Most people say that they hate Mondays, well it's official I'm a crazy person.. because I hate Fridays & I have for the past 6 years.. It's a hard one to explain and I really don't know if anyone will understand my reasoning but here goes...
Fridays are an emotionally charged day for me as they are our swap over day.. And today is the first swap over day for 2013 after having the kids altogether for a whole month! So I'm probably feeling it more so today than ever. So every 2nd Friday this term my Step kids go back to their Mums for the weekend and Mr 7 goes off to his Dad's for the weekend every 2nd weekend all year round.
You go from having a household of 5 kid's to having only 1 child at home.. So to say it's a bit of a downer is an understatement. I know they are off having fun, that part i'm okay with, it's just that radical change of environment that really throws me out. I was a lot worse at it before Mr 1 came along because the weekend's go alot faster now I have another little person to keep me busy, but I still notice that Thursday night and Friday are off days for me.
And of course your mind always wonders what their up to, are they being safe, are they having fun are they feeling okay etc. Some people used to say Hubby and I should be having a ball on our kid free weekends, but whilst the kids aren't here physically, it's not really a kid free weekend after all. Now we have Mr 1 there are no such thing as 'kid free weekends' but thats ok, who needs a life anyways.. LOL.
Then on the flip side the opposite Friday we have a houseful of kidlets in residence and the term when my Step kids are at their Mums during the school week and return home on the Friday, Friday is chaos day.. fighting, settling in, adjusting, lots of noise and lots of crazy as they adjust to being in our home again. A few years ago, I used to stop into the video shop on the way home from school on a Friday afternoon to hire some movies and buy a big bottle of Coke to get me through & the guy on the counter would always look knowingly at me and say 'Stepkids home?' LOL -- that and I'm sure he could hear them 3 blocks away LOL.
But you get used to the noise, you get used to the crazy and you get used to the busyness that is five kids in a blended household, its just the coming and going part that is the hard part for me and I'm sure the kids.. Their lives change frequently with different rules etc. I often look upon large families whose children are all biologically theirs and think 'geez I wonder what that is like?' but obviously I'll never know. When the routine settles in again for the year I do breathe a sigh of relief because its also a lot of adjusting for a parent.. after all when you become a parent you don't imagine having to spend time away from your kids regularly... It's not something you think of from the outset..
With my Husband's children we used to have 70/30 custody of the kids in our favour, then week on/week off when Mr 9 was in prep and now we still have 50/50 shared care but we've adjusted it to term on/term off simply so these comings and goings don't happen as frequently. When it was week on/week off, I swear none of us knew if we were Arthur or Martha! So whilst lengthening the time they spend in one house has its advantages while they are home, it also sucks when they are away as it can be quite a while between visits. During the away time Mr 7 and Mr 1 adjust to a whole different way of life, then Mr 12, Miss 11 and Mr 9 come home and everything changes again.. it's like living in a roller coaster at times.
So this weekend it will be very quiet and odd (Except for Mr 1 who can at times Party with the best of them!) But come Monday the house will be full of laughter, playing, fighting, tantrums and lots of Mummy cuddles. So Friday's, bloody Friday's... give me Monday any day of the week. :)
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