Day 284 - Monday Mornings

On the verge of a three-day holiday, I have a bit of advice for you people who ask your co-workers with babies about their weekend: don't do it. Every...weekend...is...the...same.

At my work, my staff consists of an assistant coordinator and a handful of production assistants. I'd have to say the average age of my staff is probably the mid-twenties. So every Monday morning they come in and talk about their twenty-something weekend:

"I saw 'Wanted'."

"We took a weekend trip to Vegas."

"A bunch of us went to a bar, got drunk, picked up some girls, and murdered a hobo."

You know, typical twenty-something stuff.

Inevitably, the question comes around to me. "What did you do this weekend, oh mighty boss?" And I have to answer with my typical, "Nothing much, peon." Which is pretty much true unless you want to hear in detail the adventures we partook at Target, the crowds we manhandled at Costco, and the dangerous walks we took with our precious children at dusk in our violent 'hood of Sherman Oaks.

It's not that Lisa and I were party animals before the kids were born. We did like to go see movies every weekend, and we would plan a few vacations every year. But beyond that we were pretty boring -- especially if you ignore our one month experiment with Plushies.

But having kids does change things. All those hours you had to yourself during the weekend is suddenly sucked up by your Dyson babies. But to tell you the truth, there is time that you have to yourself. Our kids typically nap 3-4 hours during the day and go to sleep at 8pm. So you figure you probably have 7-8 hours to yourself if you go to sleep around midnight. But here's the catch: you're too damn tired to do anything! It takes us almost a week to get through one Netflix movie; we watch movies 30-40 minutes at a time. And we've had The Assassination of Jesse James on dvd for the past month because we have no idea how we can get through a 150 minute movie.

So when my barren co-workers ask about my weekend, it probably sounds extremely boring and domesticated. I sure as hell wouldn't deem saving $15 in coupons at Ralphs a weekend highlight -- although I really do think that's a great story. Fifteen dollars! But my friends at work are just at a different point in their lives and can't relate with my adventures in parenthood. What may seem a little boring to them, is actually quite fulfilling to me. For instance, grabbing a gigantic glob of boogers on the edge of Andrew's nostril is worthy of a medal of honor.

Every...weekend...is...the...same. That is true. But the stuff between the lines is what's really interesting: Every (Andrew tried to walk) weekend (Emma said 'mama') is (the kids made each other laugh) the (Andrew pooped on Lisa) same.