How I Make My Weekends Feel Different

Staying home once we had kids had LONG been part of my plan.  I probably told Matt that in our first couple months (weeks?) of dating.  And once I did start staying home, a lot of the women he worked with at the time gave him a hard time about "making" his wife stay home.  He told them that there is NO WAY he could have made me keep working, it was always the plan that I would primarily stay home.  The impacted our choices early on - I didn't go for 150 hours to sit for the CPA exam because I only planned to work a few years (...which didn't quite go to plan).  We bought a house we could easily afford on one income because we knew, at some point, we'd only have one.  We prioritized saving money when we had the two incomes, no kids.  I grew up with a stay-at-home Mom and that's what I wanted for my kids too.

I've now been staying home almost as long as I worked, pre-kids.  There are only a couple things I miss from my working/pre-kids days: the sleep (OH THE SLEEP), the income (duh), how easy it was to get out of the house when it was just me (which still happens occasionally!), and how our weekends were easily distinguishable from our weekdays.

Staying home with just Luke was nice and I quickly got accustomed to that "no need to be out at the door at any particular time" life.  I wore yoga pants and comfy clothes a lot (before this whole athleisure thing started), I didn't have to rush much in my day, I got to read during his naps.  It was pretty nice.

Except for the lack of a real weekend.

Sure, Matt was usually around on the weekends and that eased some of my work but I was still changing diapers, washing diapers, usually doing some laundry, making supper, pretty much most of the same things I was spending my Mondays-Fridays on.  There wasn't much distinction in my days, outside of weekly Mass.

We've been doing this parenting thing now for nearly 7 (SEVEN?!?!?) years and have slowly worked on making our weekends feel a little different than during the week, and not just for the lack of a school run (although, I very much appreciate two days off from that!).  It's a little more deliberate than it was in our pre-parenting days but I do feel a difference in the flow of our weekends versus during the week.  And my weekend mode starts on Fridays

Fridays
It is super rare that I leave the house during the day on Fridays outside of school runs and our weekly library trip (which is still a lot of leaving the house).  When I am scheduling doctor appointments or playdates or errands or working, I do my very best to avoid doing any of these on Fridays and I succeed most of the time.  I just do not make plans on Fridays.  That way I know, no matter how busy the week has been, that I have Friday morning at home to catch my breath and enjoy some time with Sam before whatever is happening over the weekend.

I eat my favorite scones, only on Fridays.  I always wear blue on Fridays.  I spend more of quiet time reading and less working on the blog or working working.

Having a standard Friday routine, knowing that most of my work for the week is done (housework, work work, blog work, and homework guidance), really helps me be in a more relaxed mood when the weekend rolls around.

As for the actual weekend, here's how we made it a little different from the weekdays:
 

1) Putting away my planner and boots
During the week, my planner lives open on the kitchen counter.  I look at that thing so many times a day.  But come Friday afternoon, I tuck it away in a cupboard and don't pull it out again (unless we've made some future plans that need added) until I'm doing my planning for the week on Sunday evening.  If I have a couple things I plan to get done on Saturday I'll write them on a small piece of paper on the counter so I don't forget but also don't need the whole planner out.  It's AMAZING the difference this small change has made.  Having the counter space free and not feeling like I have a whole lot of things to get done really help my mental state.

In a similar vein, during the colds months I keep my riding boots at the bottom of the stairs with the boys' shoes, since I'm probably wearing them to drop-off and pick-up almost every day, November - March.  I am big on putting things away but even I don't see the point in running upstairs to put them in my closet after drop-off and then running back upstairs to get them again for pick-up, to put them away again when I get home and drag them back out again in the morning.  So they stay out until Friday afternoon and then put in the closet until I need them next, whenever that is over the weekend.

Making these two little changes, noting two small things that are different about our weekend: not leaving the house for school runs and not doing (as much) housework, really helps mark the weekends as something different.   

2) Lazier Mornings
During the week, I aim to be worked out, showered, and around by the time the boys are awake and/or need woken up for school.  I've figured out, at this life stage, it is very hard for me to shower if I am the sole parent at home and the boys are awake.  It just never goes well, especially if I want my shower done before 10am.

BUT, on the weekend, the whole family is usually on the same schedule and I don't need to beat the boys awake just to get my shower in.  Just having Matt here to trade off on parenting duties really helps the mornings go a little better and usually lets us sleep in a little later (as in: 7am instead of 6am).

I also don't workout first thing on the weekends, mostly.  At some point in the summer or fall I'll be back to running and likely doing one morning of the weekend but we aren't there yet!  And it's easier to get in a run in the warm months than my inside DVD workout in the cold months when there are other people all over the house!

3) Fewer Set Chores
I purposely schedule my housework so I get most of it done throughout the week - when I am mostly home.  The one big one is that I do most of our laundry and change sheets almost solely on the weekends but I've also been doing it that way for so long that I don't need my planner out to tell me that, I just know I do laundry on Saturday mornings.  Especially since Luke started wearing school uniforms this year and I only bought him 6 shirts - I HAVE to do his school clothes every week.

But, other than laundry, I usually only do one-time things over the weekends - like repairing a blind or hiding tv cords or things I do so rarely that they aren't regularly recurring but also that I never seem to get to during the week.  It's a good time to knock out a few of those but those also feel less urgent than say, the bathroom cleaning that I do during the week.

4) Not turning on my computer
I've mentioned this in another post lately, but I rarely turn on my computer on the weekend unless I am working on a special project for part of Sam's nap (wrapping up photobooks a couple Saturdays in January, getting our summer 2020 vacation lodging booked in February, etc.).   I also try to keep my phone screen time to a minimum over the weekend, not checking social media and checking e-mail maybe only once.  Just knowing I have Sam's nap to read with Luke or read to myself, not feeling like I have something I am supposed to be doing on my computer, it really helps me be more relaxed (and get in some more reading!).


Our weekends as parents aren't the same as our weekends pre-kids.  We don't get to sleep as much (unless we go to bed very early!), we don't get to spend lazy afternoons just playing video games together (unless with Luke!), and it's not a two day reprieve from what I do Monday-Friday.  BUT, I've made some small changes to make our weekends feel different and to be different than the weekdays, to get a little bit of a break from managing a house and parenting kids and to just make the weekend feel special.

I'd be very curious to hear if you are a stay-at-home parent and the things YOU do to make your weekend feel different!  It definitely took me awhile to figure some changes that would work for us!