I have been working some crazy hours, with even crazy hours looming in thr future. Right now I'm out of the house 13+ hours a day - that's generally a 2.5 hour roundtrip commute and a 11 hour workday. Soon, though, I'll also be working the same schedule on Saturdays. Most weekdays for the past four weeks I haven't seen my son awake. I leave before he wakes up and I come back after his bedtime. The only days I did see him awake were days he hadn't fallen asleep right away or I left work early due to some workflow problem.
What, tell me WHAT would I do without my sister-in-law? Mian drives the boy to half-day preschool three days a week and uses his lunchbreak to take him back home. But Dulhan takes care of him the rest of the afternoon and then all day long the other two days a week. She has to wake up earlier than usual, enfore naptime even though he's always been a fighter of sleep, and then she even continues his Urdu lessons every afternoon. She spends lots of time each day skype-ing with her family and our shared in-laws, so he also gets to talk in Urdu lots throughout the day. Then - THEN - she even cleans and prepares dinner for us all every evening. She makes sure it's ready at our usual dinnertime (7pm) even on nights that her husband Chachoo doesn't get home until late. (And on those nights she also waits to eat with him, so she finishes dinner hours before she'll even be eating it.)
I cannot imagine how do normal people work full time. I am barely holding the threads together and I have full-time, always there childcare. Snow day? Unplanned daycare closure? Two teacher workdays in a row? Eh, what do I care, I can still get to work on time and I don't have to leave early either! PLUS, the boy's still in his own home, being taken care of by his own family who love him. When I get home Dulhan and I chat for a long time each day about all the cute things he did or said, it's clear that she's as smitted with him as we are. She even takes lots of pictures and videos every day and calls me on the phone when he says he wants to talk to me, so I feel like I'm still apprised of his daily activities. At least once or twice every day Mian or I will look at each other and say something like "What would we do without Dulhan?" or "Alhumdulillah for Dulhan!"
What, tell me WHAT would I do without my sister-in-law? Mian drives the boy to half-day preschool three days a week and uses his lunchbreak to take him back home. But Dulhan takes care of him the rest of the afternoon and then all day long the other two days a week. She has to wake up earlier than usual, enfore naptime even though he's always been a fighter of sleep, and then she even continues his Urdu lessons every afternoon. She spends lots of time each day skype-ing with her family and our shared in-laws, so he also gets to talk in Urdu lots throughout the day. Then - THEN - she even cleans and prepares dinner for us all every evening. She makes sure it's ready at our usual dinnertime (7pm) even on nights that her husband Chachoo doesn't get home until late. (And on those nights she also waits to eat with him, so she finishes dinner hours before she'll even be eating it.)
I cannot imagine how do normal people work full time. I am barely holding the threads together and I have full-time, always there childcare. Snow day? Unplanned daycare closure? Two teacher workdays in a row? Eh, what do I care, I can still get to work on time and I don't have to leave early either! PLUS, the boy's still in his own home, being taken care of by his own family who love him. When I get home Dulhan and I chat for a long time each day about all the cute things he did or said, it's clear that she's as smitted with him as we are. She even takes lots of pictures and videos every day and calls me on the phone when he says he wants to talk to me, so I feel like I'm still apprised of his daily activities. At least once or twice every day Mian or I will look at each other and say something like "What would we do without Dulhan?" or "Alhumdulillah for Dulhan!"
