It's about time

How can you ever have time, if you do not ever take time?

After the recent time change, it's now dark when we wake up. Meagan showers while I sneak a few more winks before getting up to wake our son. Silly songs and noises fill the air as he gets changed and brushes his teeth and we all go downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

Still dark outside but dawn is breaking as we get his meals ready for the day and pack up Jack's lunch bag. Meagan packs hers as well, a deli or egg sandwich, or leftovers from last night. I snag a couple of Cheerios as I'm sealing everything up, and pour a half cup of coffee - not enough to fill me up yet, but to wake me up so I can walk Jack to day care.

Jack and I stand and wave in the doorway as mama gets in her car for her commute. She has to leave early enough to beat the school buses, otherwise she'll be stopped every few minutes waiting on half-asleep children to board. Then Jack gets a few minutes of playtime as I get my caffeine boost. I take a few minutes to check the weather, see if any urgent emails came in since yesterday, and enter "drop-off notes" into the day care's app.

It's kind of nice - makes it so I don't have to give them a run-down at drop-off, I enter everything in ahead of time:

Woke up: 6:30 a.m.

Diaper: Wet at 6:30 a.m. Bottle: 4 oz at 6:45 a.m.

Meal: N/A

Medication: N/A

Items provided: Two 4oz. bottles milk, Breakfast - waffle and banana, Lunch - quesadilla, fruit and veggie cake, PM snack - fruit pouch

Contact: Bruce

Notes: N/A

I press the Submit button, close the app, and strap Jack's Nikes on, then we take off for day care - sometimes in the stroller and sometimes in the car, weather dependent.

When I get back it's just before 8:00 a.m. I do a quick walk-around and pick up toys and then go upstairs for a short workout. 30 minutes on the rower or I'll do a full-body workout with a trainer on the iFit program. Showered, shaved and ready an hour later, I fill up my coffee cup and head to my basement office or to the office in Dupont Circle.

Sometimes I wish I worked manual labor or something where I was forced to get off my ass during the day. I try and stand up every hour or so but I'm still back down for long stretches. After seven or eight hours I'm ready to get out from behind the computer screen, mentally wiped and my eyes are more dry than my optometrist would like.

On a nice day we'll walk to pick up Jack from day care. On a busy or rainy day Meagan will pick him up so I can work a bit longer. Now that it's spring the days are getting longer and it's nice to get a walk in after sitting all day, sometimes a second one if I walked him in the morning.

Jack eats dinner at 5:30 and is in bed by 6:30, where he'll (thankfully) stay for the next 12 hours.

Now, we can rela - no, wait. We clean up dinner and load the dishwasher. Like that commercial for Cascade dishwasher soap, we do it every night! We prepare his lunch for the next day and write what we're sending and the date on every item. (Yes, it has to go in the app and on each container). Then we pick up his toys and books again - Jack really likes to pull all of his books onto the floor - and take out the trash, start a load of laundry, or clean up small messes.

By 7:30 or 8:00 we settle down. A show or game, maybe a book. Maybe a beer or glass of wine. We check our calendars and I'll make a couple moves on my Chess.com app with friends.

Then we start again the next day!

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It's been an entire year since I've written a blog. Since I've written anything. My last one came out when Jack was born on March 27, 2024.

It feels like yesterday. This scene feels familiar - I'm sitting on a light green swivel chair in my living room, same as I was a year ago. There's an empty glass of beer next to me. In fact, in the time I typed the first word of this until just now, I've... wait for it... finished my beer. Meagan is sitting across the room watching some murder mystery on Netflix and Jack is upstairs taking a nap.

If there's anything I've learned in the past year it's that everyone was right: your time isn't yours anymore.

It's nothing revelatory, nor anything particularly noteworthy. Reality for millions of people. But there are minutes and sometimes even hours in there. Time we can spend creating, learning, reading, writing.

In order to have time to do something, you have to take time to do something. Wise words by the Merovingian.

It's easy to say at the end of a long day or long week - ugh, I don't have time for that. But we do. I do. I just have to take the time for it.

It's been a year - it has gone by very quickly and it has been incredible. Jack is incredible, my wife and family are incredible. Our friends and neighbors and day care teachers are wonderful and I'm an incredibly lucky guy.

I hope the next one doesn't go by as quickly - I know it will, but I hope I can take time not only with Jack but to do something new, fun, or creative. In a year I'll be two months from 40 - so I better get off my ass, it's all uphill from here!