A Beautiful Trade Off

Nathan has a schedule I always wanted my dad to have growing up.

Leave after breakfast, home by dinner time.

My dad always worked long hours which made seeing him such a treat.

Nathan's dad worked/schooled a lot too.

So when we got married we talked about the ideal schedule.

Leave at 7 home by 4ish.

That way there would be plenty of kid time before they went to bed, 

then we would have plenty of us time after that.

For most of our marriage, minus the awful 2 years of constant travel we had just that.

Nathan's new job has been awesome because they are so flexible he can go in whenever he wants and leave whenever he wants...within reason.

Flash forward to Aug 22, 2011.

Nathan's 3 out of 5 semesters has begun.

Stomp, Stomp, Stomp.

Nathan has class from 6-9 which means...he comes home after the kids are in bed.

Its only 4 days a week but after the 3rd day of this I have realized I hate this semester.

Not so much for me, but for the kids who crave daddy time so much.

Nathan's Office has come up with a solution.

Nathan doesn't go in until 8:30-9:00.

Which means he gets to eat with us and most importantly...

Walk ALL the kids to school.

Walk them all home and he purposely takes the long way so I get 15-20 minutes of uninterrupted kid free time.  It has been glorious. If I were a coffee drinker I could see how this would be relaxing and awesome, but since I am not, I choose my time to actually eat breakfast, because I normally don't.

I read from my current 3 or 4 books, and I can shower without interruption.

Its so nice for me to get the break and for the kids to get time with their Daddy.

When he gets home from the walk to school, he plays with the girls or does a few household items for me and then off he goes. I feel so blessed that his work understands that he needs time with us too.

So even though we don't get our normal daddy home at 5pm schedule 4 days a week...we seem to have made the best of it.

Even though its hard right now, in the end it will seem like a small insignificant bump in the road to getting where he needs to be.