My wife and I end our days every so often asking each other what the “pits and peaks” were of the day. We really started doing this when we weren’t a couple and when we worked together and went to more work happy hours than we do now (we now go to zero, and we don’t work together at the same company anymore, but we definitely have a house, a dog, and a tiny baby).
In our previous life when we did this, it was a nice conversation starter to include the larger group. Maybe it was a good way to get a sense of what others were going through and experiencing at the same workplace - kind of a sub-group to our already smaller sub-group.
Now, it’s a back-to-center technique for two lovers who became partners who became parents and are now very tired and just trying to make it by most days and most nights.
I’ve been thinking more about little rituals that we put together to help us through our days. This feels specifically important right now because our 4-month-old is on a very strict schedule (until he decides not to be). Every night we start to wind the baby down by 6:30 pm or so. We bathe him if it’s bath night, which happens every other night. We lotion him, sing him songs, get his bottle ready and feed him, read him a story or two, and bring him up to bed. The routine is the critical part - the part that we get to control. The outcome we don’t control, and it’s almost never the same.
Sometimes he will go straight to bed, but that doesn’t happen often. He’s more likely to false start 2-5 times and then drift off to dreamland for his first extended sleep of the night around 10:00 pm while mom and dad hustle downstairs to get chores done - clean bottles, put the kitchen to bed, get the coffee ready for tomorrow. Little things to get our lives in order for the next day when inevitably we will do the same things at the same times, and rely on our rituals to get us through the day.
We now rely on a quick happy hour with a clarified cocktail, an allspice Wisconsin old-fashioned, an NA beer when we’re trying not to drink alcohol or a real beer poured into a mason glass if we’re feeling like it might just take a small part of the edge off. Sneaking in a show on Apple TV like “Servant” if we’re feeling like getting spooked or “Shrinking” if we’re looking for laughs like the ones Scrubs gave us a long time ago (my wife has never seen Scrubs, but Bill Lawerence produced both and I swear she’d love Scrubs if we gave it a try).
We rely on “Pits and Peaks” for a brief moment of centered connection, some undistracted together time to wind down our day. The little happy hours and the times we can squeeze in a show, all after our routine to put down our babe. These rituals are new, but I don’t think they’ve ever been more important. They are there before we wake up 5-15 times through the night and do it all over again tomorrow. They give us a little bit of extra energy to go try again and give it our best again tomorrow.