Doing less to get more

We had a great weekend. It was Colin’s first Halloween and while he like won’t remember what was going on, it was really fun spending time with him on a festive day. On Saturday, Sophia and I spent some time in the city and then hired a baby sitter so we could go out to dinner. It was a great weekend.

One of the key learnings in my first year as a parent is that I need to do less to get more out of my weekends. There were many months where I had tried to do too much with Colin. Whether that was being too ambitious with my day with him, or just planning way too much social events, or traveling too much.

My life has gotten significantly better the last few weeks when I have committed myself to doing less. For example, we can go out trick or treating with Colin but also realize that he does not know what’s going on and we should head back so he can play and get some energy out versus sitting in a stroller. We can also grab lunch in the city but need to be back by 3:30 for his nap or else we’re going to have a cranky kid.

Our weekends are infinitely less stressful once we’ve come to terms with the new reality and stopped trying to force things to feel like the pre-kid days. Things are not the same as they were before and likely will never be. After about a year, I’ve finally figured that out and have been enjoying our weekends more.