When you’re married to someone whose job requires putting in eight days a week, yet it is still never complete, working on the weekend is a fact of life. Although we’ve enjoyed a short off season, baseball is just around the corner, and the days of, “What shall we do on Saturday?” are pretty much over. There is a facility to be prepped and equipment to be ordered, and let’s face it, the coach is just ready to get at it. So Saturdays at our house are just about gone. Not that we don’t have Saturdays, they just sort of seem like another Friday. Or sometimes, heaven forbid, another Monday.
I can still, vaguely, remember the days of working for the weekend. On Fridays, I’d leave the headaches of work at the office and look forward to winding down on the weekend: sleep in, lay around, read a book, shop a while, work outside…or do absolutely nothing at all. That’s what weekends used to be about. But since having the boys, my Saturdays have apparently been…misplaced.
Little kids don’t know what day of the week it is. They don’t know that the day is supposed to start at least two hours later than usual. That we are allowed an extra cup of coffee, preferably hot, and that if we want to eat breakfast at 10 and lunch at two, it is perfectly and entirely acceptable. They haven’t learned that adults are supposed to take a break from their jobs on Saturday. All they know is that Thomas comes on four times in a row, and Daddy usually cooks waffles.
It’s easy to get frustrated when there’s never a day off. In motherhood, there is no fall break, no spring break, and no Christmas vacation. What ever happened to snow days, and who says Mom’s don’t need them? Even God took a day to rest.
I recently received a short respite myself in the form of a very special Valentine from my mom and grandmother. They took the boys home with them for a long weekend.
The first few hours alone in my house were pure bliss. The first full day, I was floating on air. After sleeping in peaceful slumber and waking in tune with my body’s internal alarm clock, my head was in the clouds.
I did things I hadn’t done in years. I read a book in quiet solitude. I had a manicure. I cleaned out places I’m ashamed to know exist in my own home. I changed no diapers. I heard no whining. I cooked no meals. And after all of the indulging and basking in the freedom of a week full of Saturdays, something strange and unnatural happened: I missed my boys.
As I contemplate their return this afternoon, I know they will be glad to see me. They will have missed their dad and their dog, their monster trucks and their trains. They will want to check out the ball field and make sure it is still there, and they will slowly but surely wiggle back into the routine that we have carved out of our lives.
They will whine a little more loudly, sleep a little less soundly, and play a little less peacefully. They will balk at my meals and beg for “The Jag”, and ask when the next ballgame will start.
But in the end, I know they will be glad to be home. They will hug a little tighter and snuggle a little longer. They will be needy and clingy and only Mom will do, and I’ll be pulling my hair out for days-loving every minute of it, glad to have my boys back, knowing all is right in the world. Even amidst a week without Saturdays.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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