My Mother's Day Off (on Saturday)

For Mother's Day I asked for a day off. I really had no desire to be taken out for a meal or even be given a certain gift. All I wanted was a day to myself. No butts to wipe, clothes to wrestle on, fights to quell, messes to clean, meals to make, juice to pour, activities to provide, or even conversation to be had. Does that sound mean?

My only participation in the family was to nurse and say "Go ask Daddy."

On Saturday Jason left with the kids at 10am and thus began my day. It was quite glorious. I started by wasting lots of time. I almost started to feel guilty for this lack of productivity, but then I thought, "I can spend this day any way I want to, even in a thoroughly non-achieving way. I don't have to answer to anyone for my time or how it is spent." Wow. What a strange thought. What a strange feeling to give myself permission for pure nothingness. It was such a weight lifted off! After I wasted time, I took a shower.

Then Jason got back home. That's right. In the span of like three hours, that is all that I did. (Well a big part of the "nothingness" was updating the camping blog and that took forever.)

Once he was here I nursed the baby and set out to run an errand or two. I had shoes to return. Since I was returning shoes it only made sense to look for more shoes. And maybe try on a shirt or two too. On the way I got myself some ice cream. I wasted more time at that drug store just going up and down the aisles eating my ice cream and looking at pretty much everything in the store. Just because.

Once I got back home I went upstairs and crawled into bed with my book Confessions of a Slacker Wife. It is SUPER funny! I highly recommend for anyone who wants a light read and wants to have a laugh. The kids came into the room a few times and tried to get into bed and such, but I shooed them away with my "Go see Daddy! It's my day off!" Anyways, I finished my book. What to do after that? Well, take a nap of course.

It really wasn't a great nap because the kids were being kind of loud in the house, but it was ok. Once again, I started to feel guilty for napping and for my lack of involvement with the children, but I shoved it away. There is really NO reason to feel guilty when I do almost everything for my kids all the time every single day 363. (I guess I should subtract out Mother's Day and perhaps some other random day I haven't accounted for.)

Once I got up, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to go outside for a walk. I walked about two miles. At home Jason said he wanted to go to the bike shop. I said, "Ok, but you have to take the kids with you!" he he he. I really like this day off thing. I need more days like it.

Pretty soon the kids were in bed. Before coming home from my errands earlier I stopped at Albertson's because they have a Red Box movie machine. I rented Julie and Julia for the evening. After a few matches of online Scrabble I settled into our big red chair with some decaf coffee and watched a very cute movie. (Learned a lot more about Julia Child than I ever would have I think.) Jason enjoyed the movie too.

So that was my day off!! Woo hoo!