Tuesday, July 8, 2008

time



I used to wear a watch. I used to live minute to minute. When I was teaching, if I finished a lesson even a few minutes early, I would fill the time teaching my students something. Each of my minutes were claimed, or filled or somehow planned. Even if the plan was to rest or sleep. There were very few free minutes.

Now if I wanted to find a watch to wear, I'm not really sure where I would look, or if I would find one. Time is much, much different. I look at my days in chunks. The chunks are "Before Andrew's nap", "During Andrew's nap", "After nap" and "After Andrew is in bed". When I am figuring out what to do and when I will do it, I fit it into one of those chunks. Trips to the playground are best before nap before the day heats up. Making cards and scrapbook pages are best done during nap when things are quiet. Reading is done after Andrew is in bed.

More than Isaac, Andrew is my clock. Isaac's sleep cycles are too quick and unpredictable for me to plan my day around. And the little time that Isaac is awake and not eating, he sits happily in his little chair.

Chunking up my day like this means a little less is planned. There is more room for last minute changes, additions and adjustments to our day. This doesn't mean though that I get less done. Or that I'm bored.

In fact, I often look back on my day and wonder when I fit it all in.


4 comments:

Kate Bucci said...

Great post, and I love your blog :)

valerie said...

I remember those days well infact they still happen and my two are teens now though it's where they want taking and when they want picking up that my ly revolves around.

Melissa Belmonte said...

Chunks are so great, aren't they? We weren't doing naps for a while before Enzo was born (now I'm back into "chunk" mode because of Enzo's naps), and it was so weird (and overwhelming, because I was pregnantly exhausted!) to wake up in the morning and have the WHOLE day with no chunks!

I'm like you about the teaching thing, too. (-: Although when I was in college, I told myself I'd never be one of those teachers that ran class late and made students late for their next class.

Fay aka Beautifullily said...

I remember those days too! Even though my girls are only a bit older than your boys, they still rule my day!