One Day at a Time

Milo and Nora had their first all-day-with-dad day today while I was at work. By all accounts it was a good day. As we approach the beginning of the semester, for both of us, our new schedules will put us each alone with the babies for one day a week. The Twin Whisperer will be with them two days a week. The other days we'll share, each of us staying with them for half the day or other large chunks of time in order to give the other person time to work. If I add up naps and evenings and half days here and there and on the weekends, on top of my 3 full days at work during the week, I should be able to cobble together a good many hours to actually get some decent writing done.

It will be a huge change having Jake in school. He's probably going to be ridiculously busy. There might be some benefits to this, though; he'll need to study at night, which will free me up to also work at night. Our main challenge will probably be finding any time to actually spend together.

Throughout the summer I've been over and over and over my schedule, and then I've poured over my budget, and then back to my schedule, trying to figure out how to fit everything in. Putting the kids in full time daycare or having the Twin Whisperer watch them more often than she already does just doesn't add up for us right now. We just can't make it work while also going down to one salary. So we'll do it like this for a while and see how it works out. It's hard, I'm pulled in a million directions, but for now I'd rather have it be like this than any other way. I won't give up my career, and when you're a professor (on the tenure track) you can't just take a few years off and return to the profession. And having the kids in daycare?

Well first of all, when you put two in at once it's ridiculously expensive. But secondly, I don't think it would work for our family. Or, more accurately, I don't think it would work for Milo. Nora would be fine. She would probably thrive in daycare. I don't have any problems with the concept of daycare in general. It's not an inherently positive or negative thing; studies show that the quality of daycare matters a great deal, and very high quality daycare can actually produce more benefits than staying at home with a parent full time. But those studies look at whole populations of kids, not individual kids with individual personalities. And Milo, well...at this point in time he wouldn't thrive in daycare. I think it would be really hard on him. Milo gets stressed out when too many people are in our house at once, and that's in our own house, with me and Jake right there. Milo gets freaked out and overstimulated when I linger too long in a restaurant with him, and too long can mean half an hour sometimes. He's a sensitive little guy and I shudder at the idea of him in a room full of other babies and multiple caregivers for hours and hours in a row.

I just can't see it. Not for Milo. So we'll keep doing what we're doing and see how it plays out. Jake and I are really very lucky that we both have such flexible lives and careers. I am under great pressure to produce a lot, but when and where I do that is entirely up to me. So if working at home from 7 - 11 every night works for me, I have complete freedom to do that. Who knows, maybe it'll work out. Maybe I'll actually be able to get something done this year. Maybe I'll get back on track, and maybe when tenure time comes around...well...best not to get too cocky. Best to take it one day at a time.