4.18.2009

 

Shifting expectations

Since Anilia is about to have her baby and Kent is about to get another cousin, I've been pondering the ways that life changes for people who have kids. In the space of just a couple of days, a person goes from having relatively little responsibility and getting to sleep generally as much as s/he wants (at least on the weekends/holidays), to the exact opposite of that. No control over the sleep situation, and more responsibility than s/he could ever have imagined.

I was just thinking about how, before Kent, my Saturday mornings consisted of sleeping until 9 or 10, eating breakfast with Jack, and then drinking coffee and watching the Food Network for an hour or two while he mowed the yard and trimmed branches and did all of that other outside stuff he does. We'd laze around all day, occasionally running some errands but mostly watching TV and/or movies, folding a bit of laundry, and catching up on email and blogging. We didn't do much housework, because it didn't matter if our house was cluttered for a while, and then we'd go through a bout of cleaning once things got really desperate.

This morning, we were up at 6, totally typical for our house these days. We finished breakfast by 7:30, and I've already done a load of laundry and started the dishwasher. Now I'm trying to decide whether we should get dressed and head to the farmers market when it opens at 8, or wait a little while and fold laundry first. I'm still drinking my coffee (Hallelujah!), but there will be no sitting in front of the TV all day or being "leisurely," at least not in the pre-Kent sense of the word.

Yet, our days are filled with more laughter, smiles, fun challenges, silly songs, enlightening teachable moments, and snuggles than ever before. No matter how tired I feel, I'd never go back to how things used to be. And hey, our house is cleaner than before we had a child. That's not something you hear every day.

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Comments:

Congrats (in advance) to Anilia and John!

I love your description of pre-Kent weekends because those are our weekends, too. It's nice to feel extra thankful for them when you describe it like that, so we really embrace the luxury rather than taking it for granted. I'm sure we'll enjoy post-kid weekends once it is time, but for now we're unabashedly enjoying this time as kid-less Aunt Lauren & Uncle Steve! :-)
 
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