Race Against Time

You know that time when you come home from work; you walk in the door to silence.  Make yourself whatever you want to eat and then plop down on the couch, turn the TV to your favorite show you TiVo’d and relax?  Me either! The hours between 5-8:30pm are kind of like a fuzzy blur every weekday night. I wonder if other mom’s that work outside the home feel this way too, or if I just have some organizational issues.

Now I will preface this with, I do have a VERY helpful husband, and it is still crazy in the evenings.  Any single moms out there; you deserve a standing ovation for successful completing the night time routine alone!

I get of work at 5ish and with any luck and little traffic I am able to pick the boys up from daycare and be pulling into our driveway in about an hour.  That hour is filled with what seems like 625 traffic lights that all turn red as I approach them. However once I get on the interstate I am smooth sailing. I pull into daycare, sometimes I feel like I’m on two wheels because I am SO excited to get my two little men and go home. (But don’t worry daycare, I am not. I am driving cautiously and watching for small children in the parking lot).

I then have a battle in my head of who I should get first. I am crazy, and my mommy guilt comes into my mind at the weirdest times. But I get the boys and love the moment each of them sees me and comes running. “Mommmmmy!!!” it more than fills my heart with love. Then I wrangle them both into their coats and try to heard them to the car.  After getting each of them, their big winter coats and their projects for the day all loaded in the car, we are on our way home.

These car rides make for the most interesting of conversations.  Jake has learned about the sun setting and rising and how the earth rotates on these drives home.  He has sung me many a songs and is now spelling his name and other ‘sight’ words. But the questions he asks and the phrases he says (and I am sure in time what Jimmy will say) have got to be the best!

Some of them are…kind of, heartwarming:

Jake: “I love you so much my sweet angel”
Me: “aww honey, I love you too!”
Jake: snarky tone “I was talking to my baseball, mommy!”

 

Some of them are funny:

Jake: “Jimmy, if you don’t stop the fussing, I’m gonna lose it!
Jimmy: Just looks at Jake
Jake: “See buddy, when you stop crying, things go better.” As he hands over a piece of liquorish.

 

Some are laughably concerning

Jake: “how was your day mommy?”
Me: “it was good buddy, how was yours?”
Jake: “It was good, did you get ‘pregnick’ today?”
Me: “WHAT?!?!”
Jake: “Did you get ‘pregnick’? Sometimes mommy’s have babies in their bellies and that means their pregnick.”
Me: “yes that is what pregnant means, and No I am not pregnant. Who told you that?”
Jake: “you did, you told me when we were at Target, why that ladies belly was big like a giant ball”
Me: ***Note to self, remember his memory recall is incredible, and sensor stuff.

 

We pull into the garage and I unload the boys and their school project, any clothes that got sent home that need washed, and finally the stuff I brought home from work. We pile in the house and the craziness begins. Now this is where I can’t complain, my husband has now started doing almost all the cooking and has dinner ready or almost ready for us when we come home. So again, single moms, YOU ROCK!

 

Jimmy doesn’t nap well at daycare, or really anywhere. So he is tired and ready for bed at 7:00pm. This means when we get home at 6:00pm I have one hour to feed him, bathe him, get him in Jammies and rock him to sleep.  It’s like a well-oiled machine as my hubby starts plating up the food so that neither one of the boys has a hunger meltdown. Inevitably one of them is dissatisfied with the entrée that night and either has a fit, or will proceed to feed it to the dogs if we are not watching. As soon as the boys are finished eating (sometimes that means mommy and daddy are not done eating) we start baths, because exhaustion is soon setting in for my 17 month old. Once he is ‘over the line’ tired…WATCH OUT! So I give them baths and try to teach them how to keep the water IN the tub. J I get them both out, ‘lotioned up’ and in jammies…of their choice of course, we want to avoid that meltdown.

 

Jake Christmas 2012

Then Jake will usually go to the family room with daddy (or me sometimes) and play while the other rocks Jimmy to sleep.  Once Jimmy is down he will sleep through a hurricane, but it can take a while of rocking and singing to get that to happen. Then its puzzles and games and building with blocks with Jake until he is worn down some. At 8:00pm (I say it is because he needs to relax, but maybe it is just because I am exhausted) but we let him ‘wind down’ and watch one of his shows: Jake and the Neverland pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Super Why...etc. And he is usually out by 9:00pm.

 

By the time he falls asleep it gives me enough time to clean up the house do a little laundry get things ready for tomorrow and talk to my hubby, un-interrupted for a few minutes before we are both so tired we pass out! I love the boys, I wouldn’t change anything, I know one day I will come home and it will be quiet, and I will be able to talk endlessly un-interrupted with my husband, and I will be able to sit down and relax all night. So like everyone tells me I will “enjoy it, it goes too fast!” but sometimes, just sometimes in those tantrum filled nights, of one-after-the-other, it is hard to “enjoy” that. Not that I want to wish it way, or make them grow up faster, but I can’t honestly say that I “enjoy” that very moment, when my child is screaming because his ‘Woody jammies are not clean!”  

 

As I fall asleep I always wish I had more time with them, these nights race by in the blink of an eye and then my boys wake up another day older. While one day isn’t extremely significant I don’t want to wake up and realize they are another 10 years older, So I will continue to rock my jimmy to sleep, even if it takes a while, and I will play blocks and play-doh until my little man is worn out enough to rest. And I hope that when the boys look back they remember that on these ‘school nights’, I tried. I know I was away working all day but I tried to stay 100% present in the moments that I had with them in the evening, even if it was just to sit there until the tantrum was over. I tried and I will continue to try to be the best mom I can for them.