Tuesday, February 22, 2011

An Odd Side-Effect

Since our daughter was born, my husband and I seem to have been gradually switching (or at least realigning) schedules. Until 2009, I worked a five day a week full-time office job. My husband was also working a full-time office job, but it was one with a much more flexible schedule allowance, while also having several music gigs (regular and irregular). What this meant for our schedules was that I would typically get up very early during the week and leave the house while my husband was still asleep, coming home in the early evening and staying up for a few hours before going to bed early (my standard bedtime was 10 PM when I was working) to start it all over again the next day. My husband would sleep in later, head to work (often staying late because he didn't start at 8 AM) and then from work would more often than not head to a rehearsal or a gig, not getting home until after I was asleep. Even on the nights when he came straight home from work, he would often stay up late doing one of three things (working, reading, or playing video games). He's naturally a night owl.

After I stopped working, I was already pregnant, so other than sleeping in later in the mornings, my own hours didn't change too much before the kiddo was born, since I was usually pretty tired. Once Baby Girl got here though, my hours became pretty erratic, and on more than one occasion, my husband would come home to find me still up and awake enough (usually feeding the baby) that we could hang out for a while. Eventually, Baby Girl and I got on a pretty regular schedule though. We have been blessed with a daughter who sleeps through the night and sleeps in pretty late (she gets up at 9:30 AM on most days unless we have to be somewhere early). It helps that her bedtime routine doesn't start until 10 PM, I am sure. Once she gives up her daily naps, we will move her bedtime back to 7 or 8, but for now it works for us. Most days I get up by or before 8 AM so I can do my chores and be all cleaned up before it is time for Baby Girl to start her day, and I rarely go to bed before midnight.

What is amusing is that, while my husband is still often out late for gigs or rehearsals, on the nights when he isn't busy, he has started going to bed before me. As his responsibilities at his day job have increased, he also often gets up, if not before me, then at the same time. It's been interesting seeing the shift this extra person has brought to our family, for sure.

Yesterday I noticed yet another swap in our personal habits--our video game playing. While my husband still gets on his game-playing kicks, over the last year and a half he has been playing a lot less. Usually he'll go for a few weeks hooked on a game and then not play at all for a month or more. I, on the other hand, who used to only occasionally game, playing mostly on weekends or in the summer, and without any real serious dedication, now try to play at least an hour or two every day. It's not that I have more time, exactly, it's just that once my husband introduced me to the PC-based role playing games (and I finally sat down and played one), I was really kind of hooked. Also, I have found it is a very perfect "me-time" thing to do, and it is a good way to enjoy Baby Girl's nap time.

Over the weekend, my husband started playing Mass Effect finally. I actually got it for him for Christmas two years ago. I think this is the first time he's sat down to play through an RPG where I am the one who has already played it. Usually I am the one asking him for a hint on how to get past a tricky part, or if there is a certain order in which I should do missions, etc. It's been a bit surreal having the roles reversed this time. But I am super excited that he is playing it, and he seems to be enjoying it so far. It is also neat to see how his play-through is differing from mine (he is playing as a guy for one thing, which does make the interaction with other characters vary quite a bit).

Of course, I have already been trying to fight the urge to replay this game, and listening to Hubby playing, as well as talking to him about it and seeing him get excited, which gets me excited about it...well, that's not helping. Thankfully I've got some distractions headed my way.

Today the demo for Dragon Age II goes live, and in two weeks the full game is out. So I've got enough to be getting excited about at the moment, I think. Mass Effect will have to wait I guess. But not too long.

Yesterday Hubby had the day off from work and we had a really nice family day. One of the best bits was during nap time, both of us were in the office, sitting at our side-by-side desks, each playing our game (I was finishing up the last stand-alone downloadable content campaign for Dragon Age). It was lovely. I am so glad I married this man.

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