I’ve spoken previously about how ridiculously busy I am. I should have qualified it by saying that I’m busy from 6am Monday morning until 6pm Friday evening. My weekends of late have been a howling wilderness. Put your ear close to the screen, listen very carefully and you’ll hear the tumbleweed that represents my Saturdays and Sundays.
Dh's job requires him to work weekends fairly often and it’s rare for him to have a whole weekend off. This means that the girls and I spend an awful lot of time together between Friday and Monday. They are lovely company and extremely entertaining but it’s not exactly relaxing or stimulating intellectually for me. There’s only so much newspaper reading, internet surfing and telly watching one can do when the girls are napping or in bed. I really miss three-dimensional, human company.
The difficulty is that we live a fair distance away from our family and friends. I used to hop on a train and visit people but now all trips have to be planned like a military operation. Having twins curbs spontaneity somewhat, I find. Also, when dh has a free weekend we either want to take the girls out or people want to visit. It’s fair enough that our friends and family want to see us both but it means that we go through phases of doing really exciting things and packing a lot into a few weeks. This is followed by a spate of really quiet weekends where not much happens.
I dread being asked about my weekend plans by work colleagues. I’ve got to the point where I’m just honest with them now and explain that dh is working so I’ll be with the girls. It may sound really dull but it’s utterly exhausting and I actually go to work for a rest!
As I’ve been tapping away here, I’ve been trying to remember what my weekends were like before the babies came along. They largely depended on whether dh would be working or not. If he wasn’t working, we would spend the whole weekend together. If he was working, I would go out with work colleagues or friends on Friday night, get up early and go to the gym on Saturday morning, pop to M&S for yummy treats, perhaps go shopping in the afternoon and chill with a glass or two while watching the X-Factor. On Sunday I would have a long lie-in followed by a relaxing bath and potter around at home, maybe go and visit people or chill at home. I’d be refreshed and ready for the working week ahead by Sunday night.
Here’s a brief outline of my weekends now: early night Friday, up at 6.45am Saturday, get girls up, bottle at 7am (them not me), breakfast at 8am (all of us), playtime (which now consists of rescuing R and G from perilous situations as they fling themselves all over the place) until nap (them) at 9.30-ish. Drink and a rusk at 11, lunch at 12. Playtime (see above) until nap at 1.30-ish. Bottle at 3pm, playtime (as above) dinner (them) at 4pm. Walk from 4.45-ish for an hour. Bath time between 5.45 and 6pm. Evening bottle between 6 and 6.30. Bedtime story. Put girls to bed. Flake out in front of the TV. Repeat on Sunday. On Sunday night, get everything ready (clothes for the girls and I, bags packed) for Monday and preparation for the week ahead. Generally in bed before 10pm in case the girls wake in the night.
Slightly different eh? Reading the contrasting weekends back, I’m struck by how shallow the weekends in my previous life were. They were lovely and relaxing and I thoroughly enjoyed them but I always had a nagging feeling on Sunday night that I essentially wasted two perfectly good days and that I wasn’t going to get them back. Although my weekends now are exhausting, I feel like I’m achieving things. Previously, I had a lovely time but I felt that something was missing. The gap has been filled by two wilful, loud, boisterous, funny, demanding, affectionate, difficult, playful creatures.
I wish that I could be completely selfish and move my family and friends nearer to us so that they could come and visit, and it would be easier for us to visit them. Telephone calls, e-mails, Facebook and MSN-ing are great but they don’t replace real-life grown-up company.