Ever since my wife and I decided to have our second child - shortly after we discovered we were pregnant - I've been nervous about the changes coming to my personal life.
Jack, our three-year-old, while he can be an angel at times, can at other times be somewhat demanding. He already tells Jenn to leave him alone, and, "mummy, you need to stop telling me what not to do."
Since his arrival, Andrew has been a really great baby. First of all, he took to breastfeeding, something Jack never did quite take to. At the time, we thought perhaps he wasn't getting it. In retrospect, he was lazy, like his old man - it took less effort to be fed formula.
The biggest benefit, for me, of Andrew's decision is I can't take a turn. While I might be woken up at 3 a.m. by the sounds of a hungry infant, I'm soon back to sleepy-land as he's taken care of.
Regardless, my own life has been turned upside-down in just a few short years. I used to take naps. I used to love a good hour-long snooze after a day at work, TV blaring at nobody, phone off the hook on the floor. Occasionally, if Jack's occupied with toys and Jenn's feeding Andy, I try to sneak off upstairs and hit the sack. I think my record in the two-child era has been eight minutes. It's never long before one of the two that are able-minded enough realize I'm missing.
This weekend, Jenn took the boys down to visit her family, in a small town called Hampton, near Cobourg. It was my father-in-law Ross's 80th birthday, and they had a large party at a rented hall, with apparently a couple-hundred guests dropping by. From reports I'm hearing, a good time was had by all.
I work weekends, and I'm not alone. There are always events going on over the weekend for our reporters and freelancers to cover, and usually reports due for the sales reps and general managers. It's a reality of our industry, all industry these days, to put in hours when necessary, not necessarily when most suitable. For me, a lot of the work that goes into building the weekly paper is done on Sunday. So while I'd have loved to, I couldn't attend.
Meanwhile, I got a taste of what life used to be like ... nap-time! Saturday afternoon, 2 p.m., I draw the curtains, get into my best pyjamas, kick the cat off my side of the bed, fluff out the douvet and give the pillows a puff. As I glide gracefully under the covers, my eyes are already closing and I'm smiling as my head gently wafts down ... the phone rings.
Unknown number, so I'm pretty sure it's not a call I'll need to answer, but then again, my boss is considerate enough to also have an 'unknown name, unknown number', so you never know... So I pick it up.
"Your windows ... are you happy with them?"
The ironic thing is, I never even hear the phone when the kids are around.