Moments before she's due at work, Maria Johnson races into her husband Carno's office, toting the couple's two daughters and a mental list of things to tell him. Dinner's on the stove. The kitchen's a mess. Iris has been cranky. Jasmine needs diapers. And can he buy juice on the way home?
After handing off the children, coats and a car seat -- and stealing a kiss in the stairwell of Union Memorial Hospital, where both work -- she begins her workday while her husband's 7 a.m.-to-3:30 p.m. shift ends.
"Our lives are fly-by-night," says Mrs. Johnson, 27, a transcriptionist who works from 4 p.m. to midnight. "There are times when Saturday rolls around and I say: 'Honey, how was your week?' "
Demographers describe the arrangement as "sequential parenting." The Johnsons -- and many others like them who work opposite shifts to save on child care or simply to earn a living -- call it survival.
For split-shift couples, life is defined by elaborate lists, sleepy greetings and cherished weekends. During the week, a spouse may be little more than a silhouette under the bedcovers. Many acknowledge that they are temporarily devoting more of themselves to parenthood than to their marriages.
Although statistics about these couples are elusive, many people don't work 9 to 5 anymore. Roughly 15 percent of the country's full-time employees -- including nurses, retailers and computer engineers -- worked nights or weekends in 1991, the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
Women are five times more likely than men to work unconventional hours to accommodate children, according to a 1989 study by Harriet B. Presser, a sociologist at the University of Maryland College Park who has studied these couples. But husbands who enter into these arrangements do more housework and are more active fathers than male counterparts with conventional careers and family lives, her research showed.
Working by day while a spouse works at night does exact a price, though.
"It has important family consequences," Dr. Presser says. "Marriages are more unstable among those who work split shifts."
Janet Treichel understands. A Giant cashier, she works from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., while her husband John, a grocery manager, is on the job from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
"It's been great for the kids but hard on us as a couple," says Mrs. Treichel, 35, who has worked a shift opposite that of her husband for almost four years. "The minute he comes in the door, I get in the shower and start to get ready for work. . . . Sometimes you feel like you don't know the other person. There are times when I sort of forget what he looks like."
During an average day, Mr. Treichel leaves for work by 4:30 a.m. Hours later, his wife gets up, fixes breakfast for their children -- Paul, 4, and Colleen, 2 -- gets everyone dressed and prepares dinner while their son is at preschool. Her husband calls for an update on her day and for his evening chores. She makes lunch and then takes the children out to play.
When her husband comes home at 2:30 p.m., she begins the mad dash to prepare for work. After she leaves at 4:15 p.m., he heats dinner, does the dishes, bathes the children and puts them to bed at 8 p.m., often falling asleep himself an hour later.
He rarely hears her come home at 11:30 p.m. Too wound up to sleep, she does odd jobs around the house or reads magazines, usually heading to bed around 1 a.m.
"There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think that this is hard," says Mr. Treichel, 33, who lives in Germantown. "But they're my children. They're my responsibility. It's important to me to raise them and do it correctly. That's why I do this."
Fatigue and lack of time together are the biggest complaints that couples have about their lives. For Mr. Treichel, that became frighteningly clear when his son developed sleeping problems and began wandering around the house late at night.
One time, Mrs. Treichel came home at midnight to find Paul sitting on the sofa in the family room, wrapped in a blanket and watching cartoons.
"What was my reaction?" asks Mr. Treichel. "Oh my God! I started putting him in bed with me so I'd wake up if he moved."
Ellen Galinsky, co-president of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group in New York, conducted a study of several East Coast factories where split-shift couples predominate. She found that children often picked up on the pressures their parents were facing.
"There was a sense of pride in their parents . . . but worry about how hard their parents were working," she says. "There was a feeling that they needed to take care of their parents when they came home. They'd say things like, 'When Mommy comes home, she's tired so I put a pillow under her head and tiptoe around.' "
While split-shift arrangements are a reality, they're not recommended by family psychologist Stephen J. Gaeng, no matter how strong a marriage is. He has treated couples who have divorced in part because of this lifestyle.
"There are severe pitfalls," says Dr. Gaeng, who practices in Ellicott City. "Couples deal with what needs to be done: 'Did Johnny get to baseball on time?' And forget to ask each other: 'How are you doing? How are you dealing with your stress?' "
In September, the Treichels took a week off simply to do household chores and get reacquainted. For the first time in months, they went out alone -- treating themselves to dinner while their children stayed with relatives.
"When we were on vacation, I found myself staring at John," Mrs. Treichel says. "He looked thinner and his hair had receded a little. I hadn't noticed that before. Usually I just pass him in the hall."
For the Johnsons, a large note pad on the refrigerator has been their primary means of communicating since they started working opposite shifts in July.
"Sometimes I'll apologize for leaving a mess in the kitchen or I'll say, 'I just wanted to say hello. I miss you and love you,' " says Mrs. Johnson, who lives in Cockeysville. "There are times when I want to get mushy. And the best I can do is leave a note."
Although parents often have different ways of disciplining children, that becomes more exaggerated when couples are running households on their own during the week.
"Parenting takes coordination," Dr. Gaeng says. "With this arrangement, it's more of a challenge to handle the child in a consistent manner. . . . Children also have less of a chance to see a model of a couple working together and loving each other -- communicating, resolving problems."
One of the few arguments the Johnsons have these days is about raising their daughters: Iris, 4, and Jasmine, 1 1/2 . Mr. Johnson is strict, while his wife is lenient. They're currently debating how to wean their toddler off her bottle. Mr. Johnson has taken it away, but his wife has given it back.
"It can be a double standard," says Mr. Johnson, 28, chief X-ray technologist at Union Memorial. "But I don't come home and say, 'Now Mommy's at work. We're going to have Daddy's way.' Kids are real sensitive to knowing that Dad has his own style."
The couple even has differences about seemingly inconsequential things -- like where to stockpile the Twinkies. While Mr. Johnson puts them atop the refrigerator, his wife stores them in the cupboard, which at one time left them with 31 snack cakes around the house.
"We laughed about it," Mr. Johnson says. "I just helped out and took some to work."
They don't plan to continue this juggling act after their youngest enters school, but for the time being there's an immediate financial payoff. They are saving $600 a month and applying that to paying off car and student loans.
There are perks to this lifestyle, as well. Having been married nearly five years, the Johnsons still feel like they're on their honeymoon.
"The best part is we never argue," she says.
"And we never get sick of each other," he says. "How can we? We never see each other."