Thursday, October 29, 2009

Temporary Single Parenthood

I am pretty sure I haven't talked about this yet: Steve has been out of town for four weeks now, and I am tired.

My mom was here for almost two weeks, which was helpful, because I was actually able to work a full 8-hour day instead of chipping away at my annual leave by 30-45 minutes each day. (Lexie's nanny works 9 hours. I live 45 minutes from work. That means if I leave as soon as the nanny arrives, which rarely happens, I've got a max of 7.5 hours under my belt for each day.)

Time in the evenings is short. Lexie goes to bed around 7:30pm or 8pm, but I still give her a "sleep feed" around 9:30pm, and I have to hold her up for a half hour after she finishes eating due to her stomach problems. I've found that there is a very tight calculus to what one can accomplish in those evenings when caring for an infant on one's own. Here's how I've got the options figured out:

Group A (Choose one)
  • 6 hours of sleep
  • 4 hours of sleep and two additional items from Group B
  • Teething baby -- 3 hours of sleep and subtract one item from Group B
Group B (Choose two)
  • Make a dinner with more than two ingredients
  • Eat dinner with utensils while sitting at the table
  • Do one hour of billable work
  • Shower
  • Clean up house
  • Pay bills
  • Talk to Steve on the phone
  • Write blog post
  • Read newspaper/catalogs/books for fun
  • Fold laundry and put it away
Aaaand it's almost 9:30, so I'm out -- off to get the little miss for her last bottle of the night.

4 comments:

Saffy said...

What an insightful approach to time management :) Just think - one day Lexie will be old enough to help with some of the tasks in Group B! In the meantime, it sounds like you're doing a great job!!!

Anonymous said...

Hang in there:)

HA HA!

Too bad the swine flu is making everyone crazy or we could meet up half way for lunch!

dcpeg said...

I've never been good at time management and, being a champion procrastinator doesn't help ;-\

I could see sacrificing the folding of laundry that goes in drawers -- just cram it in there, especially Lexie's onesies (sp?) and tiny things that will never show a wrinkle.

Sometimes you just have to get creative with the mess. LOL!!!

areyoukiddingme said...

I'd be going for Group A #1 every time...sorry Steve, no time to talk, love ya, call me tomorrow when I'm on my way to work.

Wouldn't it be great if we could use commuting time to shower and dress? Now that would be a good use of resources.