With Joseph now spend­ing a week and a half at his grand­par­ents’ house, our lives are even more bereft of the enforced rou­tine of being par­ents to a tod­dler. It’s not that I miss this rou­tine — god knows, I hate rou­tine more than most — but how strange it feels when it’s no longer present.

Eric, who’s been at home all day, now sits in the cor­ner read­ing a book, lis­ten­ing to music that my brain parses as depress­ing regard­less of its actual con­tent. She’s not hun­gry, I’m not really hun­gry, as the clock ticks onwards long past what would have been Joseph’s din­ner time. I was instructed not to buy food for din­ner on the way home, so we don’t have enough ingre­di­ents to make an actual meal — not that I can be both­ered to cook any­way. I con­tem­plate going out for fish and chips, though I can’t really afford it and can’t even be both­ered to stand up from the sofa.

A four-day week­end and a frag­men­tary rem­i­nis­cence of Uni­ver­sity life have thrown my work life askew as well, and it feels odd to be there, like it’s a tran­sient thing.

For all that I nor­mally yearn to be free from the yoke of par­ent­hood, it sure as hell feels weird when I tem­porar­ily achieve it, as if I’m no longer adapted to a child-free life.