Free Time, We Has None

The boys are over 7 weeks old and Kim and I have gotten into a decent swing of things at home.

Weeknights I get home and try to help Kim with whichever boy is hungry/awake/needing attention, we slap something together for eating dinner and we might eat at the same time although often it is shift-eating. Then we take turns doing things while the other watches the boys; laundry, dishes cleanup, etc. And we relax by watching some TV which is something we can do with the twins as it doesn't require too much attention and allows us to interact with them and try to keep them up until bedtime.

The biggest change for me has been the removal of evening "Bill Time", the hour or so that I would spend on the computer enjoying a game and letting the day's stresses and worries melt away while I chatted with the other online players and worked on my virtual empire in my favourite MMORPG, Eve Online.

Some nights I get home from my day job and it feels like I start a shift on my night job, the ride home being the only break. I admit that as much as I love my boys and I'm glad to hold them and visit with them when I'm home, I do miss my free time that I enjoyed for all those years.

Yet as much as miss my free time, my small sacrifice is nothing like what Kim has to go through. She's on the job 24 hours a day and yet seems to somehow maintain her composure and attitude through it all. All by herself during the day, no break at all until I come home and even then she is not really free but merely less occupied. She is a champion mother as I knew she would be.

And you know what? This won't last. They will grow up, they will need us less and less as the years go by and I know sometime in the future I'll look back and wish I could just hold them all night again.

So while I miss my free time I do not grieve for it. Instead I try to focus on this precious first few years when Kim and I are their whole world and they belong completely to us.