I fell into the trap.  Sonia and I were discussing the fact that our evening life seems to fall into a very scary routine: I come home from work and entertain/nurture the baby counting the hrs until she goes to sleep. If you can’t tell from the verbage, this has brought about a very negative attitude toward’s family life where it feels like I’m just going through the grinder waiting for the day when she’s old enough so that I can break free.
This has to change and requires some work on my part. Before Olivia, I wasn’t a party hound that would go out every night and staying home was the exception. It was a decent mix of out and about along with stay in place. The stay in place would be easily filled up with online poker or sitting on the bike or throwing darts alone or with Dan.
Although I can’t do any of this to the extreme, there is no reason why I cannot enjoy some of those pleasures. Since Olivia’s birth, I have unwittingly self-imposed a sentence of abstinence from social life.Â
Last night, Sonia revealed this to me after detecting my attitude towards weekday night life and the negative spin I place when talking about my daily routine. I guess it’s not too hard to detect when I say things like “I dread going back to work because now my routine is back to: go to work, dread the day knowing I’m coming home to a night of baby-sitting followed by an uncertain night of sleepless toil”. Granted this was said in frustration due to the fact that OG is going through the worst bout of teething and it looks like she’s picked up a mild cold with fever.
So, the solution is quite simple: re-start my social life. There are a few minor clauses. 1) I need to plan them in advance. No more last minute: “I’m going out to play poker”.  2) I can’t do them as frequently. But hey, average one night a week would be more than sufficient for now. Here are some ideas of how to kick-start things:
- Set up squash match or go to gym in the evening
- play poker once a month. If not in person then online. Just give some notice before doing either
- take the baby for a walk
- go to the Early Years Centre, library, or some other educational facility
- Start cooking class
In fact, I will start a gourmet cooking class on March 2nd. Stay tuned for details.
So things are looking up. And really, this only needs to get me through the arctic months.