Even though I have yet to be cleared to return to my “day job” as a RN, my life as a stay-at-home-mom still runs on a very routine Monday thru Friday schedule; mostly because it’s all on me as Willy works most of the day. I thought that being home so much would be freeing; that a schedule would not be needed and that the possibilities would be endless. I was right, to some extent. We’ve gotten to go on lots of little day adventures, which is something I didn’t always have the energy for having worked a grueling 12
hour shift the day before. Also, the boys are older now; I mean, Van can walk. But come evening, when Willy is done with work, it’s back to the monotonous turn-on-a-cartoon-and-get-dinner-ready-routine. It’s been eating at me. No pun intended.
We have a sliver of a view out our window of the ocean and watching the sunset while Cat-in-the-Hat plays in the background has been torturous. So, I proposed that we make dinner a little bit earlier than usual (sometimes we don’t sit down to eat until almost 8pm) and get the heck out of the house.
And, we have.
And, it’s been great.
I’m trying to sell myself on the idea that you have not squeezed everything out of the day until you get into bed dirty, with sand in your hair and dirt on your toes.
The times that Willy is gone on business trips is always hard. I get thrown back into the survival mode of forcing myself to nap when they nap and go to bed when they go to bed (they wear me the f* out), even though I have a thousand things that I intend to finish… or start, for that matter. And as if they’re little mind readers, these boys pick right up on it; suddenly, they become more rambunctious and more volatile. I’ve learned that I need to stay calm for them to stay calm because in true motherhood fashion, I assume that any bad behavior on their part is somehow reflective of my own anxieties that seem to suddenly rise when solo parenting. And so, I try my best to get out of the house as much as possible. Little trips to the beach to catch sunset give each of us the room we need to breath. I don’t know how single moms or dads do it, I really don’t.
