From the beginning of my time at home with our daughter, my wife Erica has stressed to me the importance of keeping Reese on her daily schedule. Now I've always prided myself as the type of person that can give a schedule or other timetable a once-over and then I'm set. Keeping Reese on a simple schedule of feeding, napping, and playing should be...well...simple.
Foolish Sam...
Foolish, foolish Sam.
What I failed to consider was that in between those times of feeding, napping, and playing, I was going to try and get some things accomplished too. You know, little things like searching for a job and providing for my family. Between updating and sending out resume, my LinkedIn profile, and some contract writing, keeping Reese on the schedule has been a challenge to say the least. It's incredible how fast a chunk of time between feedings can just disappear. But there is something else behind that schedule, something important that I didn't realize I was going to need as much as I have.
Meeting the basic day-to-day, hour-to-hour needs of my daughter forces me to disconnect from the job search. It gives me small little islands of time where I get to remind myself who I'm doing this for. To become absorbed into something and someone besides myself and my own problems. To unplug. To sit in a glider, rocking back and forth as Reese takes her time with the bottle. I get to look at her, and tell her I love her, and watch her smile up at me. I get to make her laugh with my fake sneezes and rides around the living room on my shoulders. I get to sit on the floor next to her and cheer for her as she slowly learns how to keep her balance.
The schedule. What started as an additional stressor has become an anchor. A source of calm. There's no telling what kind of panicked basketcase Erica would find when she got home in the evenings if it weren't for those little breaks that Reese gives me.
All that to say that I truly...truly...
Wait...it sounds like she's waking up from her nap. Yep, schedule says it's time for another bottle. And that diaper probably needs changing too. Gotta go.
More days to come.
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