Have you set a "no work at home" rule for yourself? For me, I'm fine with doing a little bit of work after the kids go to bed. I rush home at the close of my workday to spend the most possible quality time with them in those late afternoon/early evening hours, and then I catch up on some work. Could be my office email or other pediatric-related reading, reviewing, and planning, preparing or refining educational sessions, reading applicants' files, submitting trainees evals, and so on. After my kids finally enter REM stage (which, in our family, is somewhat later than the average 2 and 4 year old go to bed). After dinner and books and music and bath and teeth and more books. They are finally asleep. But there is still time for some other activities before morn, what do you do after the kids are finally asleep?
SLEEP: Do you go right to sleep? Are they actually sleeping right beside you?
FOOD: Perhaps you're eating your own dinner. Or is this the time to make their lunches for tomorrow? Or make your own lunch (or your partner's lunch) for tomorrow?
READ: Is it time to curl up with a magazine (The New Yorker? People? Time?), or read the web in its entirety, your academic journals, some fiction?
WRITE: catch up on emails, your blog, your list-making
CONVERSE: have at least one meaningful, or at least uninterrupted, conversation with your spouse/partner.
LAUNDRY: and all those other housekeeping chores, anyone shopping online?
EXERCISE: see next
SEX: in your dreams or in reality
What did I miss, is there anything else? Oh yes, some people probably go out. Is there life after the kids go to sleep (suddenly I feel like I am writing this in Carrie Bradshaw style, do forgive me, MIM pals)?
This time is spent with my husband. We talk, drink wine, play cards and twice a week its business time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU
Two days a week I usually have work to do - notes to write, mostly - and on one of those I don't get home until after bedtime. The others are spend sometimes eating dinner with my husband (last night), doing various household chores (not laundry, he doe that, but bills or dishes or other stuff) and recreation (reading, crossword puzzles, internet surfing). This is why I have a huge pile of journals in my office, unread.
ReplyDeleteI blog.
ReplyDeleteSInce my kids don't hit the sack till 10 or so, (they are 13 and 18), that means I'm up till the wee hours. Which is why I am always so tired.
But the blog must go on....
Sleep, read, chores, exercise - not in any special order - just a mosaic of those activities. Love to Read - anything I can get my hands on. TV - not so much.
ReplyDeleteThis past weekend, Husband & I stayed up until 3 AM Friday and midnight (for me) Saturday for Warren Haynes Christmas Jam - rare, but extraordinary fun. I'm now feeling the effects of the weekend after I coupled that to a long call night. My body reminds me that I'm not 21.
I spend about 25% of my non-baby time studying, 50% doing leisure reading/internet, and 25% of the time with my husband.
ReplyDeleteWhen my kids were little, it took me an entire year to get through "The Hobbit" because I could literally read only 1 or 2 pages before passing out. Luckily I'd read it before so I knew how it came out. Those days are pretty foggy now, with the sleep deprivation and passage of time. Course, the internet wasn't invented then so any at home work was dictating charts or taking call.
ReplyDeleteBy the time both kids are put to bed (pretty early in our house - 8 latest), lunches are already made. Usually JP and I will read/write/talk/work on our laptops and sometimes catch up with TiVO, sometimes while still doing all of the above.
ReplyDeleteExercise...HA!