Inter...up...tions...

I've been gaming in various formats for the majority of my life, and for a good portion of that time I had all the focus any gamer could ask for to accomplish the myriad of goals set before me. This has drastically changed in the last several years, specifically, since I had my first baby. My life has now become a series of miniscule blocks of time where I try to squeeze in tasks amongst full time baby/toddler care...

7a – Been up for an hour. Everyone is fed, bathed, and dressed.
8a – Having successfully migrated downstairs for play time and Noggin I am free to futilely clean the house.
10a – Snack time. Counterproductive to the cleaning effort.
10:30a – Project time. Coloring, crafts, learning activities. Again, counterproductive to the cleaning effort.
12p – Lunch time. The 3 yr old decides he wants to make his own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The aftermath of this activity makes me contemplate burning the house to the ground and starting over rather than actually trying to clean up the mess.
1p – Nap time rapidly follows the hose down from lunch. Having fulfilled my mother duties it's time to check the emails for freelance client requests. This will dictate if I can fit any gaming in. Naturally, I will not be able to. Bastards!
3p – Everyone is awake... crap. Time to drag them all outside to burn off the new found nap energy. I drink a coffee the size of my head. Go go caffeine. I try to squeeze some work in with the running and screaming in the background.
4:30p – Drag the short people and the dog back inside and clean them up in time to start dinner. The house still looks like no one ever cleans around here. Grrrr.
5:30p – Dinner time. Kitchen is a disaster. Playroom looks like Toys 'r' Us vomited all over it. No one wants to sit at the table to eat. I have a caffeine headache.
6:30p – The blu ray has the latest kids movie playing for the 13th time in a week, but it allows me to give a last ditch effort to the cleaning front again. At the very least to get the kitchen to acceptable levels in preparation for the next day. When I inquire about the sticky substance on the kitchen tile it elicited blank stares.
7:30p – My husband walks through the door and proceeds to dump all his stuff on the newly cleaned kitchen counters and heats up his dinner. He manages to somehow use more dishes for one meal than anyone else has all day. All of which are left on the computer desk where he ate while browsing.
8p – Bath time. This effort to get clean and calm down before bed somehow results in the bathroom being destroyed by a tidal wave of water and a complete change of clothes for me.
8:30p – Bed time. Holy hell we made it through another day! PJ's are on, even if they don't always match. Books have been read. Nightlight is on. It only took five attempts to walk out of the room under a barrage of “Mommy? Can I have...?”
9p – Listen to how my husbands' day at work went while I attempt to pick up the bulk of things strewn around the house. He starts playing some Call of Duty on the PS3 and I sit down to consider my own gaming options. Before the load screen finishes I'm already contemplating the benefits of sleep over gaming. Blasphemy!
10p – I suck and I'm in bed fast asleep. FTL.

Now everyone knows that having kids changes your life, and no one would say otherwise. I had expected to spend my days doing the mother/wife thing, but during naps and at night I was hoping to find two or three hours where I could indulge myself in my preferred drug – gaming. After the initial settle-in for the new routine around our house it seemed like gaming may actually work out. I was elated. Granted, the baby slept some 20 hours a day, so that gave me plenty of time to keep things clean, cook, and get some work done - life was relatively under control.

Typical of gamers, my slated two or three hours of fun would easily turn into six or eight without me fully realizing it. I quickly started to feel the sleep deprivation, but I powered through it determined to make my new life somewhat resemble my old one. I was rapidly turning into a very irritable person... more so than normal.

I dealt with huge amounts of guilt from every angle. I felt guilty when I was gaming for 'ignoring' my family, and I felt guilty when I was with my family for 'ignoring' my guild/game. Not to mention the fact that as a mom people are always telling you to be sure to take time for yourself so that you have more to give to your family. I hate those people because they mean things like manicures and buying a new outfit and other things that have always been trivial to me.

Eventually, I reached a point where I had to go 'cold turkey' on the gaming front because all the interruptions were making me angry with the last people on Earth I wanted to be angry with, my family. After a few months break I decided to try out the gaming thing again, but with more of a casual player approach. A very, very casual player. It was hard as hell to squelch my inner power gamer. It's currently in hibernation waiting for the day I am free to release it onto the pixel world.

In the meantime I spend my rare moments of freedom trying to keep myself apprised of what's going on in the gaming world that I miss so much. I feel desperately out of touch, but I also know it won't last forever. Until then I'm going to keep my two biggest fantasies alive in my mind – gaming and a clean house. I need a wife!