8:30pm – After lying with Amalea for “five minutes” to calm her fears about anything emerging from beneath her bed, I’m now standing over Maya’s crib, hunched onto the side and end frame with my hand pressed firmly, but not too firmly, on her back, trying to still her restlessness and get her eyes to stay shut.
Just a few more minutes and she will be asleep. I watch the big red digits of the digital clock on their bookshelf next to her crib, as each minute creeps by. I play time games, and predict how much time it will take until I can sneak out of the room. 8:33… nope. 8:38… nope.
Finally she seems still. It is now too dark to see if her eyes are truly shut, but I decide it’s time to make a break for the door. I slowly lift my hand, just a few inches, releasing the pressure but keeping it hovering over her – as if it’s presence just above her will be enough to mask the hand that was just before on her. I take a breath in, hold it, then adjust my weight just right so that the floor doesn’t creek too much. One wrong move and your toast in this situation. I take two careful steps, and then bolt out of their room as quickly and quietly as a jaguar in the amazon night.
Just down the hall I stop, and listen. Silence. Success.
Suddenly, as happens every night at this same moment, the extreme exhaustion from the day seems to lift and I am overwhelmed by the possibilities of all the things I could do. Watch a movie, play guitar, play a video game, write on my blog, go on facebook, work in the garage, go for a run, play tennis? So many options. I know it will be detrimental to stay up too late doing anything, so realistically I have about an hour and a half, two hours tops. The minutes seem to FLY by now.
Of course, before I can do anything, I have to clean up the gajillion toys strewn all over the ground downstairs, do the dishes, put away the laundry; whatever the nightly chore happens to be for this given night.
Once that is done, I’m left with an hour or so of time-without-kids.
And this is how it is now… this is the hour or two that I look forward to each day. It’s not that I don’t look forward to the rest of the day (I will admit, there are some parts I definitely do NOT look forward to, but most of the day with the girls is actually REALLY enjoyable)… it’s just that, when all you get each day is maybe an hour or two to yourself, you start to crave it like a drug. You day dream about that little slot of beautiful peacefulness where you can do whatever you want. The things “you’ve been meaning to do” start to pile up like dirty laundry, and try as you may, there is never enough time to get it all done.
I love my little girls. They are so fun to be around, they make me smile and bring a warmth that only a parent can understand. They are silly and cute, interesting to watch and so very curious. I’m head over heals for them – sometimes I want to give them the stars and the moon!
Starting this week, I’m done with my job and I will be getting a new job: full-time daddy. I can’t wait. We will have so many fun adventures.
But if I’m honest (and let’s be honest, most of us are not very honest, not even me most of the time), right now, the thing I want the most – is more time alone. Is that so wrong to admit? Like I eluded to earlier, I know it’s only because I do not have that time alone that I need to refuel that I want it so badly, but right now in my life – these moments in the peaceful hum of the early evening – these are what I miss the most about NOT having kids. Time alone. Time to think and reflect and be in silence. Time to do nothing, to play games and read books. I know, it’s selfish… but there you go.
There’s the truth.
