Waste of an Evening

Those words or something like that were the words uttered by Mr. Hurst in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in regards to the social outing of a country ball. These words are also the way I know that my husband and I often feel depending on how our night has gone.

A non-waste of an evening would go something like this:

The baby goes to sleep at 8 p.m. and stays asleep a minimum of two hours without needing a pat on the back or rocking. Our older son is asleep by 10 without an argument or pleading for more reading and cuddling. My hubby and I catch up on the couch to watch our favorite DVRed shows or (gasp) a movie!

However, most of our evenings go one of about three ways:

1) If the baby happens to sleep, the older son will not and therefore cries, fusses, and pleads to be in cuddled in which case one of us (usually me) falls asleep with him while putting him to bed. 2) If by chance the older one goes to sleep in a reasonable amount of time and I have not fallen asleep with him, the baby will cry within thirty minutes, and I will fall asleep putting him back to sleep. 3) On the rare night in which both boys go to sleep reasonably, I am usually dying to get to bed and enjoy as much uninterrupted rest as possible before the inevitable happens of the baby waking up because he will then typically wake every hour or two from then on.

And so I sit here tonight at 10 p.m., with the baby asleep in his crib, my hubby reading/cuddling our preschooler, a thunderstorm rattling outside, an episode of Two and a Half Men paused on the DVR in hopes of being watched, and I write to fill my mind with exercise and some form of relaxation. But for my hubby and me, it is turning into a typical “waste of an evening.”

P.S. Then the lights went out.