[Eastbayk]

I was thinking about this question this morning in the car (where I do all my best thinking).

My husband is a flight instructor right now, working 14-16 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Hopefully within the next 2 months he'll get hired on with an airline (these last few hours seem to be the hardest to get). He's had this 7 day a week schedule for almost a year now and we have a 4 year old son. We all moved out from CA to FL for his training so when we got here, everything was brand new and we knew no one. We had also only been living together for about 3 months before we moved, so that whole change took some getting used to as well. I'm pretty independent and my son and I had a life before Aaron came into it so I'm used to it being just me and him.

At this point, my son and I have settled into a routine and my husband takes part when he can. Aaron knows that we have things we do on particular days (saturday morning library, wednesday evening house cleaning...) and that if I drop everything to just be with him, as much as I want to, it would throw everything out of whack and wouldn't be fair to us. If I know he's going to have a day off, I will schedule something special for that day. But if it's last minute, we try not to change plans. The boys have special things that they do together (like going to Chuck E Cheese or hanging out at the airport) that keep them connected. I make it a point to take an adult school class so that I have some time away doing things that I like as well. I lined up a sitter for this so I don't have to worry about whether Aaron is available or not.

It's hard to say how things will turn out when Aaron is away for a stretch of time with an airline. I look forward to having days when he's really OFF because right now, he could get called in at any time. But I think it's important for all of us to keep up our routine, as much as possible. I'll probably be able to schedule special family things on the days that he's around and do more friend stuff on the days that he's not. But he'll also be expected to participate in the regularly scheduled activities as much as possible. It's all about finding the right balance for your family.

One thing that I found interesting is that here in Jax (wasn't so much in CA) is that a lot of stay at home mom's socialize only during the day and when their husbands are home in the evening, that's family time. And for whatever reason, they won't deviate from that to do a mom's thing or take a class or do anything else in the evening. In a way, that's almost doing the same thing as what you are asking about- when dad's home, we have to devote all our time to him. Personally, I'd hate being limited in what I can do because someone else happens to be home.

Kim