These last few days I have been at parenthood without Michael as he attends the funeral of his sweet Grandma Bessie in Utah. While I have missed seeing his handsome face every day I jokingly told him that the kids and I were on a 'Michael-cation'. It's good for couples to have time apart sometimes. To regroup. And let absence work its magic ;-)) During this time I decided to step back and assess myself in hopes to try and make sense of some of the things I am doing routinely. I took one whole night assessing my personal health: eating, exercise, mental health and formed a very simple plan to hopefully add some balance. I took another night to look at my day to day routine with the kids and see what I could do to enhance our time together. Another plan was formed. Though I have only been paying heed to these regimens for three days now, I feel so much more balanced! I have a daily routine to fall back on with the kids, with the idea that we can plan anything OVER the routine but if we don't, we always have something to do. I also made one HUGE change in deciding that my work day is OVER at 7:30. After 7:30 I will not be doing any house tending or home making. I start putting the kids down at 7, do the dishes and pick up the house at 7:15 and am free to do whatever I want by 7:30. This also means that nap time is not recreational. It's Mommy chore time... unless I am crazy sleep deprived. Then all bets are off.
I am naturally a morning person so by the time my kids are in bed I am a walking zombie. Doing chores during nap time doesn't phase me in the slightest if it means that I will have a whole night to myself to do whatever I want. It also means that if the kids wake up before I'm done with my chores that I don't have to finish them after bed time... they can wait until tomorrow at nap time. I cannot even tell you how wonderful this has been. Leaving things half done normally KILLS me but knowing that I will have two hours of time to pick up where I left off the next day makes it so much easier to enjoy my kids without the pressure.
We will see how things go once my one true love is back in town. I think he will love this plan since he is normally trying with all of his might to get me to cool my jets after bed time. I guess I just needed to make it work for me. I love me some alone time.
No comments:
Post a Comment