I've had some grumpy Saturdays recently, but I think this may be more of a mental framing issue. I've mostly lived in a world where we make it to Saturday and then... we breathe. Or at least the day changes. If we work a 9 to 5 on Saturday we subtract work and add kids. Or we subtract work and add hobbies. For me... I just add. On Maternity leave my 9-5 is babies, and on the weekend those babies are still there... plus the others. It's a lot. And on Monday I subtract the other adult and keep one of the kids. It's more.
I decided I need to change my mental approach to my week. My "weekends" will be Tuesday-Thursday, when it's just me and the babies. The 3 year old is in nursery, the 5 year old is in School. Yesterday I told the husband to go into the office today so I could be at home alone (+babies). Everyone was out the door at 8am and the babies were asleep and I was so excited.
I spent the first hour tidying before the cleaner came. Then a friend came and we went to a pilates class (top tip - if you have twins find someone who doesn't work during the week to help you take babies to baby classes!). Then we went to a cafe for lunch. Then home, where my clean house greeted me! And I put the babies down for a nap, swapped out the laundry, made some more food, and started writing this blog.
Tomorrow a friend is coming over to help me take the babies for a walk in the woods. (Top tip for twins - find someone who doesn't work in the week who wants to carry a baby in a baby carrier so you can go for a walk!)
Anyways, the reason this is all possible is that these two gremlins are now 4 months old, and they are starting to reliably nap!
Not every nap is reliable, but nap 1 is. Which means I have one time a day when I know I will get some me time. It turns out, all I need is one tiny bit of reliability to feel so much better about life. In addition to the morning nap, every night I reliably get a bit of TV with Andy while we put the babies to bed.
A lot of life is still hard work. Dinner is hard. Post school pre bed is hard. Waking up once a night feels easy, but is hard.
But my Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday is not hard. So when Saturday is hard I'll try and remember I'm only 2 days away from Tuesday.
I love a mid week weekend! I see time alone in the house, time with friends, and getting to do stuff. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like such a great reframe. And hooray for friends who offer extra hands during the week! I wish I had a friend with twins -- I would love to wear a baby in a carrier for her.
ReplyDeleteAwww. I love the positive spin you put on this and what a great way to reframe things.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the babies are just so sweet! I agree with Suzanne; I wish I lived handy because I would LOVE to snuggle (one of the perks of not having little babies of my own anymore is that I want to snuggle someone else's - and then hand them back and go sleep!)
That is so smart, to claim tuesday-thursdays as your weekend. Nice reframe! And kudos to realizing you have friends who want to go on baby adventures with you. I totally relate to the thing about needing a little reliability to feel better about life. Because post school pre bed is just always hard no matter what forever and ever (maybe?). Congrats on reliable napping! Your gremlins are frickin adorable. -rachel r.
ReplyDeleteMy husband graduate from high school with a woman who now has thirteen children (the oldest is 18 and the youngest was just born in the last couple of weeks). I don't understand the LOGISTICS of having big families. How do you feed everybody? How do you grocery shop? How big is your car? THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS. So, basically, I love it when you talk about how you get things done. Even the mention of switching out the laundry (you said it OFFHANDEDLY, but laundry is an all day chore for us on Sundays!) was fascinating.
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