The Single Life
I've never really been single. M. and I have been together since we were quite wee. Not high school but not long after, so I've basically been in a relationship 41% of my life (yes, I figured it out on the calculator, that modern computer wonder).
Now Finn is here and suddenly M. and I are facing life as singles. We are used to doing everything together and now because we have a boy to care for, it's becoming increasingly easier to have one of us go do things while the other stays home and takes care of Finn. This is especially true for any night time activity. He goes to bed between 6 pm and 7pm, and is usually very crabby starting at 5 pm. This means most parties, gatherings, casual get togethers and dinner engagements will not be something we can participate in. Unless we go solo.
Going solo sucks.
I long for those days of having dinner, then dessert and then coffee; I pine for good friends and good conversations into the wee hours; I miss meeting fabulous people at fabulous parties and hoping you'll find a way to meet again. These things are yet more things added to the ever-growing list of how our lives have been changed through parenting.
At the same time, no matter how much I miss my old life and even if I wish things were different, what we have now is incredibly precious. Tonight I was rocking our son to sleep and he was staring into my eyes and saying "I love you" which sounds a little like "ou", and I kissed his fingers and he suddenly giggled from behind his pacifier. I thought, "silly boy, you need to go to sleep," then proceeded to kiss his fingers again and again just to hear him giggle. It's those moments when I know I would go to the moon and back for this giant-eyed alien creature who has hijacked our lives.
Moral to the tale? I guess it will be the single life for a little longer, and that's okay.
posted by Sacha @ 7:35 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
We haven't had this problem. We always go everywhere together with Riley. If it's going to be a late night, we will bring her pack and play and put her to bed where we are (i.e. a friend's house) but we rarely do that. We usually go home by 8 pm and get her to bed. She usually goes to bed around 8:30 pm so we have a little more time to play with, thankfully.
Can you have someone watch him some time so that you two can go to a party together sans baby? Or do you not want to do that? We are having our first babyless night in a loooooooong time (we've only done it maybe twice in the past 10 months). We're going to a Christmas party and it should be fun. Hard to leave the baby but worth it because we really need a night out.
I know what you mean. There are certain parts of our old life that I really miss sometimes too. It's silly things sometimes, like grocery shopping together. We hardly ever do that together anymore. Kim will take Erik and go while I'm working, or one of us will go in the evening after Erik is in bed. And right now Erik is at an age where he wouldn't do well in a restaurant, so dinners out as a family are, for the most part, on hold for now. We are lucky, though, that both our families live nearby and we can get a babysitter easily, so we do get to go out for dinner or parties, etc. now and then as a couple. And we often bring him with us if we're visiting friends and we bring the Pack n Play in case we end up staying later than expected, so he can still go to bed. Mostly we try to be home by bedtime, though - which is something else that takes getting used to. It's hard to go home early sometimes. But like you said, it's all totally worth it.
I take baby boy everywhere. If it's his bed time I wrap him up in his blanket and tuck him in a safe corner or put him on my back in the ergo. I guess I've just gotten use to taking him along because I don't have a partner to take a turn. Somtimes that means that I end up with no milk in the house because I just did not have the time to get the grocery store, but we manage ok.
-MM
P'ito also goes to bed pretty early so we occasionally exchange with a similarly babyed friend. They come over after he goes to sleep and we go out and check our cell phones constantly/stare deeply into each other's eyes/hang out with friends. It's nice.
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