The chores

This Sunday afternoon, we got back to our apartment after being away for the weekend. After unloading the car, we started going through the checklist of things to do over the next few hours:  unpack, do the laundry, make our son’s dinner, bathe him, feed him a bottle, put him to bed, prepare his meals for daycare the following day, make dinner for ourselves, do the dishes, fold the clean laundry from before we left for the weekend. 

I had several moments in the midst of doing those chores when I would zone out and think back to what life was like before my husband and I became parents. When we got home from a weekend away, we would flop on the couch if we were tired and generally do whatever we wanted to. This was also true most every other day of the week, with the exception of going to work, which happens to pay you money. 

Before we had kids, I would live my Sundays like I was a cat. I generally aimed to do whatever I wanted, and I succeeded at that most of the time. I would laze on furniture for long stretches, go outside if I wanted, nap, eat, demand a cuddle, and generally catch the slow-moving target that was relaxation. It was so easy to achieve with the right amount of time. The circumstances didn’t even have to be perfect. 

Now I feel like I live my Sundays like a Border Collie. Instead of herding my son, who can’t even walk yet, I’m herding myself through all the things that I know need to get done by Sunday night in order for me to feel somewhat prepared for the week ahead.

This past Sunday, I had a moment when I couldn’t wrap my head around how parents do this for multiple years, while their kids are young. I’ve been having this thought more and more lately since I’ve gone back to work full-time. People have said to me that parenting is a full-time job on top of whatever other full-time job you probably have. Now I understand what that means. 

That said, one thing that people didn’t tell me about parenthood before it happened was that your capacity expands. I used to absolutely love doing nothing. I still do. However, I may have confused loving doing nothing with thinking that I needed to do nothing a certain amount of the time in order to survive. It turns out that I can do a lot less nothing and still be generally fine, or be even better than fine. I may be more tired at the end of each day or week. But I still feel good about the way I spent my time – even if it was just washing our son’s bib again so he could keep practicing feeding himself the next day. 

My capacity for doing things, as opposed to doing nothing, has expanded since becoming a parent, both by necessity and desire. I want to make those memories while our son is young and my husband and I are young. It’s still worth it if it means that the dishes have piled up extra high by Sunday evening. 

This weekend we were in the Catskills with a group of friends whom I’ve known for fifteen years. One of the best parts of parenthood so far has been watching our friends and family play with and love our son. I think about how cool it is that they’ll see Rowan grow up over the years. I almost want to cry when I think ahead to the days when he’s the age we are now and we’re our parents’ age and time feels like it’s collapsed in on itself again, like Rowan was just crawling around at our feet in his diaper, and how could he be 32 now? I won’t be remembering the dishes one bit.