My wife works at home.
I work in an office.
Her work day officially starts at 6:30, when the first kid gets up.
My work day officially starts at 8:30, when I begin my commute.
Her work day is non-stop. When the kids are napping, there are chores to be done.
My work day offers me a lunch break and sporadic pockets of time in which email can be read.
Her work day officially ends when the last kid has finally fallen asleep.
My work day officially ends when I arrive at home, sometimes just as the last kid has fallen asleep.
After work, she retreats to the computer to check email or Facebook, or sews.
After work, I quickly make dinner and wolf it down.
We connect for about an hour, where we decompress and maybe watch some TV together.
Her energy depleted, she goes to sleep soon after.
I've still got an hour or so left in me to check email, write and read blogs before passing out on the couch.
Tomorrow it will start all over again.
How do you deal with the varied schedules within your home? Do you have to work to carve out time to do all of the things you want? Do you have to sacrifice some things to make others work?
The discussion begins below...
The Boy and the Pine Forest
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One day, his parents drove him several hours outside of the city and the
place that he knew as home. They passed by meadows, farms and forests on
the way t...
17 comments:
Well, I work from home so add my work schedule to ALL that stuff and you have my day. Yeah, it sucks. But I force my husband to come home early some nights so we can have dinner as a family, he can put the kids to bed and the two of us can spend some quality time together. It's not has much as we would like, but we make do.
And then there's the morning sex. It's a good reason to wake up early.
I sit at home bored, lonely, looking for something to do until my teens get home from school and I start driving them all over town until 9pm. Then I supervise their homework until I collapse at 11 or 12. OH, and watch a little tivo'd reality t.v. on breaks.
This is a hard topic. Even with Mariah and I who, at present, are both home durring the day. Still we have many things to do, between helping elderly family members, school volunteering and then the normal groceries, laundry, house cleaning and such.
We do have our connection time starting at about 9PM when we go upstairs(and sometimes in the morning;) like today)
It sucks to have 90% of your time awake swallowed up by seemingly mundane shit.
Yes, our sex suffers. Not the quality but the quantity. We keep at it tho!
I keep thinking that it might be better if WonderWife™ and I weren't so addicted to the internet...but the truth is, if there was no internet, we'd probably be addicted to something else.
Great topic - thankfully my husband works rotating shifts so it changes things on a weekly basis. It's great. I hate some schedules, and I love others. And for myself, days start at 6 and end at 8:45 or so after kids go to bed. Thankfully, we can fit together time in during the day some weeks, and ensure we do it in the evening. We live for everyother weekend, as a blended family, which allows us two days of adult time, with no children what so ever. It's our salvation.
This sounds awfully familiar. I'm home all day with kids and working from home and he's at an office all day usually working (though I do hear a lot about 2 o'clock cookie time... hmm) It's never ending and we pretty much end the night with both of us on our respective computers either working or doing stuff on the net. We no longer have tv just videos but we still don't sit around and chat when we aren't watching them or online. Maybe this is just the way modern couple are these days?
Our schedules are similar to yours, except my husband gets up with our older son at around 7, while I stay in bed til around 8, when younger son wakes up.
Then it's pretty much the same - non-stop chaos from morning to night until we realize it's 10 p.m. and we've barely even said hi to each other.
And I'm so jealous of my husband going to work. The thought of being able to sit quietly at a computer with a cup of coffee, take a whole hour for lunch... I've suggested we reverse rolls but it's a no go.
Also, I'm wondering how the heck Petra manages to wake up for morning sex? That's admirable.
Our schedules are awful - especially with a Spring based business. However, we have to force ourselves to go out. We found several very reliable babysitters (through church) and use them at least once a month. It was cheaper then marriage counseling and takes just as much time! It HAS to be scheduled - or forget about it!
Other then that we sit down to watch a show at 9 and he is out snoring by no later then 9:20 .... ah romance!
we were always on the run with four kids. at one point had them in three different schools. once all three schools had some type of event. i had to have our babysitter go with one of them. while my husband and i each took one to the other schools. plus both of us working outside of the home. i decided at one point to make a date with my husband the minute the oldest hit high school. he thought it was silly. but i made sure we went out and did whatever. did we talk about the kids. sometimes but the more we went out together. the more we connected as a couple. now we have just one left in college. and we still go out on dates. make time to go and reconnect. your children will be better for it.
I'm a teacher, but my day starts when the baby wakes up. All of my pockets of time are stuffed with students needing help with work or life or humor. Then I get home and my husband immediately leaves. He gets home, and maybe if I've found time to make dinner (and if the baby lets me) we eat and get the baby ready for bed. Then we have about 30 minutes until my eyes are rolling back into my head. Saturdays are pretty much reserved for every household chore and my own grading and homework, which always takes last seat these days. Sometimes I want to SCREAM about it all, and usually I end up chastising myself because really, there are so many other people who have it worse. That's what usually keeps me going.
I absolutely HATE schedules and HATE work and HATE having to go to sleep at night because the NEXT day will begin sooner.
I don't do anything... just DEAL!!! :)
Having said that... I'm thankful for what I do have...and that I actually have work and a job to go to, as well as, my husband... And I love to watch and raise my kids! :)
I think it's impossible to do everything in one day and I find it frustrating
We generally have a lot going on, but for the summers we try and tone it down so we have more time to hit beaches & 4x4 or the like. Usually when we want to do stuff together (Mr &I) we stay up late, and when we have things that we want to do as a family we plan it out a month beforehand so we can make sure we have time for it.
Yeah, we usually sacrifice sleep for most everything, :oP
WOW! Great breakdown of how a normal day goes... in my house, except I have to add that as soon as hubby gets home I leave for my job and don't go to bed until all hours of the morning. It's hard to get our "alone" time when we work opposite schedule. We LOVE our weekends together. The bedroom door is often locked and the kids are downstairs playing. Hope they don't hear too much rhythmic squeaking!
This all looks so easy on TV sitcoms, doesn't it?
My husband and I muddled through raising our two kids and doing two full-time jobs. Everyone was ready to pat me on the back for managing to work when my kids were toddlers, but staying home with kids was a lot harder. Raising kids well is a tough job whether both parents are working outside the home or one is staying home. There's always plenty of work to go around.
Same here, we're both on duty all the time. For us it's just a matter of paying attention to whatever small moments we get together. We don't watch a bit of TV, we make each other laugh, we revel in the children.
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