This morning, in my head, without telling anyone
else, I have declared today as Mom's day
off.
At 6:36 am, my 3 1/2 year old came in to our bedroom, pressed her nose to mine and whispered, "Mom, I slept until 6:36, aren't you proud of me?" Normal me would muster my fake early morning happiness, give her a big hug and say, "Yes, I am so proud of you! Aren't you proud of yourself?!" But today, I said, "Mmmhumm, go tell your father." Jamie, being the sound sleeper that he is, didn't hear her the first 4 times she told him, so I may or may not have given him a bit of a kick. He heard, and got up with Sydney and Abby.
I got up at 8:00.
It wasn't a huge sleep in, but I missed the morning breakfast chaos, so
I'm calling that a big win.
Jamie and I are both off from work today, but at 8:45 I
took Sydney to daycare. In all honesty,
she wanted to go, and when I dropped her off, her bestie was there, so she was
pumped to be there. No guilt for
me. Fantastic! Happy kid. Bonus!
When I got home,
Abby was napping, so I thought I should do something so I started sorting
through a bag of clothes a neighbour had generously given me. I went through it, and actually put together
another bag of clothes for a friend. I
even dropped off that bag of clothes to that friend. At that point, I felt that was enough doing
for today. Normal me would have gone
into a cleaning frenzy and tidied everything up. Today is Mom's day off, so my front room
looks like this. Ask me if I
care...nope, don't care at all.
I told myself yesterday that I was going to start Abby
on finger foods today. Lunch time came,
and rather than syke myself up to peel vegetables and fruit, and then boil up
bite sized pieces of carrots and pears, I went to the freezer and defrosted sweet
potato and squash that I had already made in ice cube trays. We'll try the whole finger food thing another
day.
I try to always keep my kitchen island clean because
otherwise it just becomes the city dump of our house. Today, it doesn't look like a dump, just a
small dumpster. Whatevs.
The room I used to wrap our Christmas gifts looks like Hiroshima,
but, conveniently a door was built attached to that room, so it will just stay
closed for the time being, and I will continue to drink my coffee and pretend
it isn't there.
During Abby's second nap I figured I might take a bit
of time off from Mom's day off and vacuum.
Instead, I have read an InStyle magazine from cover to cover, which
really, is not a lot of reading, but I did see a few nice outfits that I'll try
to recreate the next time I'm at Winners.
I'm calling that literacy and creative design time.
I've already decided that I won't be making a vegetable
based, quinoa, high protein, good for you, blah, blah blah concoction tonight for supper
(those always make me feel like I'm a good mother, but good lord they take a
lot of time to prepare and use a lot of pots and pans). When I was looking for a pen on top of the refrigerator
I found a gift card for Pizza Delight. I'm not even a big fan of Pizza Delight, but
whatevs. No cooking for this girl
tonight, pizza for all!
Even though I don't have to work right now since I'm on
maternity leave, I have never been more busy.
I know a lot of it I've brought on myself, but everything always seems
like it needs to be done and needs to be done right now. Every morning when I
wake I feel like I'm at the marathon starting line and when my feet hit the
floor, the gun goes off and my day begins. It's just too much sometimes. So, today is Mom's day off and if the house
falls down around me (which I know it won't), but if it does, we have really
nice neighbours and we'll just go to their house and I'll deal with my lack of
house tomorrow. I highly encourage everyone to have a slack
off day. I've been having a lovely time
so far.
Yours in taking a moment to regroup and unwind,
Beth
PS. In my husband's defense, he is awesome and does a
ton around the house, both inside and out, but, at my house, I tend to run the show. Today, I've hung up my director hat today, and
I'm enjoying just being a member of the cast.