On Sunday, the second day of an unusually rainy and cold fall weekend, a close friend posted this Facebook status update: "All Sunday activities (piano and soccer) were unexpectedly cancelled, so we find ourselves with an open day. Ahhhh. Feels like having room to stretch."
Ahhhh, indeed! With my daughter in second grade and my son in kindergarten, our family's fall weekends have suddenly become as frenzied as our work week. Now, we have not one but two kids with a raft of activities between them - religious school, tae kwan do, piano, Chinese lessons, and, of course, soccer - that frame our fall Saturdays and Sundays. Add in a few birthday parties and play dates, and the weekend's over!
As you might guess, I have a love/hate relationship with all of this autumn's activity.
As for the the hate part of the equation, I detest having so much of the limited "free" time we have together as a family filled with activities that keep us apart. Sorry, but I don't count standing on the sidelines of the soccer game in the freezing rain as family time or "quality time" with my daughter. (It is nice to socialize with the other parents, though!)
When the kids were younger, we tried to preserve at least one weekend day for family-only outings or get-togethers with family friends. Now, we're lucky to find a few hours on the typical weekend day for bike rides and board games or even simple boredom! Plus, it's often hard to mesh our family's schedule with those of our equally busy friends and their kids.
I hear this lament about overloaded weekends from many of my friends, whether they work or not. (See this recent Wall Street Journal Juggle blog for an interesting example of modern weekend life.) But the weekend time deficit seems particularly acute for working moms and dads who want to spend as much time as possible with their kids, yet need to cram a week's worth of routine life maintenance into 38 or so waking hours (or less if they have to work on the weekend).
I know that's true for me. Although I'm able to squeeze in some errands and chores during the week (thanks to my less-than-full-time schedule), sometimes my husband and I just have to hunker down on the weekend and do household stuff. Like last Sunday, when we took advantage of the gloomy weather and multiple cancellations to go through the kids' out-of-season and outgrown clothes. Still, we always have a long "to do" list that eludes completion. After all, almost any activity - kid or family-oriented - provides an easy excuse for not getting to the "to do" list!
Of course, we do set aside special time, like Friday night dinner, for our family. We're also planning to skip out on some activities in favor of a family weekend away later this fall. And I know that I could free up some more weekend hours for both family and "to do" time by cutting out a few activities here and there.
But that wouldn't feel right. My husband and I are active, curious people, and so are our kids. They're having a lot of fun with their weekend activities, and when they're not, well, there are lots of fall festivals, autumn hikes, and other events we all want to explore. So, for now, we're just going to have to live with our weekend imbalance until, maybe, next summer . . . .
So, CurrentMom readers, are your weekends as busy as your weekdays? Have you found work-weekend balance? Where do you find room to stretch?
Photo by Nina Matthews Photography via Flickr.com.
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