Mommy Mondays

When my children were toddlers they were each enrolled in a fabulous childcare. Eventually they were attending four days a week. But not on Mondays. Never on Mondays. Mondays were our day. We would spend them baking and making crafts (ie making a mess.) We would venture out to the local park or some other destination I had heard about – construction sites, interesting tomb stones at a nearby cemetery (dubbed statue walks) or fun exhibits at a local museum. We might choose to stay in our PJs all day and snuggle up with a stack of books from the local library. When they were a little older and I was a bit more adventurous we even attended some mommy and me classes at the library or a gymnastics club.

It is not that Mondays didn’t also come with some angst: the kids wanting to know why they weren’t with their friends; me worrying about it being the third day in a row when I wasn’t running errands or making phone calls to follow up on various paperwork issues. But in the end, I loved our Mondays.

All this ended when kindergarten began. Five days a week they were in school. Even though the school day ended two hours earlier then daycare had it wasn’t the same. The magic had been broken.

Recently my oldest and I have reclaimed a bit of Mommy Mondays. It is the one day in the week when he gets home from school while his younger sister is still at her after school activity. We have two hours alone in the house together. I don’t know if he has any idea how much I look forward to those afternoons.

He comes in from the bus and I check in with him about his day. I inquire about his homework load. All the time I am hoping; hoping his answers will be ripe for his first question, “Can we watch an episode of Wonder Years together?” I am thrilled when he asks and delighted when I can answer yes. He goes upstairs to queue the show, I make the bowl of popcorn, and for the next 45 minutes we stretch out next to one another and share in the magic of Mommy Mondays one more time.