best day of the week

In our house the most exciting evening of the week is Thursday.  It’s soccer night, (which mostly also means take-out night) and also is the night when Matty comes bounding into our room for story time and says “Is it Friday tomorrow? Does that mean only one more sleep until the weekend and we get to be together and play allllll weekend?”.  Yup.

Then on Sunday night we begin the weekly routine of “how many sleeps until Friday Mommy?” sigh.  Too many.  K&C will sometimes look into our eyes by Wednesday evening as we’re putting them to sleep – grabbing our faces with their little hands and putting their noses squashed up against mine or Cam’s – and ask – “Are you tired? Do you have to work again tonight?” … with the affirmative followed by “why?”  Most of the time I know why – because we need to earn a living to sustain this life – and so we are dedicated, hard working employees who are fortunate enough to believe in the work we do, the people we work with and the contribution we make – and in order to sit together for dinner every night, and play soccer and fairies and have bath time and family time, we sacrifice our after-bedtime evenings to get the work done.  And that’s okay. Honestly – it’s more than okay – I look around sometimes at the rest of the world and feel privileged that we can make this choice.

The questions get harder though, when one of our two-year olds begs me to not go to work on a particularly tough morning, or when our four year old needs to be driven to a school field trip by another parent and he looks with wide eyes at the thought of being one of the only kids without his mom there.  Suddenly that executive meeting, that new hire, that huge budget all take on new perspective, new meaning.  They have to.  They are the pieces that add up to the other part of our life contributions, the value we bring outside our home – where our presence of mind is equally as important in those moments.  “Why” – ultimately becomes the subjective circle of defending our crazy busy life or beating ourselves up for it, all quietly of course, by the glow of our screens, as we plod away on our laptops late at night, so we can be present for our kids to make sure they see a smiling, loving (albeit tired) face at the early morning wake up.  And my god is it ever worth it…

I feel like it’s this incredibly delicate balance, and each day the success or failure is hinged on the factors just outside of my control – the accident on my commute (timed perfectly to make the 8am meeting), the sunglasses we forgot for a cool event in class (that were apparently written on the preschool board for a week),

the weather that forced our sunshine loving kids to play inside all day (stir crazy), the meeting that just popped up (because of the question that couldn’t be answered)… so the only thing I grab on to is that I can control my presence. How “in it” am I? How much of myself am I investing?  That’s the biggest gift I have to offer, right?  There is only so much before it runs out.  I guess it’s the most important choice I can make, whether I know it or not, in a day.

It’s been a week, this week.  But I’m thrilled that tomorrow is Thursday.  What’s your favorite day of the week?