Weekends with Kids

The meaning and purpose of the weekend continues to evolve as my family changes.  When I was a stay-at-home mom, I felt like I had no weekend.  Each day honestly felt the same, with the exception that Chris might have been home for two of them, which meant I had an extra set of hands.  But every day, seven days a week, was always the same routine - get up with the kids, tend to the kids, and then fit in errands and housecleaning around their schedules.  I definitely fell into the trap many stay-at-home moms fall into, which is believing that if it's house- or kid-related, it's my responsibility - even on weekends.  As we know, kids' needs and household chores are never-ending, so no wonder I never felt like I had a weekend if I was never leaving the "office."

A pleasant revelation upon reentering the working world is that the weekend returned to being a special part of the week.  There's now a clear distinction between my routine during the workweek and my routine over the weekend.  I feel that sense of relief building as Friday comes nearer and nearer.  (I also feel that, "What it's Sunday night? What happened to the weekend?!")  I rarely think about work over the weekend and I've actively resisted setting up my work e-mail account to check it at home, so when I leave work on Friday afternoon, I enter weekend mode. 

Another surprise, though, is how tiring the weekend is compared with the work week!  That is quite the opposite from my pre-kid life when weekends were for staying out late with friends, sleeping in, lounging around the house and basically doing what I wanted when I wanted.  Just because I don't do anything for my paying job over the weekend, doesn't mean there's not a lot to do.  Weekends now are kid-focused and they feel like the only opportunity to catch up on everything I didn't have a chance to do during the week.  So laundry, grocery shopping and house cleaning compete with playdates and outings with the kids, oh, and maybe kid-free time with our own friends.     

So what did last weekend look like at our house? 

We squeezed in a post-dinner sledding outing before bedtime on Friday night and then cleaned up from dinner after the kids went to sleep.  I caught up on the latest episode of Modern Family, which I'd missed earlier in the week, and then Chris and I collapsed into bed after a long week of work. 

Chris and I divided and conquered our Saturday morning.  Chris took Oliver to gymnastics and Soren and I went to Target and hauled home a week's worth of groceries just in time for the kids to have lunch and go down for their naps.  Nap time is the only hope I have to exercise at all over the weekend, so I grabbed my iPod and headed out for a walk.  Unfortunately, Oliver didn't nap and Soren didn't nap well, so by the time I got home, Chris was packing the kids up to take them to swim at the Y.  They loved swimming, but came home so tired out from the exercise and lack of naps that the peaceful family dinner I had envisioned was anything but.  One or both of the kids was crying, whining or screaming every minute of what as a short dinner. After putting the kids to bed early, Chris and I enjoyed the only downtime we'd had all day and then also went to bed early.  That made it the second night we went to bed as early or earlier than we did on a weekday night. 

By Sunday morning, our house was a disaster.  Daily housecleaning had gone neglected too long and we must have had four loads of laundry piled up in the basement needing to be folded.  Chris took the kids to the Science Museum, not just to get them out of the house so they could burn off some energy, but so I could have a chunk of time to put the house in order without the kids turning everything upside down again.  I seriously spent two hours ironing and folding laundry and was never so content to work in silence. 

I was only halfway through my chore to-do list when Chris and the kids returned.  Like every time they come home just in time for a meal and sleep, the next 45 minutes was loud and frantic as wed fed the kids and got them down for their naps.  I was lucky to be able to take another afternoon walk, but had to keep it short since a babysitter recommended to us by a friend was stopping over to meet us.  I arrived home to discover the kids had barely napped and raced around the house trying to de-clutter while the kids trailed my every move.   

By the time the babysitter left, there wasn't enough time left in the afternoon to go anywhere with the kids before we'd have to start dinner, so I set up the kids with my latest time-killing activity - baking.  Soren just likes to bang measuring cups and spoons against the counter, but Oliver and I measured out and mixed ingredients and had a loaf of zucchini bread in the oven and scheduled to finish baking just in time for dessert. 

By the time dinner (and a special dessert) was over, it was already time to start the bedtime routine with Soren and then Oliver.  I'd just gotten Oliver down when a friend showed up for a visit.  Although I was exhausted by this point, I was thankful to have that bit of time at the very end of the weekend to catch up with a friend.  We've known each other since we were counting our first borns' ages in weeks, and we talked over cups of tea and slices of zucchini bread about dramatically our lives have changed.