dianaschnuth

We hate the art museum.

No, let me rephrase that: We’ve done the art museum, and we’re no longer interested in doing it again. Not unless there’s a new exhibit that we’d like to see; even then, we’ll just go see that and leave without touring the rest of the museum again.

It’s not that we don’t think it’s a good museum. It is. But we’re just not art museum people, any more than we’re poetry slam people or wine tasting people.

If there’s not a good movie out, our default choice of date night shenanigans is usually dinner, then thrifting, and coffee after the thrift stores close.

This happens almost every time: I say, “I’ll try to find something else for us to do,” then I scour the local calendars and find a bunch of stuff we are so not into. Art shows and exhibitions. Theatre performances. Fancy dinner parties. Concerts that run way too late. And there is NO FREAKING WAY I’m going to Rocky Horror Picture Show during Halloween (or maybe ever again — I’m too old for that shit).

One month, we went on a group date night with two other couples: dinner and gaming. That was fun, and we’d like to do it again, but it’s not something we want to do every month. Other things that were different and fun were hitting garage sales at the Old West End Festival and going to see The Amazing Johnathan wrap up his final comedy tour. We’ve done furniture shopping a couple of times, too, but that only qualifies as fun because a) we don’t have to wrangle Connor, and b) new stuff!

But there’s not always a festival to attend, and the weather isn’t always nice enough for outdoor activities (I would not be opposed to a putt-putt date night).

We have time we can spend together, in the evening, away from home. Why is this so hard?

It’s hard, I’m realizing, because our time together before Connor used to be Saturday afternoons. Stores were open, yard sales were in full swing, we could go take a walk, we could drive to Ann Arbor. Or we could stay home, play games, watch TV, get frisky, maybe order out. We’d usually go out for dinner, though; after that, depending on the season and how much daylight we had left, we were usually on our way home to chill for the evening.

We’re not Saturday night partiers. I think that’s where we’re getting stuck.

It happens almost every night.

I put Connor to bed. As I’m closing his door, I look across the hall to our bedroom and see the time glowing in blue numerals from our alarm clocks.

Damn. I wanted to have him in bed a half hour ago. Time got away from us again. 

Oh, well. I head downstairs and load the rest of the dinner dishes into the dishwasher, just waiting to hear the sound of Connor’s door opening, followed by his little voice asking me to cover him up.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t happen tonight; it’s about 50/50 lately whether he’ll get up again after I tuck him in.

Still, though, I like to be within earshot until I’m sure he’s totally zonked out. So, after the kitchen is as cleaned up as I’m going to get it tonight, I head into the living room to fart around on my phone for a while. I listen to him kick the wall, sing to himself, and finally subside into silence.

Time to work on that to-do list, right?

Nope, says my brain.

So I try to find something else to occupy my remaining brain cells so I don’t go up to bed before 9:30 like some sort of lamer. One can only play around on one’s phone for so long, though, before one realizes that this is just dumb and just go up to bed already.

Of course, there’s that one last thing to do — put recyclables away, or pack my lunch, or gather up today’s stinky workout clothes — so I never get up to bed early, anyway.

Tomorrow’s another day. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve never been a punctual person when it comes to mornings. Unless there’s something out-of-the-ordinary happening that day, my brain just doesn’t register the urgency of the morning alarm. It’s not until I really have to pee or my brain is finally awake enough to realize OH SHIT I REALLY NEED TO GET UP NOW that I finally throw the covers back and pry myself up out of bed.

I lay out my clothes the night before, always. Otherwise, I’d wake up Aaron by turning on the light, and I’d take even longer to get ready, besides.

On non-daycare days (aka Daddy Days), my schedule already looks like:

• getting myself ready: 15-30 minutes, depending on whether I shower (every other day).
• getting Connor up and changing his diaper: 10-15 minutes.
• getting Connor to eat breakfast: 15-20 minutes.
• getting Connor back upstairs, reading a book, singing a song, saying goodbye: 15-20 minutes.
• commute to work: 20 minutes.

On daycare days, the breakfast and goodbye portion of the program is replaced with getting Connor dressed, getting our stuff together and us out the door, and daycare dropoff, so I only get to work 20 minutes late instead of truly embarrassingly late.

If I want to get to work on time on Daddy Days, I need to get up by 6:30am, and get Connor up by 7 at the latest. As it stands now, I generally get myself up at 7:10 after some mental cajoling (my alarm first goes off somewhere between 6:30 and 6:45am). I walk into Connor’s bedroom around 7:30, and he usually complains that he doesn’t want to get up.

Perhaps I need to back up the start of Connor’s bedtime routine even farther, from 7pm to 6:30, to have him actually in bed ready to sleep by 8pm? Then we’d be eating dinner and going almost immediately upstairs for bathtime, with no playtime beforehand. That wouldn’t fly. More reasonable would be for me to keep tabs on the time during the bathtime and bedtime routine, and keep things on track for a one-hour routine instead of an hour fifteen or an hour and a half.

Maybe I’ll just worry about getting myself up on time first.