Break time

I have been an official "stay at home mom" for about eight months now. It's been really kind of weird. Some parts about it have been great, like the meeting friends for a run or coffee at really any point, as long as I can tote along my toddler. But some parts about it are just grueling, like getting through a whole day with both of them without a real break. Anne Lamott has this part in her baby book "Operating Instructions" where she says that her baby never just says, "hey, you take a break, go do something for yourself, I'll just lay here and read." It kills me because that's totally what I find myself saying some days, and my daughter, who's coming up on four and a HALF, is still not quite ready to be okay with that, with giving me time off.

I find that around six p.m., when dinner is done and kids are running around and I just want to sit down with a giant beer or three and a trashy magazine, is about the hardest time. My partner and I (yes, he's still a man, but it's a solidarity thing) are trying to work on this and some days I do take a break for a little while at "quitting time," even leaving the building if necessary. But then there's still the getting of the kids to sleep and then when they are asleep, the total and absolute exhaustion.

This is all not new, I get that.

But this mom, despite the fact that of course there are moms who go years and all that without a break, God bless 'em, needs a break. So I have scheduled a few trips in the fall and after much agonizing, am going to take them without kiddos for the first time in nearly six years, not pregnant, not nursing (although ds is welcome to start back up when I get home!). I find that when I start to get all twitchy, I can look forward to the trips, even though they're a while away, and have some sort of hope that I can reclaim a bit of myself, and even miss them while I'm gone, which I'm sure will be excruciating in its own way. So that's the plan, and it's keeping me going on these crazy evenings these days.