On Repetition
8 of 40
Hello! I’m Walther, and you’re about to read essay #8 of “40 Before 40,” a memoir I intend to finish before I enter midlife. In previous weeks I’ve written about my fifteen minutes of fame, going from morbidly obese to just obese, and my experience with death and loss.
I discovered Wil Reidie’s newsletter “The Recovering Line Cook,” a serial memoir about his life in Michelin-starred kitchens from London to Stockholm. In one of his essays, Wil says, “What matters is the repetition of things, I think. Or at least repeating things the right way.” This essay is my take on repetition.
Sisyphus
We all have tasks that we perform repeatedly. Monthly, weekly, daily, several times a day—ordinary, repetitive tasks that make you feel like Sisyphus. “I just cleaned the kitchen from breakfast. Just in time to prep for lunch. We’re getting takeout for dinner.” It’s usually how it goes. You load the dishwasher; you unload the dishwasher. Dirty clothes get in the washer; then it’s unto the dryer, then folded and piled on laundry baskets. Why is it so difficult to muster the energy to put away laundry?
My kids have more wardrobe changes in a day than Katy Perry singing “Hot N Cold” in concert. Hampers overflow if we don’t do a load of laundry a day. It’s madness. Sometimes.
My wife and I have four children, two still in diapers. The average child will use about 7,100 diapers before being potty trained. That’s a buttload of diapers. We’ve learned to change a diaper on a half-asleep baby in the dark. We’re pros at handling blowouts. Pro-tip, don’t try to salvage soiled clothes. We even have developed the ability to throw and catch clean and dirty diapers, wipes, butt cream, and clothes with the coordination and grace of the Moscow Ballet. We’re a well-oiled diaper-changing machine.
Even though we still have some years of diapers, one thing I’m glad we’re done with is formula and bottles. We used the Dr. Brown baby bottles. For those that don’t know, these baby bottles are great for preventing babies from sucking a lot of air while feeding, which means fewer colics, which means you have a happy baby. However, the bottle feels like IKEA designed it. Each bottle has five pieces. Cleaning them was a pain in the neck. We weaned our children cold turkey. “You’re a big boy/girl now. Here’s a sippy cup.”
Speaking of IKEA, we recently retired our Antilop high chair because our baby boy no longer fits in it. All four of our kids used it; it has served us well for seven years—best $20 I’ve spent there. A new one costs $30—if it’s not sold out. If you want to buy a gently used one, let me know.
Every day life
I’ve been working from home for the last three years, and we homeschool, which means we’re always together. We’re creatures of habit, and now that *knock on wood* we’re done we sleep regressions, the schedule is pretty consistent. The kids wake me up between 5:00 and 5:30. I go into the living room with them, try to keep them quiet, and let Diana sleep a little longer. I change diapers for the two younger ones, and everyone gets into their clothes for the day. The kids have their first breakfast while I unload the dishwasher and make my first cup of coffee. Then Diana is up, and I make her coffee and my second cup.
I start my day while Diana fixes the kids’ second breakfast. Then they do their school work and earn screen time. Depending on the day, a trip to the library or indoor play place may be on the schedule. I’ll sit with Diana and eat together if my day is slow. Sometimes I eat at my desk. We kick the kids outside so they get some vitamin D.
We have dinner. Bath time and kitchen cleaning happen in parallel. Everyone brushes their teeth and picks a bedtime story. I put the baby down to sleep, which used to be more involved; now, I just lay him down and pray the rosary while he falls asleep.
After that, Diana and I have some downtime. Sometimes I write, and she reads, or we may watch TV together. We run the dishwasher, and then it’s lights out, bedtime. The next day we do it again.
We’ve had good and bad days, days that fly by, and days that seem to drag on. They’re similar, yet they’re not the same. There’s a lot of repetition. We hug and kiss our children repeatedly. We tell them that we love them over and over. The best part is they hug, kiss back, and spontaneously say they love us. That makes it all worth it.
Repeat after me
Repetition, for me, reduces decision fatigue. I know what’s coming and may do it automatically. It allows me to notice the concentration my five-year-old exerts on his legos while I’m pouring him a bowl of cereal or taking dishes out of the dishwasher—I really want you to get the impression that I’m perpetually taking dishes in and out of the dishwasher.
It helps my kids know what to expect. If they see dinner is almost ready, sometimes they may even start cleaning up their messes without being prompted to do it. Somehow, they haven’t developed the ability to keep track of their water bottles; we’re working on it.
Finally, repetition has helped me be more present and intentional. It has helped me live in the here and now with the people in front of me. To live in the ordinary.
For some, this lifestyle may not seem appealing. But it may resonate with those who have chosen to start a family.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes, “The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
Before you go
I have some questions for you.
Do you do the same things day in and day out?
How often do you do laundry?
What’s your least favorite house chore?
Have you experienced decision fatigue? Elaborate.
If you’re a parent, have you felt like Sisyphus?
Really enjoyed this window into your life and it reminded me of a quote of Rick Rubin's "Discipline and freedom seem like opposites. In reality, they are partners. Discipline is not a lack of freedom. It’s a harmonious relationship with time.”
To answer your 5 questions:
1) I have the same routine virtually every morning, but that routine begins to break apart as work kicks in to exert more influence on my time.
2) About once a week (this is a clue that I do not have kids).
3) I hate doing the first or last step of a task, regardless of the task or how small. Examples of last step tasks include: putting away the groceries after grocery shopping (takes like 1/100th the time to actually shop but feels just as annoying); putting away clothes after folding them; unloading the dishwasher. The main first step task I can think of is meal planning.
4) I try to automate things (see my same morning routine) to minimize this, but yes I do sometimes. This is almost always with small decisions though, since I have a tendency to over analyze big decisions. Any decision of consequence I have turned over thousands of times in my mind, written about and/or created some decision framework, etc.
5) As my laundry answer revealed, I don't have kids. I do have care-giving responsibilities related to my mom who has cognitive issues related to a brain surgery and likely now the early stages of dementia (hard to say definitively whether or not she has dementia, as the signs largely overlap with pre-existing issues from her brain surgery). I will say that I do often feel like Sisyphus when it comes to my mom's care; I spend a lot of time trying to make her life as good as possible, it works for a bit, then something goes haywire and I am pushing the boulder back up the hill.
reeeeeeemix