Back to a Bachelor
Ellie and Abbie are out of town this weekend, so I get to enjoy a temporary return to bachelor life. My bachelor days were a carefree time involving lots of sleep, television, and junk food. It’s kind of funny, and I don’t mean “ha ha funny,” but this weekend hasn’t been an exact replica of my life before Abbie.
I remember sleeping in until 9 when I had no reason to wake up, 10 on a good morning. Those were good times. Now my alarm is set for 6:10am almost every day. I imagine there are people in non-childcare related fields who wake up at the same painfully early time nearly every day, such as a paperboy, the president, or the owner of a not-very-profitable small business like an oil change shop where they let you add the oil before leaving so you can say you changed the oil yourself. There may also be some crazed non-breeders out there who wake up early on weekdays so they can jog five miles before their high-profile job, and keep the same jogging schedule on weekends so they can partake in weekend morning activities like fun runs and spending large wads of disposable incomes at the farmer’s market. I wake up excruciatingly early so I can work before spending yet another glorious day wiping baby drool and figuring out why she’s crying this time. With no child to mop up after, I turned my alarm clock off with intentions of sleeping in, but my wake time is so entrenched I woke up at 6:30 anyway. I tried to go back to sleep, but my brain refused to let me, insisting that I must have a child to care for and if I don’t roll out of bed soon her nap schedule will be off for the entire day and god help us all if that happens. So I grudgingly rose, clearing space for our cats to lounge in bed all day, free of the fear of being stalked by a toddler.
Once awake, my bachelor days involved a lot of television with a little Playstation mixed in for variety. This weekend was much the same, except that instead of passively watching television, I edited some television programs together. That was our bargain when Ellie left: I get to stay home alone only if I spend massive amounts of time working in front of the computer on those freelance projects that had been rotting on my hard drive for a couple of months. This was an exciting proposition for me since I missed my old editing job and relished the opportunity to burn a hole in my (still dry) keyboard. After working hard all weekend, or at least as hard as you can work sitting in front of a pair of computer monitors, I now remember why I opted to leave my job and take care of Abbie full-time; the wake-feed-clean-change-chase routine is absolutely scintillating compared to the sit-slice-cut-drag-render-sit-sit-scratch-sit routine. At least I could play Playstation again without having to make sure the boss was out of the office.
The area that best harkens back to my bachelor days is my eating habits. Ellie has a long list of foods she will not eat including chocolate, fish, and most vegetables, and another long list of foods she will only eat in certain circumstances. For example, she will eat strawberry flavored foods as long as they don’t have seeds, or foods with onion as long as she doesn’t have to bite any onion pieces. On most nights, I have a short list of eligible dishes to prepare, but this weekend I could throw that list out and make dinner with giant hunks of onion, and desserts so dense with chocolate they produce a discernable gravitational pull. I ate burgers and chocolate-cherry cobbler one night, and a giant pan of smores bars to snack on all weekend, because video editing is a surprisingly energy-intensive activity.
Bonus fun fact: While Ellie was home, the Cubs lost eight straight. While she was gone, they won three straight. Was it mere coincidence that as soon as her negative energy left, they won?
I remember sleeping in until 9 when I had no reason to wake up, 10 on a good morning. Those were good times. Now my alarm is set for 6:10am almost every day. I imagine there are people in non-childcare related fields who wake up at the same painfully early time nearly every day, such as a paperboy, the president, or the owner of a not-very-profitable small business like an oil change shop where they let you add the oil before leaving so you can say you changed the oil yourself. There may also be some crazed non-breeders out there who wake up early on weekdays so they can jog five miles before their high-profile job, and keep the same jogging schedule on weekends so they can partake in weekend morning activities like fun runs and spending large wads of disposable incomes at the farmer’s market. I wake up excruciatingly early so I can work before spending yet another glorious day wiping baby drool and figuring out why she’s crying this time. With no child to mop up after, I turned my alarm clock off with intentions of sleeping in, but my wake time is so entrenched I woke up at 6:30 anyway. I tried to go back to sleep, but my brain refused to let me, insisting that I must have a child to care for and if I don’t roll out of bed soon her nap schedule will be off for the entire day and god help us all if that happens. So I grudgingly rose, clearing space for our cats to lounge in bed all day, free of the fear of being stalked by a toddler.
Once awake, my bachelor days involved a lot of television with a little Playstation mixed in for variety. This weekend was much the same, except that instead of passively watching television, I edited some television programs together. That was our bargain when Ellie left: I get to stay home alone only if I spend massive amounts of time working in front of the computer on those freelance projects that had been rotting on my hard drive for a couple of months. This was an exciting proposition for me since I missed my old editing job and relished the opportunity to burn a hole in my (still dry) keyboard. After working hard all weekend, or at least as hard as you can work sitting in front of a pair of computer monitors, I now remember why I opted to leave my job and take care of Abbie full-time; the wake-feed-clean-change-chase routine is absolutely scintillating compared to the sit-slice-cut-drag-render-sit-sit-scratch-sit routine. At least I could play Playstation again without having to make sure the boss was out of the office.
The area that best harkens back to my bachelor days is my eating habits. Ellie has a long list of foods she will not eat including chocolate, fish, and most vegetables, and another long list of foods she will only eat in certain circumstances. For example, she will eat strawberry flavored foods as long as they don’t have seeds, or foods with onion as long as she doesn’t have to bite any onion pieces. On most nights, I have a short list of eligible dishes to prepare, but this weekend I could throw that list out and make dinner with giant hunks of onion, and desserts so dense with chocolate they produce a discernable gravitational pull. I ate burgers and chocolate-cherry cobbler one night, and a giant pan of smores bars to snack on all weekend, because video editing is a surprisingly energy-intensive activity.
Bonus fun fact: While Ellie was home, the Cubs lost eight straight. While she was gone, they won three straight. Was it mere coincidence that as soon as her negative energy left, they won?
posted by Matt at
9:56 PM
3 Comments:
Some paperboys wake up much earlier than 6:10.
By
Anonymous, at 8:15 AM
The smart ones don't.
By
Matt, at 9:28 PM
Damn, I can't compete with that logic. But I can say, the ones who make a ton of money being paperboys do.
By
Anonymous, at 8:25 AM
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