From time to time, I like to check-in on what daily life is like. Yeah, it’s mundane, but it helps me remember what I was like at any given moment.
- 5 am: Alarm Clock Goes off. Hit snooze bar.
- 5:09am: Alarm Clock Goes off. Hit snooze bar
- 5:18am: Alarm Clock Goes off, wakes 6 week old infant. Wife hits me. I turn off alarm clock and get up
- 5:30->6: Wash dishes from night before, read RSS feeds on Google Reader, listen to podcasts on iPod (particular favs: “Things you missed in History class”, “FLOSS weekly”, and “Wait, wait…don’t tell me”.)
- 6: wake-up Joey for school, walk him to the bathroom.
- 6:15: go back to bathroom to rouse comatose Joey
- 6:30: Shower, shave, yada yada yada
- 7:15: Leave to take Joey to school
- 7:45: Pick up Del for carpool
- 8:15: Arrive at work
- 8:30->10:30: Most productive time of the day
- 10:30: first SCRUM standup of the day. Dysfunctional, slightly dramatic team. Lots of contempt. Good product, though.
- 11: second SCRUM standup of the day.
- 11:30->1: Intend to get lunch. Usually hack on code problems identified during morning standup meetings
- 1->5: Program on my bread-and butter project. Ah, heaven!
- 5:15: Leave for home
- 6ish: Arrive at home, take screaming infant from wife
- 6->6:30: Converse with wife while she prepares dinner
- 6:30->7:30: Family dinner. Yes, we actually sit down to dinner most nights, and I LOVE IT. My wife’s an awesome cook, and I’m an awesome consumer of her cooking.
- 7:30->8:30: Bath time for Maria, get Joey into bed. Grace usually has a feeding right around this time.
- 8:30->10:30: Adult time, usually spent staring comatose @ television thinking we really ought to go to bed, because the baby will be up for a feeding soon.
- 10:30->11:30: Last feeding of the ‘day’ for Grace
- 3:30->4:30am: Give Grace her nightly bottle, if it’s my turn (Whitney and I alternate.)
So, it’s a busy, structured day almost every day. Back when I first got married, the above would’ve driven me mad. I hate/hated repetition and routine, and the daily grind got to me often. Two infants drive that sort of hubris right out of you, apparently. Nowadays, I yearn for those nights where I can get 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Analyzing the above, it sucks in several areas: No exercise, no bible study/prayer time, and no real unstructured time for my older children. Basically, Whitney and I are 100% involved setting-up Grace’s routine right now, and there’s precious little time for our other two. I do expect it to stabilize, but it’s clear that the equilibrium we had with 2 kids just can’t exist with 3, especially as the older 2 get involved in activities.
Despite the above, I feel like my little family is very tight-knit and supportive of one another. Joey’s very protective of his sisters, in particular. Whitney and I do a good job of accepting spousal influence, and just offering to help without being manipulative of meddlesome. We hear one another now; back in the first year or two, it seemed all we did was talk at one another.
If you can’t tell, I’m finally liking this marriage business. I don’t feel like a caged animal 95% of the time. That’s a big change.