Monday is my Spoonful of Sugar Day

I have decided to try my hand at actual blogging, you know sharing actual thoughts instead of just narrating a few pictures every few months. Here's today's thought. I love Mondays. Really, yes, I do.

I love my kids. Honestly, I love them. They are sweet and kind and loving and dear. They also play together constantly, both by necessity and choice. See, we have no neighbors with children. Well, correction, we have no neighbors who like their children to play with our children. I'm not sure why this is. It's not a dramatic "No, my kids aren't ALLOWED to play with your kids." The kids don't stand across the street screaming "Get off my lot!" at each other. (Mel and Kerri, that was for you). But somehow the few neighbor kids that live nearby never come over and all our playdates that I previously arranged were never reciprocated. Maybe my house smells. Anyway, my point is (and I do have one) is that my kids are together all weekend. 24 hours a day, for 72 hours straight.

I also love the Boy Scouts of America. I know that thanks to this organization my husband rocks in all things outdoorsy. On the rare occasions that we camp as a family, he's so great because it's just mutually understood that when camping, my one and only job is to keep the kids from falling in the fire. That's it. He sets up camp, takes down camp, builds the fire, everything. But the flip side of this is that my rock star of a camping husband is one h#@$ of a Scoutmaster for the 12 and 13 year old scouts at our church. They go camping every single month without fail. Which means one weekend a month, I have the kids to myself until Saturday night when he comes home, showers, and collapses in front of the TV. And on holiday weekends, it gets even better. He uses his precious time off to take the scouts to the Blue Ridge Mountains, which takes 4 hours of driving, each way, not something you can do in a quick "meet-at-the-church-at-5:00pm" overnighter. So this Thanksgiving, just like the last two or three years, Matt rose early on black Friday and left. I had already been with the kids for three days at this point, and now I had three more to go. The Scouts had a great trip, but by Saturday night I was going crazy. But of course Matt's too tired for a date, and anyway I used up my sitter money to go to Carolina Ballet's matinee performance of Pinocchio with Samuel and Lucy (which was awesome but the kids kind of ruined the second half for me [ballet and Bach, what could be better?] because they were restless and whiney).

So getting back to my crazy weekends...Sundays are just as crazy. Whoever wrote the old song "Easy like a Sunday Mornin" was not a member of the LDS church. We have choir at 9:30am, then it's home, dress kids, feed them a quick lunch at be at church at 12:30. Then after the three hour service we come home, fix dinner, eat and clean up dinner, then maybe we'll play a board game and a short family home evening lesson. I know, FHE is usually on Monday nights in the rest of the Mormon world, but I'll get to that later... Then at 8:00pm we break our "no TV on Sunday rule" and watch The Amazing Race together. Nothing like ending the weekend with a good dose of reality TV. Then we go through the bedtime routine and if I have any energy left I might sew for an hour or so.

Monday morning comes around and yes, I'm tired. But we read scriptures, get the kids dressed and fed and backpacks ready to go. I drive carpool that morning, and then I drop off all the kids at school at 8:45. Those fifteen minutes driving home are the sweetest ever. I only have my sweet Lizzy with me and we often go to the grocery store and see what Kroger's specials are. Then we go home and I throw all the laundry in the hallway and sort the dirty clothes into color groups. Then I begin the first of the five batches of laundry. Throughout the day, Lizzy and I wash, dry and fold the warm clean clothes, and I keep my TV on ALL DAY! It's the only time I really watch TV in the daytime. I usually watch Discovery Health while I fold the clothes, which has mostly birthing and "bringing home baby" type shows. A side note...I find it amazing that someone would allow themselves to be filmed on the day they bring home a newborn baby, and let the cameras film all of those first feedings and diaper changes and the sleepless nights. It is sad to me that the precious quietude of those first moments can be sold for what...a couple of thousand dollars maybe? Anyway, I digress. By afternoon the laundry is close to done and I do a quick easy dinner because right after school the boys have piano and Lucy has ballet. But then comes my favorite part. You know what I love most about Mondays? I have choir rehearsal with the NC Master Chorale chamber choir. (This is why FHE is held on Sunday nights at the Becks). For two hours, I am totally immersed in music and singing and nothing else even exists. It is soooooo fun for me. I'm not even a real member, just a "sub." But I just consider each rehearsal as if it were an audition and I do my best to be the best of the best. The other 19 singers around me are all professional singers, it's a paid choir, the only one of its kind in Raleigh. Every note has to be perfect, every cutoff clean, every entrance in exact time. The music is full of mixed meter, complex harmonic chords, dynamic contrasts, and long phrases that really work my lungs. It is by far my favorite two hours of the week. When I come home, I feel refreshed and ready to go again. In direct contrast with Sunday night, when I feel like a frustrated mom who would rather be a singer; on Monday night, I feel like an amazing singer who gets to be a mom, too!

So when my week is getting long and troublesome and I am about to pull out my hair, I remind myself that Monday is coming. Monday is coming.

It makes me think that maybe every stay at home mom should have her equivalent of my Chamber Choir. A weekly activity that is hers alone. A place where she feels talented, smart, amazing, and appreciated for something other than the dinner, dishes, or laundry that she has done that day. Not that dinner, dishes, and laundry are unimportant. Someone has to do it, and that someone is mostly the mom. I'm not surprised by this...I knew that when I signed up for this job, but like Mary Poppins said, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." Choir is my spoonful of sugar. Not that being a mom is medicine, but you know what I mean, and if you don't, well as Mary Poppins also said, "I never explain anything."