Choices, consequences, root beer floats

     

                                                          Leaving for work in 5 minutes... time for a quick bulldozer puzzle

I put the kids to bed most nights. I get them ready in the morning too, with the exception of Oliver and Nils's ritual of Rice Krispies and cups of milk / coffee at the breakfast table. I do just about all childcare solo throughout the week, and Oliver often comes home, tired, after Nils and Liv are asleep.

It's strange to think that this is a choice we have made, to have almost nothing of a family life during the week. It is a choice though, and we made it, long before the kids were born, with an eye on future financial security. "Why are we doing this?" I ask myself sometimes when Nils asks if we can call "Papa" at work, or when Liv follows Oliver everywhere with her eyes in those 20 minutes they have together each day.

Oliver came home early one night the other week just as I was turning out the lights for Nils. "Let's go out," he said. "It's so beautiful outside."

I wasn't interested. It was already after 8, they were both just about to go to sleep, I had so much to do to get ready for work the next day...

But no, we had to go out. This was our chance to steal a little time. To walk across the neighborhood with a cool breeze on our faces, to get hamburgers and root beer floats. Nils wore his monster truck pajamas and lined up all the condiment bottles on our table. Liv stared at the baseball game on the screen above us and tried to eat a napkin. Oliver shared his fries. I tried to convince everyone else to try malt vinegar instead of ketchup. The restaurant's other patrons probably thought Oliver and I were terrible parents (sugar, fat and salt at 9 pm!), but good lord. We could not care less.

Every choice has a consequence these days. I am constantly balancing the cost of one decision against another. We had a family hour and treats, but that meant I rushed around frantically the next morning filling bottles and packing bags. If I decide to make a nice-ish dinner, that means I will have to sit with a kitchen full of dirty dishes overnight (the joys of a light sleeper who goes to bed shortly after eating!). If I want to restore order to my living room, it means I play less with the kiddos.

It's a mental thing, too. Nils and Liv take up almost all of my bandwidth, so any attention turned to any one thing (eating carefully to shed some baby weight) means other, random things fall to the wayside (clipping tiny fingernails, studying a bit of German). I say "yes" to one thing and know that it means saying "no" to a half dozen others, just because there's no room. 


Thank goodness there is still room for root beer floats.