Night and Day

One of the things they don't tell you about kids, or that you hear but don't actually register, is that kids aren't their own alternate universe, just a degree of difficulty applied to your universe. Like taking a basic dive most anyone can do and applying a triple twist

Most of the practical stuff doesn't change a whole lot- cooking, cleaning, etc. There's just more of it to do, and it becomes less optional. Don't feel like getting up at the crack of dawn to make breakfast? Oh well! Want to put off going to the store for basics until tomorrow? Oh well! You can do without for a few hours, but your child can't. If you skip doing laundry for a few days the pile starts taking over the room. If you don't shovel the toys out of the living room, likewise.

But where it really hits you is leisure time activities.
Which you no longer have.
Anything you do, anywhere you go with your child is about them.

Even when you arrange to slip away for a few hours, their shadow haunts you.

Complete breaks like last night, with the Wife escaping to a big 80's music review (Bow Wow Wow, English Beat, Berlin, The Fixx), are cosmic events, an eclipse or comet breaking the otherwise reliable monotony of the distant heavens.

I watched Fuss (and, for a few hours, Cousin Fiend) while the gals went out to find adventure.
The report is that the Beat and Bow Wow Wow both killed, and the venue was tremendously crowded with middle aged folk looking to freak the fuck out. A grand success, in other words.

She got home late, didn't sleep very well and woke up early, beset by the frisky Fuss who cares not what you did the night before. But as she noted, "this is more sleep that I got when he was a baby!" Which is true.

I made pancakes (or as Fuss dubbed them CanPakes) & coffee and tried to get her story, with no help from a three year old who's used to my undivided morning attention yelling "DADA, STOP TALKING! DADA, LOOK AT ME!" on a loop.


So I got the Cliff's Notes, whatever bits I missed should be forthcoming this evening after he's safely abed. Assuming she's not just passed out on the couch when I arrive home from work...