I love your brain

I dream of finding a little alone time in my day, my week, my month, my life…

My weekday generally consists of waking around 6 am, going through the morning routine of getting everyone ready for school and work. The boys leave around 7:30 am, and I usually run around the house doing a little tidying, having some breakfast, and getting a jump on work emails before I head out to the office. I am guilty of using this time to dawdle too. It’s literally the only time I’m consistently alone in the house, ever.

Then I work…I work for an international film distribution and production company. It’s a business I’ve been in for about twenty years in one way or another. I currently do contracts and financing and formerly, pre-Cole, did international sales. I enjoy it. I work for an interesting company, with a great group of people, and am challenged by my work. I generally leave work by 6:30 and arrive home sometime around 7-7:15 pm.

My husband picks up Cole from school and usually has his homework and dinner handled by the time I get home. One of us then prepares our dinner, we try to cook most nights, and then we settle in to eat, bathe the boy, and get him tucked into bed by 8:30. He still prefers if I sit with him while he falls asleep, so I usually try to watch a one of my TV shows quietly while the boy falls asleep (my husband and I have some shows we enjoy together, and some not so much!), whilst playing Words With Friends or catching up on some favorite web news.

If I don’t fall asleep while putting Cole to bed, I’ll indulge in some TV with the husband and then do some reading (pre-bed reading is a must) before I fall asleep around 10:30. And then, it starts all over again. It’s very Groundhog Day.

There’s little opportunity in the day for alone time or me time. Maybe it’s selfish. There’s nothing specific I do when I have a bit of time to myself. In fact, I usually end up doing some of those little housey projects that never seem to get done – revamping the linens closet, or clearing out Cole’s old clothes and toys, or tossing all of the old tea from the cupboard (yes, tea expires as I’ve recently learned! That 2009 box of Christmas Chai is probably not going to taste very good!). All mundane, but all satisfying accomplishments. All simple tasks, but all things that an impatient, sometimes demanding child make so hard to do in the context of shared time.

And forget about the kind of me time where I can take the time to give myself a pedicure or manicure. The boys complain about the odors of the remover and polish making it harder to do in shared time.

Weekends tend to be more family time, or time that Cole and I spend together. Because I’ve got longer work hours and commute than my husband, they have several hours of time together that he misses with me, so come Saturday morning, he craves mom time. We usually try to get out of the house and do something, even if it’s just errands and our regular lunch with my mom. It gives my husband some time to himself…The boy is less inclined to go out with just dad during the weekend because he’s somehow come to view it as “our” time. Unless of course he’s holed his teenage self up his room to have his own alone time (his new favorite thing). I suppose I should learn to take advantage of his need for “me” time, and try to sneak a little of my own at the same time!