2 Under 2: No time like the present (#068)

About a month ago, I wanted to write a post about how I was embarking on my paternity time for the second time, on account of the arrival of #2.  How I was looking forward to not having to worry about work for 12 weeks, and all sorts of ideas of ways I could be productive and get shit done with no work looming over me.

Well it’s been about a month since I’ve started my paternity leave, and unsurprisingly I have not accomplished nearly as much as I hoped I would prior to the start of it.

Who would have guessed that juggling two kids would consume so much of my capacity, even without having to worry about work?  Pff certainly not me.  In all fairness, our Disney trip consumed nearly two weeks of my leave, since it encapsulated a Tuesday through a Wednesday, and trying to accomplish anything before or catch up afterward just weren’t going to happen.

But going into my paternity leave, I made goals of accomplishing several tasks:

  • Refinance my home: rates are crazy low and with a second child in tow, refinancing my mortgage to try and bring down my monthly payment and free up some cash sounded like a tremendously good idea
  • Look for a new job: the cat is out of the bag by now, and most everyone knows I’m quite unhappy with my job, and would like to seek out a new one now
  • Explore the possibility of upgrading to a larger car: my car of two years and less than 15,000 miles is already too small for the size of my rapidly grown family, and I would like to capitalize on the potential of the also-hot used car market, and try to trade in my car for maximum value, so that I may upgrade to a larger vehicle
  • Yard work: there are some shrubs I want to get rid of, and some general cleanup I’d like to do around my driveway and walking paths, as well as reclaim some of the wild land in the field adjacent to my home, while the poison ivy is wilting and the snakes are going into hiding

So nothing too lofty, provided there’s a reasonable amount of time to do them, but therein lies the biggest problem – there’s just simply never any fucking time.

Despite me not working, unfortunately with the start of my paternity time, mythical wife’s maternity time has ended, so she’s back to work, taking one parent and their set of hands off the table, that could assist in order for me to capitalize on some of these self-imposed tasks.  So basically, the days have turned into day-long child care between myself, with a four-hour block each week day where we have our nanny to assist.

I was able to hack down two of the shrubs I wanted to get rid of, but there are still two giant shrubs that I realistically don’t see when I’ll have the chance to get to.  Not to mention that the fall leaves are starting to shit all over the place, and I will have to rake them at some point, lest they rot, blow around, or some other nuisance.  When I do have time, it’s dark out, and it would be inappropriate for me to be using power tools during sleepy time anyway.

The car thing is most certainly something that I won’t get to, no matter how much I insist on switching to a larger car, because of the aforementioned no fucking time, but at the same time, mythical wife’s car is on the bench with a dud battery that I need to replace, which is going to cost way more than I thought car batteries used to cost, but she’s using my car in the interim since I don’t drive anywhere anyway, but the fact remains that I’m probably not going to get to do any of the groundwork to seek out a new car, unless like, my in-laws visit and help stand in for me on baby duty.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten the ball moving as far as initiating the refinancing of my home.  This was of the utmost importance, seeing as how the money it could free up would be most definitely welcome to both mythical wife and myself.  But I’ve had to field phone calls and do most of the communication with the lending company in the small windows of time in which #2 is sleeping, and/or while the nanny is helping out, otherwise, I’d be out of luck there too.

Which means for the rest of what little day time hours I do have, I’ve been spent looking for a new job.  To which I’ve already described feeling like the lion in a herd of gazelle, and I can’t seem to focus, so I’m kind of spraying and praying with applying to a bajillion positions, and hoping that someone gets back to me.

But the bottom line is that despite having 12 weeks of paternity time, I feel like I’ve already squandered a third of it, and not made much progress with any of the goals I hoped to achieve while I’m off.  It’s not like they’re selfish self-serving things that I resent anyone over consuming all of my free time, these are all family-benefitting things that even are struggling to find the time in order to achieve.

And I have no idea on how or if I will even get a chance to get to any of them, which doesn’t seem very likely, so I try not to think about how bleak it looks from a productivity standpoint, because it just adds to my angst and anxiety over not being able to address them.

Leave a Reply