About two years ago, a good number of our friends began getting pregnant and (after the statutory waiting period) having kids. While Barbara and I didn't have Max in order to stay cool with our pals, the fact of the matter is that most of our closest friends here in the New South have had children in the past couple years or are expecting now.

This has changed our get-togethers somewhat. In the olden days (not to be confused with l'age d'or), Barbara and I might share a few beers with our buds Julie and Kevin before embarking on an evening excursion to a art house flick or maybe a show at a club (Superchunk, anyone?). Tonight, they came over for burgers and barbecued tofu (Julie doesn't eat much red meat, and since she's pregnant most fish is off the menu) and departed at Max's bedtime. Seven-thirty.

We had a perfectly good time, as we always do. Kevin and I swapped views on the latest twists in the Gil Thorp comic strip saga, and all of us dished the recent holiday excursions to the family homelands. Julie didn't partake of the winter ales, but unlike the rest of us, she's more than capable of being witty and entertaining without a few beers in the belly--though she is the real beer drinker in our bunch.

Thing is, I expected my social life to slow down once Max arrived. I figure we'll get going again in a few years (once Max and any possible siblings are old enough to actually listen to a baby sitter when he says "go to bed, you little turds"). What I didn't expect was to be so tired.

I knew that the first couple of months would be rough, that any sleep depravation I put myself through in college would pale in comparison to the exhaustion I would feel in trying to appease a child who wanted to eat every two hours. But I thought that life would get a bit back to normal once Max slept through the night.

A couple notes on that whole "sleeping through the night" thing. First off, it comes and goes. Max is pretty good about staying down at home, but if we're on the road chances are he'll be crying by midnight. Sometimes he won't go back to sleep until morning nap time. And if we're out-of-town for a week, re-training him to the proper pattern takes some time.

Even that is alright. What I didn't expect was that I can never make up sleep. I'm a night person by nature. Usually I get to bed between midnight and one and I get up between eight and nine. Barbara is kind enough to take care of the wee tyrant until she heads off to work. That schedule is fine.

But if I get hooked on writing a particular bit, or if I'm watching a movie or reading a book or otherwise don't get to sleep until, say, two, too bad. I've lost that hour or two, and it won't come back. I'm not much of a napper, and anyway, Max seems to sense when I'm desperately tired and so generally takes a half-hour nap when I really need him to stay down for a couple hours.

So sleep is merely a concept. And we don't hang out with friends as much as we used to. And we don't go see movies. And we don't go out to dinner much. We don't even rent movies much. Life seems too full already. There are too many things to do in our waking hours as it is.

You might look at this as a litany of complaints. Not so. Life changes, and we have to get used to our new surroundings. We must adjust to the new realities of life with child. There are frustrations, sure. There are things children do that can drive even the most mild-mannered person up the wall. But there are rewards as well. Watching a child grow is perhaps the best education a person can get. You get to watch humanity regenerate itself on a personal level. You can discover how it is each of us has managed to become a totally different person. And why that is so important, anyway.

A mother may give a child the gift of life. After that, it's the kid who does all the real giving.

Jon Worley would like to sleep now.