Time... MINE, HIS, FAMILY

On a YahooGroup I am on this question was posed:

Those of you with kids and significant others, how much time per week/month do you get to do stuff for YOURSELF and what do you do with that time? How much time do you and your S.O. get to spend alone and what do you do to make the most of it? How old are your kidlets? I'm wondering where we compare.

For me I work 32 hours a week (PM shift), and hubby works early day shift (starting around 4:30 or 5) – hubby gets home 2 days a week before I leave and I found someone (on this board actually) to watch them the other two days for 3 hours each day, so hubby can go to his meetings and then be home around 4:30. While this means we don’t see each other often it does mean we are with our kids MOST of the time.

So besides being at work I need MY time. I have a 4 year old and a 19 month old, the older goes to preschool M, W, F from 11:15-1:45. Thank goodness for me the younger one naps during that time. This 2 hours is filled with… “chores” not yet done, preparing lunch/dinner, digi-scrappin (digital scrapbooking), blogging, reading e-mails, paying bills, etc. I try to spend 50% doing house stuff and 50% for me – some days it is 100% me and others 100% house.

I get home around 12:30am and stay awake until 2am so I have 1.5hrs for me time then – generally then is just reading e-mails, blogging or digi-scrappin. We wake around 8:30 or 9 so I still get about 7 hours of sleep. I choose to have this ME time and not sleep longer (but in general 7 hours is enough for me – as long as I am not interrupted to many times during the night).

I get each morning with the girls – and all day on Tuesdays til dad gets home.

As for family time it is on my day off (right now I am off every Tuesday) in the evening and then Saturday and Sunday, I do work 2 Saturday’s a month and then I have another day off during the week. After the kids go to bed when I am off (3 nights a week) is hubby time – I don’t watch TV much so it is generally cuddling in bed and talking about the past few days. We have annual passes to Disneyland and that is our away time. We try to go every 6-8 weeks for a very LEISURELY long weekend (4-6 days). The last time that hubby and I went away overnight was before Rachel was born, in fact I am not even sure the last time we left the girls for a date night. Having lost two pregnancies at almost 20 weeks I think I tend to be overprotective of these two – as I wouldn’t want something to happen to them. The only time we have left Rachel was when I was in the hospital overnight when I had the last miscarriage – they stayed with their Papa & Nana J.

Hubby gets HIS time on Saturday (for an hour or two) and then the 4 nights I am off after the kids have gone to bed. He loves to go to the movies and I try to let him get away twice a month for that. Often he chooses to take a nap over going to the movies!

Very interesting question - when is your free time?

This works for us - what works for you? Visit Works for Me Wednesday.