Friday, February 4, 2011

Fridays

Ever since I went back to work when my twins were four months old, Fridays have been my "day off," the day I'm home all day with them. I dreaded Fridays in the early days once I realized that time at work was liberation from the endless cycle of bottles and pumping and naps and diapers. And I dreaded them, too, when the kids were toddlers, and the day was an unbroken battle against potty accidents, nap rebellion and my own disinclination to cook anything.

Since they hit three and four years old, however, Fridays have been fun more often than not. When the weather is good--that is, most days in Colorado--we take walks, play in the park, maybe hit the rec center pool for a half-hour swim lesson. Ruth and I still nap. Will doesn't usually nap, but he's gotten very good at leaving us alone when we do. So mostly these days I look forward to Fridays.

The exception is when I had a bad night's sleep the night before.

Like last night. Ruth has come down with Will's cold. The croupy cough she always gets with these kinds of viruses woke her up three times. Will also woke up three times, no longer due to his cough, but due his perennial problem of bed-wetting.

Friday is also my day off from exercise. While it's usually nice to be able to sleep in a bit, on the days when we're up six times with the kids (like last night) "a bit" of sleeping in serves only to make me more grouchy, and I don't have my endorphin fix to counter that. And it always seems to follow that these Fridays are the ones where Will decides he does want to interfere with my nap.

People wonder sometimes why I like to run. I can tell you one big answer to that is that after a long day like today, where I felt like a sullen high schooler forced into a babysitting epic, a 10-mile run in air fresh with melting snow sounds like heaven.

No matter what tonight is like, tomorrow I'm headed for heaven.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry about the lack of sleep. That is tough! I always dread my days off because I feel icky.

    Hope your run is great tomorrow and you that you get AWESOME sleep tonight. :)

    Erin
    http://seemomrunfar.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's a site I just ran across about shoelace tying for marathons. He/she also writes on ways to scrub 20 minutes from your marathon time. I don't know how many of these you already practice--for some reason I didn't realize the running the tangents trick until I was several marathons in.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hear you.. I have twins also, though they are a bit older than yours. Still, I had one 18 mos. older than the twins, so literally, had "3 under 3" for what seemed like forever. Hope you don't get that cold too! Enjoy your slice of heaven tomorrow :) --Alex

    ReplyDelete
  4. Erin, thanks. We just got the kids in bed--I'm headed for my PJs now. Steve, did you link the site? I'd like to see it--I've been thinking about the running tangents thing. My Garmin has always been ahead of the official race markers, so I know I need help in that dept.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Alex. I always admire people who have twins AND an older child (or who just have a lot of kids close in age). I hope that part of life is much easier for you now.

    ReplyDelete