Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Too easy

My life is too easy. I don't mean the grief part, but the mundane tasks, the logistics, the daily routine, the what-do-I-have-to-get-done of it. Monkey is five, and although she has a bunch of activities and needs transportation to and fro, as well as help with homework (from preschool, once a week, no big whoop), she is otherwise very low maintenance. JD gets his own breakfast (we like different things for breakfast) and occasionally cooks dinner. He also usually takes dry cleaning in and picks it up. I like doing laundry, and except for some emotionally bad days, one of us will spontaneously take care of the dishwasher.

Even hectic days are easy. Today, I had to leave work a bit early, go get Monkey from preschool, take her to JD so they could go to the circus with some friends, and drive back home. I didn't go to the circus because I don't like it enough to pay another ticket price. And because I was angling for some quiet time alone. Anyway, by the time I got home, I've been in the car for close to two hours, so I was definitely glad to be done. Except I am not done. Turns out JD left his car keys in the bag he put in my car when I dropped Monkey off. So I have to go get them now. Annoying, but not a particularly big deal. The way I know it's not a big deal is because I can easily imagine how much harder all of this would have been to accomplish with a 7 week old in tow.

I've heard once that parents with one child don't know how much free time they actually have until the second one shows up. Seems I managed to find out.

4 comments:

Lori said...

Oh, that makes me sad. I know how it feels to have "free time" you didn't anticipate, or WANT to have. It was hard (understatement) to go from preparing to care for newborn twins, plus two other children, to going back to the day to day life I was accustomed to with two school age kids. Like you, it felt too easy.

Sara said...

I'm sorry Julia. Even though I don't yet have any living children, I also am made sad by how little I have to do now compared to what I thought I'd be doing. On Monday we went out for a friend's birthday and I kept thinking, I shouldn't be able to be here....

niobe said...

It does feel as though there's this empty sink of time that nothing will fill. That's why I hate weekends so much. There's nothing to fill the days, nowhere I have to be, nothing I have to do. I'm so sorry for us all.

Anonymous said...

I am so...so sorry for your loss...