Husbands, ever wonder why your wives are cranky on Saturdays? It’s Saturday—the day where people are supposed to be relaxed and happy and seizing the moment. I’m going to fill you in, but it will require a trip down memory lane.
Mothers, remember Fridays? Fridays used to be awesome. You could stay up as late as you wanted because tomorrow was Saturday. o reason to get up early and no big obligations. You ate crazy food and watched movies or went out and enjoyed yourself. Friday night was a time with no rules where you could really let loose and relax.
So then you had kids. Maybe one baby made the big change or maybe it took a van-load before you realized it would be a long time before there was ever a moment you could really let loose. But you still tried. Fridays were still kind of awesome. Once the kids were in bed you put on your pajamas, put in a movie, maybe you heated up a frozen pizza, and then you stayed up late enjoying some “free time.” On rare occasions maybe you even made it out of the house for a date and if you’ve got an amazing babysitter and/or some super compliant kids, maybe they were even in bed and asleep when you got home. “See!” you said to yourself, “Friday can still be awesome.”
But then you woke up. The alarm clock didn’t go off, but shockingly enough the baby still needed to get fed at about the same time it needed to get fed on weekday mornings. No one is old enough to reach the cereal bowls or competently pour milk, so you’ve got a job to do. Diapers don’t change themselves (except sometimes they DO which is even more horrific), one kid still can’t manage to take off footie pajamas without falling over, and the bedwetter doesn’t take off for weekends and holidays. Life keeps going. And it doesn’t just keep going, it keeps going EXACTLY THE SAME on Saturdays as on every other day. It is depressing.
But your husband is home! Surely that will make things easier!
But life is different for your husband (God love him, bless his heart, whatever other thing I need to say to imply that of course he’s wonderful but this is hard). He isn’t at work. This is his “downtime” and he doesn’t intend to spend it running through a list of honey-dos or taking on additional housework responsibilities just because he’s home. So now you kind of feel like you have an additional kid around the house who wants to hang out with friends, or go to the park, or eat junk food and all you can think is, “Where is MY weekend?” You are still the person keeping the normal schedule so the baby doesn’t get his sleep routine ruined and trying to be sure the kids don’t get too much sugar and the house doesn’t completely fall in on itself from the weight of the unfolded laundry on the couch.
Did I mention you’re a little sleep-deprived from your desire to still enjoy a Friday night? Sleep deprivation makes normal irritations seem even more ridiculous, so now we’ve become the grouchy, nagging wife we swore we’d never become and on Saturday, of all days. It’s enough to make you even more irritated at the world and yourself.
We want to have fun! We want to be carefree and spontaneous and wearing cute clothes and eating exotic food! But we are also The Mom and sometimes our need for predictability and routine makes us less Martha Stewart and more Mussolini. Just have a look in our purse- you’ll find we’re prepared for the zombie apocalypse of kid problems (snacks, band-aids, diapers, kleenex, crayons, a change of pants for the potty-trainer, fingernail clippers, toys for either gender) but long ago quit carrying the “just in case” lipstick we might have needed if a normal day turned into something special. Saturdays are just the tip of the mommy self-sacrifice iceberg.
Of course there are things we could do to make this better. I’m sure our husbands have plenty of suggestions starting with some word we aren’t sure the exact meaning of, like “relax” or some other such nonsense. We remember that one weekend we tried “relaxing” and ended up paying for it for the next week while we tried to dig out of Dirty Dish Mountain. We just aren’t in a season where we can put off until tomorrow or else we end up miserable tomorrow AND today. It seems the only thing I can put off until tomorrow is relaxing.
So we endure Saturdays and soldier on. We deal with the disappointment Saturdays bring by dreaming of a beautiful future where kids can sleep past 7 a.m., get their own breakfast, and can make their own playdates that don’t involve us pushing their swings. Of course, then we’ll probably spend Saturdays wishing for the pajama snuggles of toddlers and the carefree days when our kids couldn’t drive or date or raid the fridge. And the tradition of cranky Saturdays will continue.
14 Comments
Leave a reply →