Maximizing the weekends

I'm so glad that it's Saturday. For the past 8 or 9 months, I have found myself dreading the weekends because I know that I will be alone with the kids by myself for almost the entire time while Chris is away studying. As much as I long for and thrive on time with my little munchkins, being with them by myself for hours and hours for a couple of days in a row just wears me out. This is entirely because I am not a consistent person. The previous statement describes every aspect of my life, including my parenting skills. The kids know this, and take advantage of it most of the time. Thus, I end up doing a lot of yelling in the form of, "Stop it! Put that down! Go to bed! Stop hitting your brother!" and not the Alec Baldwin form of yelling, if you know what I mean.

Well, lately, I've been enjoying Saturdays a little more. Instead of sitting around a house that is a pile of chaos topped with disorganization, I have started maximizing my Saturdays and Sundays. Friday evenings, I get all of the obvious clutter cleaned up (laundry that needs to be put away, mail all over the kitchen table, kids toys in places they shouldn't be, etc...) This means that when I awake on Saturday morning and begin looking into the possibilities for Saturday, I'm not completely overwhelmed with clutter everywhere in the house. Therefore, thought of getting the kids out of the house to go visit friends, to a park, or wherever doesn't feel like such a tiresome event. Last Saturday, we took the kids to the park near our home. We had a GREAT time! Today we went to a Family and Friends community event that my brother-in-law had at his church. It was an all out blast!!

It took me 3 1/2 years to figure this one out!