Step-mother's Guilt

Once a month my step-sons spend the weekend with their mother. I dread this weekend and love this weekend all at the same time.

I dread it because I miss them so much, and I feel terrible for my husband that he has to spend a weekend away from them. Poor R is miserable on the weekends that his brothers don't come to our house. He misses his best friends, and it's heartbreaking.

At the same time I love it, because it keeps me from being chained to my house for three days. The simple fact is, it's almost impossible to go out by myself with five kids in tow. B is old enough to stay home by himself, or even with one of his brothers, but definitely not with all three. Then I get "why does B get to stay home???" or "why can't I stay home with B???" Can we say MAJOR HEADACHE?!?! It's not even worth it to make the attempt....

So, instead I stay home every weekend and hang with all five of my loves. I use the time to clean up and do the 12 loads of laundry we have every week. Most weekends I'm able to get out alone to do the grocery shopping on Sundays, because Jay's off - oh joy! Sometimes I can squeeze in a manicure first :) We watch a lot of movies together. Mostly of the Superhero variety. Ask me about the latest love story, and I couldn't tell you... but I can recite lines from The Avengers or tell you anything you want to know about Transformers. We play board games, boy do they love UNO... and I love playing it with them.... but sometimes you just want to get out of the house! So, on the last weekend of every month, I schedule appointments and plan to do all the things I can't do easily with five little people trailing behind. I try to jam a bunch of things into one weekend, because it's easier to leave Jay with just one or two kids as opposed to all five, or to travel with just M & R. Have you every tried to find a babysitter for five kids on a Saturday? I can tell you from experience, it's almost impossible... much easier to find a sitter for one or two.

This weekend we actually hired the sitter twice!

That's right, it's the last weekend of the month... it's their mom's weekend... so, at 3:30 today, I begin the marathon of things I have scheduled for this month's weekend "off".

Tonight I'm headed out to celebrate my big sister's birthday at a club that she likes. I haven't been to a club in years... should be interesting.

Tomorrow we scheduled baby M's 15 month/Valentine's Day pictures during the day and then we are headed to my bestie's house for dinner and a play date for baby M.

Sunday I'm dragging Jay with me to do the grocery shopping, and then we are headed out to a Superbowl party sans kiddos. We actually get to act like a newlyweds for a while! Who knew???

I am getting excited just thinking about it! The more excited I get, the more guilty I feel :(

It's quite the conundrum really... I love being with them. For all the stress of refereeing five kids all
weekend long, the love that fills my house Friday - Sunday makes it all worth it. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of love Monday - Thursday, but the weekends take it to another level. I love the way the boys interact with their sister; and even though they spend 85% of their time bickering, I love watching the boys together. I love that they have each other to play with, so much different than my own childhood. So much more hustle & bustle in our house.... but I also love the quiet that comes with their mom's weekend, when R sleeps in because there is no one for him to play with at the crack of dawn. When R will actually spend a whole weekend day with his dad because his brothers aren't there, and I can throw M in the car and go where ever I want. When I can get dressed in something other than sweats because there is actually time for me to take a shower! Oh, the little things!

So, for now I'll just enjoy this jam-packed weekend, and live with my step-mother's guilt while doing it... On Monday I start looking forward to next weekend, which will surely be filled with lots of love, laughter & sweat pants :)