In these past two years, my wife and I kind of found a rhythm to our daily lives. Sure, it’d change from semester to semester. But more or less, I knew how I’d spend my evenings.
Mostly alone with the kid, but that’s ok. That’s part of her job as a professor for a program geared at attracting non-traditional, returning students. People who are in their thirties and forties and reeducating themselves generally can’t make it to an 8 A.M. class. Or an eleven. Or a three. Evening classes are the way the program is geared.
At first this made me pretty nervous and a little upset. After all, I was a newly minted father and paranoid that I would somehow break my daughter. Or that she would break me.
For the most part, that didn’t happen. Though there were a few evenings when she’d walk in the door to find me standing there holding a screaming bundle of misery. But we all adjusted and grew.
As I mentioned, we’re on our second summer up here in Wisconsin. Unfortunately for my wife, she really didn’t get much of a summer off last year, for reasons that are better left in the “You Don’t Want To Know” category. Again, we adjusted to this reality, and did what we had to do.
This summer, however, my wife has her first summer off in…probably ten or twelve years. No steady commitment like a job or classes or a dissertation. There are a few meetings, a few conferences, and a few family trips planned, but other than that…she’s home.
And this leads to a problem.
No, it’s not having people around all day when I’m not used to it. As I work at home every day of the week, I actually welcome the company.
Nor is it the projects. Yes, parts of the house look…a little raw right now. But she makes progress (when not blocked by lead paint), so eventually I’m thinking things will be put back together.
No, it’s the Netflix list.
You see, up until this summer, my wife would very rarely have time to sit down and watch television with me in the evenings. She’d get home late and I get up early. This meant that for the most part anything I rented from Netflix I could watch on my own. So long as some sort of common interest appeared in a little red envelope in time for the weekend, everything went well.
Now…now she wants to watch things with me.
I watch a lot of television series through Netflix rentals. It’s nice. No breaks in between episodes, everything progresses as one continuous story. And up until now, all my wife could do would be to sigh regretfully if she missed out on watching this that or the other.
Now…now I have to ask her if she’s heard of the title and if she’s interested in it when the disc shows up in the mail. And if she has and she is, we’re on her schedule.
The other day I got the third disc from Eureka. I also got the first disc from Spaced
She’s interested in all three.
I know, I’m selfish. I really am. But she’s out of the house right now for orchestra rehersal and our daughter is (sort of) asleep. I could be watching discs right now.
Darn Summer Break.
you are entitled to be selfish but you really are not selfish – so, watch what you want when you want and then watch it again if AM decides she wants to see the film.