My bittersweet week

Life with kids is so bittersweet; you just can’t win.

When I’m in the crest of it, I long for the quiet solitude that is so lacking from my day-to-day routine. There is a scene from the movie Date Night where Tina Fey (playing a busy mother of 2 kids) confesses to her husband that her dream is to be alone in a motel room all by herself with a can of diet sprite.

I laughed; everyone laughed. The idea of that being your sole dream in life is absolutely ludicrous.

But later on that night as we were going to sleep I rolled over and whispered to Rob my confession; I could totally see her point. Substitute a glass of red wine and you had me sold.

So tonight I was confronted with a somewhat more palatable version of Tina Fey’s lunch break of solitude in a motel room. Rob, trying to make the most of his parental leave, packed both kids up and headed to Chatham for the next few days to spend some quality time with his parents and ailing Grandpa. I, as always, packed up early and headed to work.

All day I had a mixed feeling in the bottom of my stomach; a longing for my little girl whom I knew I wouldn’t get to see at the end of the day and a little bit of excitement for the prospect of – wait for it – being able to stay at the office for AS LONG AS I WANTED doing…PAPERWORK.

Don’t get too excited, now. I did still have to be home at a REASONABLE hour to let the dog out. But staying until 5:45 was an absolute treat when I am used to spending the hours from 8-4pm RUSHING AROUND to ensure that I’m able to leave work and get Toby from daycare before the monster in him appears.

My only plan for this evening (other than blissfully unpressured paper-work catch up) was to go for a run with a good friend that I never seem to have enough time to visit with.

NOTHING was going to get in my way of either plan.

But alas, life is never quite so straightforward. As the hour of 5 o’clock came and went and my colleagues all drifted off from the office I had my first epiphany; Paperwork is boring. Doing it fast and in a hurry is kind of the right way to do it. Lingering over it just prolongs the agony.

Later on this evening I had my second epiphany:

NO matter whether you have kids or don’t have kids, running in the rain is no fun. I’m just not that hardcore. And, as testament to true friendship, neither is my friend.

And there you have it. After 3.5 year of longing for an evening to do paperwork and exercise in a leisurely manner, I ended up rushing home to my phone in order to quench my addiction with the sound of my 3 year olds sweet voice before demanding to hear every detail of Mia’s day, sleep schedule and eating pattern.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the house (with the novelty of knowing it’s going to STAY tidy for at LEAST 48 hours. The toys may even COLLECT DUST!!!) before getting BACK on the phone with Rob after he’d put the kids down to debrief the rest of his day.

It was after I hung up the phone, in the midst of extreme silence that I realized a few things about My Life with Kids. Yes, it is nice have more time to do my job. Yes, exercising is a bit of a luxury I never fully appreciated when I had all of the time in the world to do it. And yes, kids add a bit of a hectic flare to life…

But WOW. What a gift it is to come home to 3 year old who is so brimming with love for life that he talks incessantly and wants nothing more than your undivided attention to share his exciting discoveries with. And who cares if I have to wake up before 7am every day when I get to be greeted by the toothless grin of a pudgy 8 month old. And what a treat it is to be able to lie my head down on my pillow each night, exhausted, and be able to share all these thoughts (the good AND the bad ones) with the person I’ve chosen to travel this journey with.

I won’t say that these melodramatic reflections ruined my night of peaceful solitude; it was still rather indulgent and quite enjoyable. Lets just say their return, as it was with their departure, brought yet another wave of mixed emotions but this time weighing more heavily on excitement and tempered with a bit more insight into my own delusions of solitude; I don’t think life gets much better than this…