A little more time.
My parcel under the tree would be – an extra 4 hours at the end of the day.
A gift to my partner, but one that I know I would benefit from too.
24 hours in a day is simply not enough, not enough to do everything you need to do as a parent AND to have time for yourself – and indeed time for your relationship.
We have quite a strict bedtime routine in our house and the boys are tucked up by 7.30/7.45 – which we have reluctantly stretched from 7.00/7.15 after constant complaints from our sons that NOBODY else at school goes to be so early.
I admit there is selfishness in tucking them up early as we feel that we need a little time for ourselves at the end of the day – however I am also a firm believer in early bedtime being good for the child. Our boys wake up when they are ready – it’s a very rare occasion that we have to wake them – reassuring us that they have had enough sleep and consequently they are never noticeably tired during the day.
However, regardless of our early to bed routine – which of course results in early mornings – the time that my partner and I have together is still limited as we ourselves are usually ready for bed by 10 – or worse still asleep on the sofa.
As a consequence we have time for little else of an evening other then to vegetate in front of rubbish TV.
And that’s were those extra 4 hrs would be put to such good use.
Time to properly unwind together, to enjoy each other’s company, to invite friends over, time to remind ourselves of what our relationship was like pre kids.
And dare I say – maybe even time to go out occasionally. Even if we have the will to go out we are usually so exhausted we just don’t have the strength nowadays and surely that exhaustion is mostly down to trying to squeeze everything into a 24 hr period.
So that would be my Christmas gift and I am pretty sure that my partner would relish every minute of it – just as I would with him.
