ad hoc MOM

I love Fridays.  I mean, I know – what idiot doesn’t love Fridays?  But I really, super love Fridays.  Since becoming a mother, the weekend has spelled sweet relief in a way I hadn’t experienced since the seventh grade – when Saturday morning meant I could hide under the covers with a Stephen King novel and not worry about when one of the golden haired popular girls might strike with a nasty comment about my ill fitting jeans or bad perm for 48 glorious hours.  After June was born, the arrival of Saturday morning meant life got instantly easier.  I could shower WHEN I felt like it, eat whenever I wanted to – sitting down, and with both hands thank-you-very-much.  Weekends no longer represented a simple break from work – but a return to sanity, albeit with less frills.  I found I couldn’t even remember what exactly it was we used to do on weekends before we became parents.  I mean, did we go to several hundred movies a year?  How did I not have “time” to exercise?  What exactly was I doing?  Translating the entire Nancy Drew series into ancient Greek?  Seriously, how is it possible that I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THE RUSSIAN TEA ROOM?  I think you get the general idea, babies suck up your leisure time.  Honestly, you might as well cancel your New York Times subscription the second that pregnancy test comes up positive.

But babies turn into toddlers, and miraculously, the world is full of activities for such small people – and that’s where Tonya and I have scored major bonuses with our respective husbands.  Seriously, we’re very lucky.  Not just because we married swell guys – but because they “hit it off” straight away, which made life easier for us in ways we probably couldn’t have predicted.  How could we have known that a mutual preference for absurd t-shirts featuring zombies, a shared disdain for team sports and an appreciation for a properly mixed cocktail would result in a blooming “alterna-dad” style friendship that would go beyond nights out to sci-fi movies to TAKING THE KIDS OUT OF THE HOUSE ON SATURDAY MORNINGS!!!  It started with swimming lessons with all of the dads in our mom’s group, then there were trips out for bagels, followed by breakfast at  a neighborhood diner – playing in the park, the playground, wherever.  They always manage to find something to do.  To know that on Saturday mornings, I can be myself again – read the paper, drink coffee, go for a run, or actually sleep, completely guilt free makes the crazy combo of working-raising-my-kid all the more worth it.  And maybe one of these days I’ll finally get to the Russian Tea Room.