Wednesday, February 6, 2013

5:30pm - 6:30pm on repeat

Oh Rin, your topic this week has me wishing that adding an hour was possible!  How fabulous that extra hour would be!  And, I know just where I'd put it.

My extra 60 minutes would be added at about the 5:30pm mark, each and every day.  I wouldn't necessarily need everyone to be frozen, I just need that extra time to get my household squared away before we scatter for evening activities.

When we lived in our old town, I had a nice, easy 25 minute commute.  My office closes at 4:30pm, so I was home by 5:00pm every night.  At that point in time, my girls were active in various things (like Girl Scouts), but our life wasn't too chaotic.

We've since moved and I have tacked on another 35 minutes to my drive.  Yes, I more than doubled my commute, but the trade-off has been more than worth it.  I like (and most days love) my job and employer.  And, I now am in love with town I call home.  I have the best of both worlds and I'm blissfully happy.

My longer commute, however, coupled with the girls' more active lives (currently, we have Girl Scouts for both girls, basketball for one girl and theatre for the other girl) leaves Jas and I little time to fix dinner, eat dinner, help with/check over homework, get organized for the next day, and attend practice/GS meetings/rehearsals, etc. before sending the girls up to take showers, brush teeth, and tuck them in bed.

An extra hour in our evening would allow us to sloooow down and just enjoy being together.  Not every night is crazy, mind you.  We not those parents who thrive on putting our kids in 100+ activities to make us look so busy and active and totally hip.  In fact, we're quite the opposite.  We don't allow the girls to do more than one sport (or theatre production) at a time.  We hate stress and busing our girls from Point A to Point B all night long is too much - especially when you tack on homework. 

But then there are weeks like this week when every activity happens at the same time.  We are running.  We are inhaling.  We are ragged.  We are irritable.  We are stressed.  And oh how that sweet 60 minutes would come in handy!  A full hour to unwind, relax, play a game or two of "Clue," read a book together, and just enjoy what we've got going on as a family.

2 comments:

Wicked M said...

This makes perfect sense to me. An extra hour to make it not so crazy sounds wonderful! I can only imagine you will desperately want this hour even more as the gals get older and busier.

MSO Rin said...

Can I come over to play Clue w/y'all? What an awesome way to spend an hour. Hear, hear!