Is it possible to take a time-out with the kids? If someone were to tell me to take a time-out with the kids, I would probably give them my “whatcha talking ’bout Willis,” crazy look. After an overwhelming week, that is exactly what I did, and I plan on doing more when I feel stressed out.
This has been one crazy, no let me rephrase, one crazy quarter at school. It seems like with each new quarter, comes more challenges, more work, harder classes, and thus more stress. I still have a little over a year left with school and it seems like this is taking forever. I am going for a B.S. (haha I know, BS) in Business, majoring in accounting and boy this is the most difficult thing I have ever done. I would rather go through childbirth again than to be put through this daily mind scrambling and stress like you are going to explode type of feeling. Maybe it is because going thru labor with my kids, although it was extremely painful due to no other choice but au natural labor, the whole process of squeezing the little ones out only took a few hours. (but all of that is another future blog post) So, going through a few hours of pain, is so much easier than going through 3 years of excessive stress. Now, I am not writing this to get people to feel sorry for me, “oh poor girl, college with kids is sooo hard, she is getting this opportunity of a lifetime and it is so stressful, imagine that….” and blah blah.. I understand that I am fortunate to be in this circumstance considering many mothers cannot stay at home while their husband is the sole income while they go back to school to get a degree. That being said, venting about your situation is different then complaining about it.
Ok, continuing…. I hear from other classmates or family members, “I don’t know how you do it, 2 kids and all this work, I could never do that,” or I hear… “when do you have time to study? How do you get all your chores done, and cooking and cleaning too? You must be super busy all the time..” To be honest, I don’t know how I do it either, but putting more time in one thing, means I’m not taking care of other things. I study in the morning before the kids wake up, sometimes I “try” to do homework while they are awake, work on projects and papers during their nap times, and other studying or field trip/group meetings on weekends. Chores you say? Ha, my house is a mess 90% of the time and I do some trick cleaning before company comes over. Dinners you say? Ha, crock pot is my friend but also my enemy. I do not remember ever having a crock pot meal that made anyone say, “that was the best damn meal I’ve ever had,” yeah don’t think that will ever happen with a crock pot. Mondays and Wednesdays, I usually pick up dinner because I have a late class and on weekends, I am so lazy to cook that all I want to do is sleep or sprawl out on the couch and watch a mind numbing show at full volume to overcome the “Mommy….I want peanut butter…..Mommy where’s my Mater truck…Mommy outside….Mommy I want to watch Yogi Bear…Mommy….Mommy….Mommy…..!” This last week got to the point where I felt like giving up, and telling myself that I don’t know why I am doing this. I don’t get to spend time with my kids, I get maybe 20 minutes/day of uninterrupted adult talk with my husband, I miss out on things with family/friends because I have to study, my house has a sign on the window that says “clean me,” and I don’t remember the last time I was able to relax. My son tells me the other day, “Mommy, stay home, you don’t need to go to class, you go to school too much.” I wanted to cry, the last thing I wanted was for my kids to feel neglected. My son doesn’t understand why I am doing this, all he knows is Mommy doesn’t spend much time with me. My daughter is too little to express how she feels, but I’m sure she misses me too.
So now coming to the time out part. After another overwhelming day in the life of moi, instead of doing dishes, another load of laundry, or reading from my Accounting book, I stopped and told the kids we are going upstairs. My daughter looks at me, “Mimi?” (shortened word for sleep in Spanish) Then my son says, “I don’t want to go Mimi, Mommy.. I want to play 5 minutes.” I said, “No we are not going mimi, let’s go play.” I blasted some music in my room to the tune of one of my son’s favorite songs, “I need a dollar dollar, a dollar is what I need….hey hey…” My son loves the hey hey part and my girl loves anything with a beat. We just danced and ran around in the room and sang the song at the top of our lungs. Then played a few more songs and we danced until I exhausted myself and of course the kids still had tons of never-ending energy! Afterwards I felt so relaxed and wonderful that I don’t know why I didn’t do that more often. I think it should become our end of the day routine from now on… dancing in our pjs, then brushing teeth, books, then bed.
What ways do you take a time-out with your kids?
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