Most days of the week mainly Monday to Friday seem to drag just a little bit. Work if it isn’t fun or exciting is just time being wasted. Once you have a child, time seems to become a commodity like gold or money. Most often it is seen in the trade of money that you get some alone time (this usually involves a baby sitter).
In the end when I start to think about about time pasted that its now stuck in a high speed loop. Wake up take care of Marc, pass Marc off to wife for feeding, jump in shower, take Marc from wife while she showers, leave for work, work, work, work, get home from work take care of Marc, put Marc in bath, put Marc in bed, eat dinner with wife, watch 1 hour of TV with wife, start trying to move to bed. Repeat and rinse Monday to Friday.
Weekends seem to be the moments we have free – between catching up with family, friends, Marc is now invited to play dates and birthday parties. So with the shiny 10 minutes I get to myself usually around 11:40PM I write these blog postings…
But I think its always nice to stop and breathe… We are quickly approaching the end of winter the cherry blossoms will soon be here – I know this by my wife’s [Link] email and phone non stop ringing trying to book dates in central park. We’re planning a trip to Florida to see my grandparents (Marc’s great grandparents) its a lot of planning as you can imagine.
Trying to figure out the short plan for the future, which as you can imagine or know is pretty tough when you have a small child. Who knows what today will bring.
Most importantly is the knowledge that we are moving forward in time without noticing the amazing changes… in the twitter ether today, I saw a mom amazed her baby was about to turn 1… I saw a father come to realize that his son is form short sentences… These are all milestones that are amazing and how quickly we forget the small infant we once held in one arm. When was the last time you compared your child’s current diapers (if needed) to a newborn or size 1. It is amazing that we’re moving forward at such a pace.
The phrase take a moment to smell the roses never really struck a cord with me until these days. The days when I feel like I barely have a moment to breathe, enjoy my wife’s company (alone), enjoy play time with Marc, or just a moment to myself. Most guys I know use their bathroom as their thinking time and sometimes I do too but more often then not its on to the next thing.
For today hug your wife or partner – tell them how much you love and appreciate all that they do. Take a moment for yourself – walk the long way home from the subway – notice the smell in the air that is spring on its way (sometimes in New York City that could just be the missed trash no collected :P). Take a snapshot of your kids on a random day and savior the moment.
It’s been a very long winter, plenty of snow fall – records in many places. If you ask someone from Texas they might say the end of the world is near with the amount of snow they’ve seen this year.
In the end the best part of the snow is running outside with the family all bundled up and getting pictures in the snow (while its still white and clean!).
Some quick winter time tips…
Keep your camera dry! electronics and water don’t mix unless you have a waterproof camera in which case they do.
If you’re using a DSLR and you notice that its taking longer and longer to snap that picture its just your camera FREEZING up (literally freezing) its not good for your camera to be in sub arctic weather.
Shot with the background in mind – having a bright white background is great but landmarks under snow are pretty incredible.
Use the snow – have a snowball fight, make snow angels, roll around and get your pants all covered in snow.
While there is a novelty in the idea of a pacifiers that is labeled mute button [ Amazon ] there is a great deal of truth. My child has had his binky since his first day at home… we call it a Binky mainly because of the book Binky [ Amazon ], which we’ve ready almost daily to Marc as well.
There has been some rumors since 2005 that having a binky may even help fights SIDS (I’m not sure but we went with it because of that and a few other reasons). When you Google Pacifiers and SIDS you get a bunch of results [#1 – Dr. Greene].
We’ve used a ton of brands First Years [We loved the Soothie], Avent [Which Marc still uses], MAM, Born Free [which make a great teether with gum massager], a RaZbaby [ Amazon ], and event a thermometer binky.
With all those binky we now enter into accessories like Skip Hop Pacifier Pocket and of course a BooginHead Pacifier clip [ Amazon ], which he sleeps with because he was throwing his plethora of binkys out of his crib at night and crying until we came in to get them or him.
But its time is soon coming to an end again… we had pretty much gotten it to car trips, naps and bedtime… We will begin that again in a few weeks – when did you start working on taking your baby off the baby crack?
A couple of weeks ago we started a 529 plan for our son. I was recently sent a link to this youtube video and I was ROFL by far I fear more about the damage that I can cause my child then education sometimes. Sure I’m ok when it comes to math, history, and science… I’ll get him tutors for english (god knows I could use them too) but I think about the bigger issues and this makes me laugh. Perhaps its time to start saving for therapy because that’s something we all could use!
I would love to talk about 529 college education funds but really I barely understand them myself. I just know its important to start saving for college because in 16/17 years from now the price of college will be roughly $70-80 thousand a year unless something dramatic changes in this country.
I had this lengthy post about why there were no posts last week but for the time being lets leave it as personal reasons. Which brings me to writing this post right after I finished the details of those personal reasons. About the idea of juggling the balance of public verse private.
My wife and I have two different scales or values in this area – I’m a social media fan and I had to pull her into the pool kicking and screaming. Sure, she likes some of it the reconnecting with lost friends or catching up with friends via status/images posted because who really has time to talk on the phone when you have a screaming baby right next to you.
I’ve always been a big “sharer” maybe to a fault. I’m not always sure where that comes from… maybe because in the culture I grew up in it was always good to chat or kibitz about things or that I went to a therapist for years as a child after my parent split. No matter the cause I’ve grown very comfortable with putting my location, my task list, my thoughts out there for all to read. My wife on the other hand has a much harder time with that public information. I respect her wishes – which is sometimes hard for me as I’d like to keep my life out there and this leads to some little “discussions” but overall we get along great on most of the social networking topics.
How do you balance yourself verse your family? Where do you draw the line?
Most days of the week mainly Monday to Friday seem to drag just a little bit. Work if it isn’t fun or exciting is just time being wasted. Once you have a child, time seems to become a commodity like gold or money. Most often it is seen in the trade of money that you get some alone time (this usually involves a baby sitter).
While there is a novelty in the idea of a pacifiers that is labeled mute button [ 
