The Return of the Weekend

A few Saturdays ago, I was sitting on the couch crocheting. Tom was in the armchair reading a book. I looked up at him and said, "It feels like a weekend." Something I have not said in nearly six years.

I remember that first weekend after Valerie was born, after we had brought her home from the NICU. I realized that there were not going to be anymore weekends ever again. Well, at least not for a long time. No more relief, on Friday afternoons, that the work week was over. No more sleeping in, then leisurely thinking about what I would like to do on a Saturday or Sunday as it stretched out before me. Life with a baby/child would be all work week all the time, leisure would have to wait for retirement.

But then, a little while ago, something wonderful happened. Valerie and Andrew started playing together. Really playing, for extended periods of time. It has taken so much pressure off! The kids still want to play with Tom and I, of course, but just not all the time. It is like something pleasant I was guaranteed when I became a mother of two has actually come to pass. Actually, there have been several things: the exponential growth of love in our family as a whole, the joy of watching the first child love the second and vice versa, the coziness of having a warm kiddo on either side of you, etc.

But just a tiny bit of weekend leisure returned is a gift I had all but forgotten. Thanks, kids!