In the immortal words of Blackstreet, on their 1996 hit album Another Level: “What we're gonna do right here is go back. Way back. Back into time.” Ready? Here we go: my partner and I have been living together for almost ten years. As you can imagine, I’ve been nostalgic as of late. One might assume that a near-decade makes it tough to remember what the early days were like, but since we had a kid I’ve been joyfully reminded of what it was all like, way back when. It turns out, living with a kid and living with a partner for the first time are pretty much the same thing (if you only consider the G-rated aspects, of course, and remember that clearly those two relationships are vastly different).
Both transitions are fraught with change, numerous questions, and eventually saying no to sharing your food without fearing that they will leave you in the dead of night. It's an exciting yet exhausting time, where you're just learning about one another and how you're going to share some living space in a healthy, fun, productive way, before you relied on routines.
The good news is that if you ever want to revisit those early days of living together, when you had butterflies when you returned home at the end of everyday, all you need to do is have a baby. I know, how simple is that? Without further ado, here's how living with a kid and a boo thang are basically the same: