Early Bird, Night Owl

Rob gets up in the morning two hours before I do, and he's been asleep for hours when I finally get to bed at night. I've almost always been more or less a morning person, while Rob prefers the evening, so we're doing our schedules backwards. But I have to work around Westley, and Rob has to work around work.

It's hard to feel any sort of connection to the person you're living with when you see so little of each other and your schedules are so out of sync. Most of the time we have together during week days is taken up by cooking dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up from dinner, and feed-the-baby-change-the-baby-soothe-the-baby. Sometimes we drink wine and laugh in front of The Daily Show. Sometimes I just snap at him.

When Rob went back to work after Westley was born, I kind of lost track of why I liked him. He'd come home tired and I'd be mad at him for it, because I had a hard day, too, thankyouverymuch, and wasn't he supposed to be energized by leaving the house and doing a job he loves? It seemed unfair for this grown man to have needs when I'd been busy with a fussy meatloaf child for hours and wasn't done yet. Rob and I didn't see each other long enough to get past all of the "I'm tired"s and sloughing off of the day.

I'm trying to get better about appreciating the short time we have together during the week. It means making sure my blood sugar isn't shot before I try to have a conversation with him, and remembering that he doesn't over stuff the baby's dresser or not pick up the cat hair bunnies on purpose to annoy me. It's a new kind of time management, and I'm not used to it yet. I still feel like my Wife coat clashes with my Mom hat.

Rob is asleep as I write this. When I get into bed, I'll inevitably disturb Ursula, who suddenly decided to start sleeping with us again a few months ago. Rob will be woken up by the cat walking on him and realize that I'm there, and we'll have one of our surrealist conversations wherein I'm much more alert than he is. It will probably include some version of the exchange we have almost every night.

"You're wide awake."

"Yeah. You sound tired."

In the morning, I'll just hear the front door close as he leaves. If I hear him at all. It's like having a very quiet roommate. Being someone's mother and someone else's partner is a strange feeling and a difficult balancing act, especially when the two adult parties are out of sync. A partnership passing in the night...

At this point, I'm doing a pretty good job getting to know my son. I need to get to know my husband all over again.

.....................................