Last year I was dreading a few things happening at the end of the summer. The first was turning 40. The second was sending my baby, who we didn't intend to be our baby, to kindergarten. I thought about those two things A LOT throughout last spring and summer, dreading most having to actually leave my youngest at kindergarten to walk home alone.
The second quarter of last year, July through September, had some more wallops in there with the expected death of my mother-in-law in July and then my husband going back to school right after Labor Day. The school one we found out was coming in late spring precisely when I started dreading that as well. It has entailed my husband still working ~30 hours a week for pay, taking 15-18 credits a semester, and, in January, he started his 740 required clinical hours (being trained in what will eventually be his new job for no pay). His program has consumed the majority of his waking, non-working hours.
Luke picked up two more sports this school year, started serving at Masses, and playing the trumpet. Sam was in kindergarten all day after spending the vast majority of the first nearly 5½ years of his life with me.
I do not do well with change and last fall was A LOT of change. A LOT. And I was dealing with most of this alone since I was now home by myself most of the school day and my husband was very busy in the evenings with his schoolwork and online classes. The fact that I ran 225 miles in that quarter probably literally saved my sanity. Those three months of the year were really, really hard. The first 6 days my youngest was in school I would cry every time I came back to an empty house. I've already been crying just writing this! (Don't worry, not the first time today!)
Gradually I settled into something of a routine with all these extra, quiet hours to myself. I blocked off Tuesdays and Thursdays primarily as my work days (although, as I write this on a Wednesday, I need to get some work done). Wednesdays are Mass and errands. House cleaning mostly happens on Mondays and Fridays but MWF is when I have a chance to blog or work on photobooks. I spent SO MUCH time last fall catching up vacation photobooks and our and the boys' annual books. When Sam started kindergarten the boys' books were about 5 months behind and as of right now, I am only about a month behind (frantically trying to get a bunch of summer blog posts done has cut into my photobook time).
I volunteer more at school. I was co-room parent for kindergarten. Went on field trips, helped in the lunch room more. Worked on our school auction/dinner with losing less of my mind than the year before (although I was sick and missed the actual event this year). I picked up a second part-time job. It took me a long time to find my way with how to use all of these hours. I could have always easily filled them (I will ALWAYS take more reading time) but trying to figure out how to fill them in ways that made our evenings and weekends easier.
The two things I never got enough of during my decade staying at home with kids were sleep and actual quiet time. Always wanting more of the second lead to the loss of a lot of the first. But I discovered how much easier to think and focus when my own distractions are the only things pulling my thoughts away. It is a marked difference from my years with a kid at home when, once they were past the regular napping stage, I didn't get much time to actually think until they were in bed, at which point I was usually too tired to be productive in much. I still am not sleeping enough, a problem I really shouldn't have anymore besides 40s insomnia, but getting that quiet time and letting my brain settle into one task for a good period of time has been WONDERFUL. I still distract myself but it is still more dedicated focus than I've mostly had in years.
The other pluses of being home alone all the time is that I am no longer pushing a stroller to run even though I have reminisced multiple times about the hours I spent chatting with Sam while I pushed him. And I do miss having a place (the stroller) to put water and/or a jacket depending on if we were running home from drop-off (when I might want a jacket for the walk there) or to drop-off (when I'd want water when we got there). But I have adjusted my running schedule around those and I do mostly appreciate the ease of not running with a stroller.
I also get to listen to my podcasts when running errands, I habit I gave up once the boys weren't little babies anymore. And I can walk to pick-up much faster on my own than I could when I had a little tagalong. There are small hidden benefits but even though I appreciate some of those things, it still makes me a little sad that I am alone so much. (Which is why I often have my little niece and/or nephew grocery shop with me when I end up at Aldi at the same time as my sister, which is semi frequently during the school year.)
Right now, as I write this, my boys are 3 hours from getting out of school for the summer. It is baffling where the year went or HOW THE HECK we will have 6th and 1st graders when they start back up, at which point I will be lamenting being alone again. But now, looking at the next ~11 weeks, I am a little bit sad at losing time to think, have that focus. (Which is why I've been trying to get so far ahead on blog posts, so I have less computer things I am trying to get done.) I am still unsure how I will be getting my work hours in. But I want to be able to embrace having them around all day, as much as I'd also really like an hour of nobody talking to me in the middle of each day.
I'm glad I was able to have more quiet time during the day because our evenings have been increasingly less quiet, more busy, and I am on Mom duty even more with my husband in school. That is the beauty in all this timing, as much as I hated all the change at once. I can fill my quiet bucket during the day so I can be more fully on from 3pm-9pm when I am needed to parent.
This year has gone faster than I expected, was both harder and easier than I expected. It took me weeks to adjust and I still get really sad sometimes when I think about how hard that transition was in the fall. I don't feel like the same person I was 9 months ago but that's also the nature of life. It's always changing, forcing us to grow even when we might not want to. And it's helped me appreciate the time I do have the boys at home, even as their near ages that they want me around less and less (ahhhh...parenting....so much fun). I was going to be alone all day at some point, as Taylor Swift just sang..."old habits die screaming" which is very applicable to how I feel right now. Life moves on. Onto summer!!
Related posts:
Being a Kindergarten Empty Nester (August 2023)
Losing SAHM Status (Feb 2024)
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| picture by Sam |
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