The kids are screaming, the house is a mess and my husband is quietly gagging as he changes diapers. Yup, it’s the weekend. Or at least what other people consider the weekend to be. For me, weekends are a thing of the past – they disappeared along with my pre-baby body, and I have serious doubts as to whether I will ever enjoy either again.
I miss the weekends. Before I had kids my weekends would consist of sleeping through McDonald’s breakfast, reading a book that wasn’t based on a cartoon character, and eating nothing but a chocolate bar and a bag of potato chips because I damn well wasn’t cooking anything. Now weekends are basically the same as every other day of the week except now I have to take care of three kids instead of two.
No, we don’t take in stray kids on the weekend. The third child is Edward. Don’t get me wrong, at least I don’t have to wipe his behind, but he is like a kid in that he is messy and requires amusement. I really can’t blame him – he works at his job 5 days a week and doesn’t want to spend his weekend cleaning or taking care of kids. Problem is, neither do I, but someone has to. The result of all this is that I either say ‘screw it’ and refuse to clean, cook or discipline on the weekend and we end up in a nasty mess that takes until Wednesday to clean up, or I do work but I become the bitch-mom from hell because I still believe that I deserve the weekend off. Either way, we don’t have any fun.
In addition to my regular mom duties, there is also a lot of pressure to get out and do ‘family activities’ on the weekends. This is the only quality time my husband gets with the kids and he wants to get out and create memories for them. While this is great and I want that special family time too, Edward often forgets all the work required to go somewhere for a whole day with two kids this young. What with snacks, diapers, toys, blankies and all the other paraphernalia you need to pack and unpack, plus the physical strain of chasing them, carrying them, and calming them down when they have missed their naps, at the end of the day you don’t even have the energy to pee let alone anything else.
And then of course every time I turn on the radio Bruno Mars is there rubbing salt in my no-weekend wound with The Lazy Song. Like I really need to be reminded of everything I want to do on weekends (and a lot of other days) but can’t. I blame him and Rebecca Black with her damn Friday song for making me think that I am actually going to get a break on the weekend. Damn young famous people with their crazy ideas.
For some reason I can’t get it though my head that I do NOT have free time on the weekends anymore. For 24 years it was drilled into my head that weekends were for relaxing, and even after 3+ years of working weekends I still expect a break come Saturday. So every weekend, I end up with a list of umpteen things I have to do sans kids that never gets done.
Don’t get me wrong, Edward and I have tried many different schemes to improve the state of our weekends, but have yet to develop a successful plan. We have tried alternating days to sleep in, but somehow something always happens to screw up my day. This week it was the fact that Prince has an ear infection and required his medicine at 7:30am and my husband was worried that, at that hour of the morning, he would end up accidentally poisoning our child if he was the one to dispense it. And last week we all had to get up super early on my sleep-in day for one of the special weekend outings my husband likes so much. So yeah, that plan just ain’t working.
We have also tried alternating afternoons off – i.e. I get Saturday afternoon off to do my stuff and Edward gets Sunday afternoon off. Yet again though, either we end up doing some family event that pre-empts time off or Edward gets so flustered with the kids by himself he is constantly interrupting me with requests and questions. It has reached the point where I actually look forward to Monday. At least on Monday I know I am supposed to be working and don’t feel spiteful when I am forced to. On Monday I can get the kids back on schedule, hopefully get the house in better shape, and I have 5 whole days until I have to live through another so-called weekend.
Apparently, there is just no escaping Mommyland on the weekends. For now I will have to be satisfied with locking myself in the bathroom for a half an hour and using the excuse that I must have ate something that disagreed with me just so I can have some alone time. Because apparently the only acceptable excuse to get out of cleaning shit is to be having a shit. Ironic isn’t it? However, since I no longer sleep through McDonald’s breakfast, there ain’t much chance I will be getting my pre-baby body back anytime soon, so I will take what I can get. And if I have to lie down in an empty bathtub to take a damn nap on the weekend, well, it’s better than nothing.
-Wendy
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