The Weekend Edition

What's love got to do with it?

The weekend is right around the corner.

It is peeping at me from behind the heavy blackout curtains and humming sound machine; the nonstop rollercoaster of sensory overload. 

I can see it coming, the schlepping from one loud sweaty activity to another, the incessant snack requests (and then refusing said snack), the tantrums, the sweet laughing fits ending with the gleefully horrifying, “I pooped my pants, mommy!” 

Weekends are the worst. 

There. I said it.

I dread the weekends. They are the opposite of restful and restorative. I need the work week to recover from the weekend. Not in the “so-much-fun-whoa-back-to-real life” way. Fun is not the goal. Not for me. Those two full weekend days are harder than two weeks of nonstop work. Two weekend days should be counted in dog years. 

I’m not saying I prefer to work than to be with my kids, it’s just significantly more exhausting on many levels.

Woof. 

My weekend nervous system feels like it is navigating a minefield which to the unarmed, childless eye, may seem like a frolic in a soft bed of grass.

To be clear, if this is grass, it is infested with fire ants and I am not wearing pants. Or underwear.

For me, it’s the emotional and mental marathon- sensory overload all the time, no privacy or space, not having time to do anything for myself.  I don’t ask for much, maybe just to occasionally not pee with an audience. 

No one talks about how loving someone so much is all consuming. How being hyper-aware of their every need is stressful. How wanting to do right by them can take you out of the present moment. How paradoxical it is to want to savor every moment, and to also pray for the evening to come already so you (me) can get lost on your (my) phone. How their raw emotions are a constant mirror of unhealed places within. It’s not like you can say, “Hey, kid, stop mirroring my unhealed places within,” without living in certain areas of California - and we know I live in New Jersey.

There was a time, not too long ago, where my weekends served to process the week. There was rest involved. People over the age of two were involved. So was an adult beverage or three. I actualy had a choice in what I wanted to do with my time. 

Maybe that’s it. I had a choice.

A say. 

The irony is when I do catch a rare moment of free time, I don't know what I want other than a break, to be left alone, or to just sleep. My leisure time is used for recovery. I am still figuring out what recovery can look like with my eyes open or not glued to a screen. You are how you spend your time, right? 

There is an element to motherhood which I never expected. It is similar to what happens in long term relationships-  you come face to face with who you really are when you are not on. Sometimes, a lot of times, not being on means permission to shut off, and it just sounds sad. If my not on-self needs to retreat to the safety of hiding horizontally with a device in hand, perhaps I should reevaluate my priorities. 

I don’t want to feel like I need to recover from spending time with my kids, but the truth is, I do. Sometimes it’s too much, and when I find my spent-self turning snippy,  I know it is time to retreat to my bed so I can inhale a much-needed nap. Weekend naps just hit different.

I know this season is temporary, and there is so much to be grateful for. I know, I swear I do. It’s just the array of states which exist between On and Off, has been temporarily taken off the menu. There is sleep and there is go-go-go. 

Spending time with small children on the weekend is when terms like “love-of-my-life-angel- baby-child” and “little motherfucker” live side by side, sometimes at the sametime. 

The weekend is for allowing the house to disintegrate into the aftermath of an explosion right outside of a crafts store. With snacks. 

Not those snacks. 

Yes those snacks.

(Insert meltdown)

Bring it on, angel-love-of-my-life-little-motherfucker.