I've written before about how precious my time with my boyfriend is. Things are different with my husband. We don't lack for time together, but having a child really doesn't leave much space for the sort of "couple time" we used to be able to have almost any time we wanted - the sort of quality time my boyfriend and I have scheduled into our calendar every week. It's fairly easy for my husband and I to get alone time with other people (he stays in, I go out for a date with my boyfriend; another night, and I'm the one at home) but together is not so easy.
Once we've all had dinner, and Small is asleep, there isn't much time left before one or both of us is ready for bed ourselves, and sometimes one of us has to use that time to work. Sitting down for a relaxed meal, just the two of us, is rare. Watching a film means staying up late and losing out on precious sleep. Going out alone together to find requires planning, and use of our extra-nuclear family as babysitters.
I notice similar differences in my daughter's relationships. She and I spend so much time together, most of it is pretty mundane: shopping, cooking, her playing beside me as I get housework or work emails done, bath-time. When she gets the chance to spend time with other adults, or her older cousins, she revels in the intensity of these short bursts of dedicated attention, and the novelty of the connection. After spending the whole day with her, I couldn't keep that up.
My boyfriend and I always have huge amounts to catch up on when we see each other. We keep making plans to watch a film, or even just an episode of something, but we usually have too much to talk about. We sit, eat a meal, hold hands over the table. It's quality time, and as we don't share a home or a domestic life, we're able to make that pretty much all we have.
But I sort of resist the idea that this more intense, focused time is somehow of better quality than the drip drip of domesticity. Just as I can't keep up the energy to play at full-intensity with my daughter all the time, as my boyfriend or other family does with her, they don't get to walk to the shops each time with a fun little girl who joins in when I sing a familiar song, who wants to point out the colours of the cars and who thinks that seeing a passing dog is as exciting as a trip to the zoo. They might miss the particular moment when she experiments with new words and sentences, and her language suddenly takes a leap forward. They don't get naptime snuggles, or rushing out to look for snails after the rain. These lovely, mundane moments are paid for by the weight of time we spend together. The quantity creates this particular quality.
My husband and I spend so much time together that there is rarely much build up of things we want to say. Although we talk all the time, our conversation is more relaxed, less urgent, maybe even optional. Sometimes, once Small is asleep, we find ourselves hitting a familiar rhythm without much negotiation: putting away the toys, loading up the washing machine, pyjamas, takeaway, slumping against each other on the sofa, watching another episode of something. It takes a lot of time together to create quality time like that.
