Its a Busy Life

When I think back to the days before I started working, I felt like I had way too much free time. I was always busy with Little Gym classes or swim lessons and I loved to meet my girlfriends for lunch. But if an errand for the house needed to be run or I wanted to schedule a dentist appointment my calendar was wide open. Now, if I have something to do, I'm worried about finding the perfect time to schedule it during the work week or waiting until the weekend. I am amazed at how many businesses close at 5pm every afternoon. I now know why the entire world is out on Saturdays and Sundays. The problem with this? It cuts in to our time as a family. Family time is something I have always loved. I've worked hard to create routines and traditions for our family. I am fully aware of the fact that the last thing Aidan wants to be doing on his Saturday afternoon is watching us pick out tile or getting my oil changed. But so is life and those things must get done. For a while I was really flustered that I wasn't getting it all done and my time with the boys was being jeopardized. The same was going for my housework. This is what I've come up with. Every night once Aidan is in bed, I do something around the house. I'm constantly trying to keep up with laundry but I'll dust the entire house one night and clean the bathroom another. If I have to run an errand I try to do it on the nights Adam works late and turn it in to a fun field trip for Aidan and I. If my parents are around, I'll drop him off for a half hour or so to spend time with them. On the weekends if we have something that has to get done around here, we dedicate half the day to that and the other half we plan something for the three of us together. Lately, we've loved going to dinner and a movie or finding something to do outside in the evenings since the weather is perfect. It may sound trivial to a lot of you but it really is making me feel a lot better knowing when I get out of work, all I have to worry about is making it home to my boys, spending the night with Aidan, knocking out that little chore I have allotted for that night and then curling up with Adam on the sofa to watch a movie. I'm not stressed about having the whole house spotless every day. That's something I was trying to accomplish and I started to see Aidan spending a lot of time in front of the TV and I just hated that. Since we've changed things up a bit, I can count on one hand how many times we have even turned the TV on. It took me a while to realize being the perfect wife, perfect mom and perfect employee wasn't realistic. There's always going to be something I can't control and doing it all is a lot of work. It is OK if the laundry doesn't get folded for a couple days because the laundry will always be there. The moments I was missing with my family were gone forever and that is something I couldn't live with.

That's how we're making it work. How about you?