I had three days off. Most people can conquer the world in three days. Here’s what I did: half of the laundry, the dishes (once), thought I was cleaning but really just made stacks around the house, watched Shaun plant the garden, grocery shopped and visited with family. Oh, and I enjoyed some prized adult time with my hubby while Cal was with gma and gpa.
What’s not included in that list is the unquantifiable hours spent playing and cuddling with my boy and countless cycles of feeding, changing, bathing, and rocking to sleep. I think you are allowed to laugh at to do lists and chuckle at the thought of weekend excursions when you have a newborn. When you have a newborn, it's simply self defeating to look at your weekend and think of the time in terms of accomplishment (yes, it’s something to learn, and I’m still on the learning curve).
While it doesn’t seem like it right now, making Frogletooth (the playgym frog) talk with Cal for 45 minutes while he wildly bats his hands in excitement and tosses a few grins our way (which we promptly eat up), is far more than I’ve ever accomplished before I was a parent. At least that’s what I have to keep reminding myself when I get into a late afternoon funk on my third day off with little to nothing checked off that silly list in my head. Now that I think of it, I did manage to work out twice and also shower afterward — and that is an accomplishment with a newborn. I can't imagine how single parents, or other parents with far bigger challenges than I, get by. They deserve gold medals.
