Weekending

There are a lot of things I love about my job, but by far the most novel and exciting for me after a decade in the restaurant business is paid vacation time. Thanks to that lovely little perk, I opted for a three day weekend to catch up with the family this week. So, instead of starting my day with to the tune of a chiding alarm clock, I started it to the tune of a chiding 4 year old. “Mom, get up. I need your help. I have to go to the bathroom.”


Ah, morning. Ah, motherhood. If you made a pie chart of how I spend my time, an inordinately large slice would be devoted to unpleasant hygiene tasks. And of course I mean unpleasant hygiene tasks for other people. Little people. Little needy, gross people who are constantly leaking and oozing and not only unwilling or unable to clean themselves but also furious that I would dare try and clean them. It makes me want to scream, “Hey, I don’t really want to wipe your nose for the fifth time in an hour, but I certainly don’t want to have to chase you across the room, tackle you, and hold you down all for the honor of wiping your snotty nose.”

I have to say, though, after the morning wipe down of the snot squad, the day went up. I got to go to the boys’ music class, we hit the cool local toy store after that, we had lunch together, and then we went to pick out Nico’s new glasses. All in all, we had a nice weekend day together, the kind that normal folk get to have every week. Of course, Sam had to go to work before dinner, but nonetheless, it was a nice family day that reminded me how long it has been since we got to spend a day together, just the four of us.

Sometimes I find myself questioning how long we can sustain this schedule. On one hand, I’m so glad that we haven’t had to put the boys in day care. But on the other, I have such working mother’s guilt anyway, guilt over not being there to watch each little milestone as the kids hit them, over missing time that I will never get back. Thanks to their amazing father, I never worry that the kids are being ignored or overlooked or understimulated during the day when I am off at work. Instead, I worry that Sam is being harassed and getting exhausted and generally feeling like a downtrodden Mr. Mom. He has all the embarrassing aspects of being a stay at home dad (being the only father at music classes and story times, spending more time dragging two kids to the doctor’s office than he does doing anything fun, having to clean up the house and dress the kids for the army of therapists that come every week) but he also has a job. And when I get off of work most nights, instead of getting to pass the kids off to me for a break, he is either on the way to work himself or cooking dinner for the family or heading out to mow the lawn before the sun goes down.

My big windfall daydream used to be that I would be able to finish school without working full time. It was what I wished for more than winning the lottery, though the lottery was probably a more likely scenario. Now, what I find myself obsessing about is having weekends with the family. When my mind drifts off to greener grass what-if scenarios, what I see in my mind is a life with more days like today. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have two of these all together every week. And though I am jealous of the huge percentage of people who get that luxury every week, I am also quick to remind myself that if my biggest problem is that I love my family so much that I wish for more time with them, things could be a lot worse.