It’s an interesting thing, having a child. I don’t mean literally having it, but the participation in the process that results in child-dom. It’s a pretty standard thing for people to say “it changes everything”. It’s cliché, and therefore somewhat true. But it is not that simple.

Take this past week. I just moved a bunch of shit over to my new office and put furniture together. Wires everywhere, internet spotty, not an ideal situation. Then, the parents come to visit. Sorry, gotta work still… in the rough and rugged office space. In between all that is baby and wifey, stuck together like glue because of breast feeding. Then comes along pumping, and daddy gets to participate in the feeding via bottles at 2:30 in the blessed AM.

You’ve got diapers to change, and then baby to soothe back to sleep so you can get at the laundry, or make dinner, or take shit or whatever. Then it’s rinse and repeat.

See, it’s not that everything changes. Everything doesn’t change, really. It’s all the same. There’s just MORE of it. There’s more to do in a day, so some stuff gets pushed to the side, or forgotten altogether for a while. I mean, when you used to have an hour to read the news or email or fuck-all, then 3 hours to play games, 2 hours to watch TV, then an hour of reading before bed, that was all well and good when you consider 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work and an hour of grooming and travel in 24. But add in all that other shit – well, the leisure stuff just kinda falls by the wayside. I mean, it was for pleasure, anyway, supposedly done in your “free time”.

Well, guess what? What’s free time?

So take some time to look at your life for a bit. Evaluate the time you spend doing EVERYTHING. Think about what is time wasted, time spent on leisure, time just pissed away. And THEN dare to tell the people around you that you’re “busy”.

If you have time to talk to people, that is.

So yes, having a baby changes everything. It changes how you look at and spend your time. And it gives you a lot less of it to spend.