Emma loves weekends.

Every night she asks as she is falling asleep - “Does Daddy stay home tomorrow?” - and 5 out of 7 days we have to tell her “No honey, Daddy has to go to work tomorrow.” On the days we can confirm for her that Daddy will be staying home tomorrow, she gets a light in her eyes and responds with “This day?” to confirm that we mean it is tomorrow that Daddy will be home. We say yes and she falls asleep dreaming of all the fun she will have with Daddy.

Mike and I love weekends too of course, for all the obvious reasons, although I find that I also have my share of mixed feelings about them.

My favorite thing to do on the weekends is to spend time with the family, especially at outdoor events like festivals and farmer’s markets.

My other favorite thing to do is to have a little time to myself.

I also really like to get a little adult time with Mike, going to dinner or a movie maybe?

Oh and my other favorite thing to do is to get the house cleaned up and organized, in a way that I can’t during the week when the kids are underfoot.

I find it pretty tough to balance all of these things in only two days, which means by Sunday night I am almost always cranky about not having enough time to do everything. Usually we spend lots of time together as a family, with maybe a little organizing/cleaning thrown in. This of course means that time to myself and time with Mike are the activities that have to be abandoned. Which seems ok at the time. Except then Monday morning rolls around and I can’t believe I have another five days before any “me” time or “me and mike” time is even a possibility. (Although at least Mike and I make a practice of eating dinner after the kids are in bed, giving us some down time together every day.)

I am glad that Emma is clear about what she wants out of her weekends. I am still working on it.