Used to Be the Best, Now It's the Worst

Since we've been homeschoolers, I've loved Mondays. I realize that's a bit weird, but like my kids, I do best when I'm settled into a routine, and weekends are often a little bit too random for my comfort. They're also often really busy, and so getting back to Monday, when we don't have to leave the house early and can just get down to our own homeschool and life business, feels like a relief. Or it did. But now Monday has betrayed me.

Now Monday is full. Too full. We have a neighbor visit, and E's ballet class is too late for her to wait to eat dinner afterwards. So I scramble to get our school routine done, to get to our neighbor's house to visit, to get dinner done, to get E changed into her ballet uniform, to get water bottles and snacks into my bag (because heaven forbid that we would go an hour and a half without eating), to get both girls onto their scooters and half a mile down the pavement to where the ballet class is held, to get E out of street shoes and into ballet shoes and into class, to get all our stuff corralled into a manageable space. That reads as an enormous run on sentence because that's what my life feels like on Mondays.

And I didn't even include the parts where I am doing laundry and putting away food that shouldn't be left out and ordering things from Amazon and composing messages to send a continent away through someone who speaks two languages that I don't. This part, that you see above, where I am sitting on the floor during E's ballet class, is a small moment to breathe while I admire my new silver brogues. Except that the grocery list needs to be amended and there's a message I forgot to reply to two weeks ago, I forgot to get toothpaste, and oh, Monday, why are you treating me like this??? Because after this time sitting on the floor amending the grocery list and replying to messages, I'm going to get the kids back home and probably give them a second dinner and make sure they take baths and brush their teeth and get into bed. It feels endless. Monday is being mean to me.

I know I just need to get used to the new Monday routine. It won't always be this bad. It just feels like such a shock after these blissful years. People grow and change, and their needs grow and change, and Monday and I can no longer have the relationship we once did. We aren't going to be BFFs anymore. We'll be acquaintances. Maybe someday we will like each other again. For now we will just have to tolerate each other's presence. I'll find a new BFF. Maybe, like so many others, I will decide to love Friday. That might work. I will wear a badge that says TGIF. I will say things about the weekend. Monday will be jealous. Maybe then it will treat me right again.