore, he gets entire days to himself. He's not necessarily playing video games or wasting time; most of the time he's taking care of chores or running errands, but it is easier to do any of those things when you're on your own. I'm off every other Friday/Saturday and every Sunday. When I'm off, our daughter is also home so whether it's doing chores, paying bills, or running errands, everything is more complicated because of diaper changes and feeding and needing attention.
An example is today. Husband went to work early to help out with a project, so from about 7 AM till about 9 PM, I have taken a 30 minute nap with our daughter; done two loads of laundry; baked lasagna not from a box; gone to the grocery; gone to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get some things off our registry; laid out driftwood and cap and can pieces for sculptures that need to be made by August 1; put away most of our daughter's laundry; bathed our daughter; picked up a folding table from a friend for the market August 1; fed our daughter multiple times - feeding her a bottle with one hand right now and just fed her oatmeal a few minutes before (she holds her bottle sometimes, but not always); changed her diaper several times, two of which were poops; put a bag of baby items together to bring to a consignment shop sometime this week; cleaned up oatmeal from the dining area since our baby thinks it's fun to wear her food and also believes that everyone and everything else should, too. I also washed dishes, nearly filled the dishwasher, and cleared some counter space off in the kitchen. I still need to bathe myself, get my lunch ready for work tomorrow, and put some of my laundry away so I can actually sleep in our bed.
The upside to all this insanity is that I get to spend time with our baby girl - see and hear and make her laugh, watch her achieve her milestones, like holding her bottle, trying to sit up on her own, and waiving; hear all her shrills and shrieks and other sounds she likes to make; watch her interact with her toys; show her off when we run errands; tell her how much I love her; and kiss her and put her to bed every night. Her daddy doesn't get to do all that nearly as often, especially putting her to bed at night.
This isn't newborn hard - nothing is as tough as that was! - but this isn't easy. I've even toyed with the idea of working part time just so we could eat dinner at a semi-normal time instead of 9 PM or later many nights, and to have more time to work with our daughter's physical achievements like tummy time, working toward crawling, and introducing more solid foods. When she's at daycare, I could run errands, finish the several art projects I have laying around, actually finish reading a book, make phone calls that I usually have to make on my lunch breaks.
See, my lunch break isn't mine either. At the beginning, I'd go visit her at daycare because I missed her. I still miss her, but she's getting to the point that she knows if I'm not there. Then I had to go to give her her inhaler for a couple of weeks. Now I have to get gas, call doctors and or insurance companies or make other business hour phone calls that I can't make when I get off work because everything of that nature closes at 4:30 or 5.
I've just put her to bed, which she and I are both very happy about, but my husband just walked in the door and again, any chance of "me time" is squashed. Thankfully, he needed a shower so I can at least finish this post before starting to do things once again - serve dinner, talk about our day, be affectionate, and superficially ignore the fact that our love life isn't wonderful because we are tired or stressed. It's no wonder I can't lose these last twenty pounds, am fighting a sinus infection, and feel just as unrested as any other day after a weekend. By the way, we can't afford me to work part time so full time it is. Ah, the life of a parent. Yet, I still can't close the door on the idea of possibly having another child one day. We'll see, though....right now, we're definitely good with just one!
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