Me, myself and I

I sit in my living room - alone, and yet not. Downstairs there are two little girls watching a movie and having 'quiet' time. In her room, a third little girl naps plays by herself contentedly.

I love the weekend days when I am home with my girls all day. But even so, this mommy needs a break as well. An hour - maybe two, if lucky - to relax, watch tv, blog, and just to be me. Not a wife, not a mother, not an employee. Just Deb.

Which is why my girls, having either outgrown or outgrowing (unfortunately!) the afternoon 'nap', have their 'quiet' time in the afternoons, after lunch. This is as much for me as for them. Whether playing quietly in her room (Becca) in the hopes that she'll fall asleep, or watching a movie and playing (quietly - at least most of the time) downstairs, this is something that's been a part of their routing for as long as they can remember.

And it will continue to be - for as long as we can get away with it. They do need the break, the time to rest and recharge. But so do I. This time to just 'be' - to doze off if I need to, to blog if I want to, to catch up on my favorite shows if I have to, and to give myself a 'pass' on all of the chores waiting for me. This is not 'catching up on housework' time. This is my time.

And so I look over at the baskets of clean laundry waiting on the couch, at the toys scattered on my living room floor (that badly needs to be vacuumed), at the growing layers of dust that I can never seem to get rid of, and I smile to myself, because I sit here writing this post instead of doing the 1001 things that I know in my mind need to get done. They'll still need to get done an hour from now. But the difference is - an hour from now, I will actually feel more like doing them.

Because I've had (even a short) time to just be me.

This post was written as a submission for the January Group Writing Project over at MamaBlogga, on the topic of 'Me Time'.