Disclaimer: For the last 8 years I have been very satisfied with my job description. My thoughts on this day in no way reflect a desire to do anything differently — just that as we move on in this journey, the times, well, they are a changing . . . and today they did! 🙂
Today was the kids’ first day back at school — which in addition to being a landmark event in their young lives, also represents a landmark event in mine. Today was the first day in 8 + years that I’ve spent entirely alone. I don’t mean vacations or mom’s day outs or when you pay a babysitter because you are so totally desperate to grocery shop alone (What? You don’t do that? Really, you should consider it . . . it’s life altering) I mean dropping off all 3 of your babies at school and then coming home to do . . . what? What do I do? For 8 years I have spent my days chasing newborns, then babies, then toddlers, then preschoolers and of course varied and sometimes, scary exciting, mixes of those stages. So, here is what I did for all of you who want to live vicariously through me and my first day of freedom er, first day of school.
6:34 am Sit bolt upright in bed and wonder why the alarm hasn’t gone off
6:35 am Alarm goes off
6:36 am Slump back down under the covers and wish the alarm hadn’t gone off yet
6:40 am Realize the alarm DID go off and now that means I must get up. Drag self out of bed, grab work-out clothes pre-arranged by awake self the night before (so we know they match, unlike anything I would pick out in my current state) and put them on.
7 am Caffienate
7:02 am Fix hair, finish packing lunches, pack backpacks (because I’m nice and it’s the first day), brush teeth and take pictures.
7:20 am Herd squirrels kids into the car
7:40 am Remark how amazing it is to be on time – silently pray it will happen again. Ever. Take kids to respective classrooms and marvel that no one cries. No one. Should I be offended? Proud of how well-adjusted they are? I decided not to spend time thinking about this — in case I started to cry.
8 am Meet with cafeteria staff to review carb counts and menus
8:30 am Sit in my car. Alone. Wondering how this happened to me!
9 am Exercise — why? Because I’m alone and I can. I chose Wii Fit for 1/2 an hour — and no one else even asked me to play!
10 am Visit a friend — why? Because I can!
11 am Chiropractor appointment (about 3 months overdue) — why? Sense a trend?
12 pm LUNCH — whatever I wanted. I chose Gyros. Yummy — and NO SHARING.
1 pm Nails done — why? (O.M.G the freedom, it’s going to my head!)
2 pm Shower. You know, from the exercising I did earlier and because I felt like it.
3 pm Pick-up 3 tired kids who all enjoyed their day. SUCCESS!
So there you have it. I did make a conscious choice not to do any housework, errands or general “work” today because it was my first official day on the lam, but I do realize it won’t always be that way. 😉
And just because it really does seem like yesterday that these kids were BORN, here is proof that they are all indeed of legitimate school-age.
