I used to be such a fan of weekends. Days off work, time to myself. Enough time to have fun and catch up. Both. Got things accomplished, met Sunday evening with an aire of productivity and the greeted the week with a solid mindset.
Not so much anymore.
Two days, 48 hours is much less time in my world now. I figure when you divide by 6 (5 members of the family and I'm counting the pets collectively as their own) and take out time for sleep (and naps) we are left with about 6 hours each day of usable time. Not nearly what it used to be, with so much more to work on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not wishing to back to my world as a single girl with a cool apartment downtown. No....I never daydream about that at all......never. :)
I adore my kids, I love my husband and I live in my dream home. But every weekend rolls around and the upkeep on everything in my life becomes more obvious. The actual time needed to make those things work comes to light and I find myself over compensating and trying to make up for my week dominated by children to get it ALL done. All being, a house that is put together and presentable, kids who are happy and loaded down with family bonding time, relaxation seeping from every pore and possibly even some time for mommy and daddy to remember that they are, first and foremost, a couple in love. It's a tall order.
And the reason it never happens comes down to this....
Weekends are jumbled. Not defined. I know why, it's obvious, yet unsolvable in our house. Weekends are a mess because it's everyone's weekend, but that means different things in different roles. My husband, kids and I all have different ideas of what a weekend should be.
My husband works. He works very hard, long hours during the week. To him weekends are supposed to be relaxing. A break between the grind. Time to sleep a little more and take it easy.
For the kids, it's a day off school, everyone is home so we can pummel each other kind of approach. They are still to little for our weekends to be full of soccer games, dance recitals and sleepovers. But we do get an occasional crazy two days of birthday parties and family activities. Although the weekend rush will start soon enough as our 4 year old dives into the world of recreational soccer this spring.
For me, weekends aren't all that different than my normal week. I'm still responsible for the kids and the family schedule and for keeping the house from becoming an uninhabitable pit by Sunday night.
The big difference for me, and this is where our troubles start, is that I am happy to have another grown person around the house for a few days. My poor husband. In his attempt to take respite from his taxing job, I come in with a list of activities and chores that I need done. Not only that, I enjoy his company and probably talk his ear off more on weekends because he understands words that are longer than 3 syllables. It's nice. For me.
So out I trot the Honey-Do list of picture hanging, toy fixing, garage related anything and ultimately the time allotment for him to take the kids so I can get a project or two done. And before I even realize it, I have filled the weekend with tasky things that I normally assume should occupy our Saturday morning, but manage to dominate most of our two day stretch. That is, if we even get to them. Often we abandon our mission early due to boredom, sleep deprivation (that would be me) or the bickering we seem to employ as an obvious end to the work.
So here it is, Saturday morning. And as I try to figure out how to use these two days in a productive manor and he tries to figure out how to use them in a restful one, we sit at an empasse once again.
