On Finding Our Groove

Nights and days, days and nights, that's the cycle we live on around here. Justin works 7 days a month, and 7 nights a month, leaving us 14 wonderful days with him to ourselves. Because of how his nights and days rotate, I always find myself asking him, nights or days? And I used to dread those nights. Because it meant almost 15 hours of him away from the house, followed by a whole day of sleeping, and two hours of just getting ready to leave again. These are my single parent days. And I used to dread their arrival, but we've found a little groove, my boys and I. One where our feet fit comfortably and we can keep on keeping on.

There's something unexplainably (although I'll try) special about nights when Justin is working. The boys are mine. I don't have to share their laughs and smiles, they are mine all mine. And while Wyatt splashes away in his bubbly bath water, I can hold my little Ben and just take him all in. And when Ben looks at you with his little bobbly head and his luminous blue eyes, they pierce into you. Seer into your soul just ever so slightly, and then the corners of his mouth start to turn up and before you know it his whole face is in on this smile, grinning from ear to ear. And call me selfish, but sometimes I don't want to share that smile, I want it all to myself. I want all the credit for those ear to ear grins, and the high pitched rich sound of laughter from Wyatt's mouth as I tickle his fresh from the bath body. And no matter how loud the boys are those nights, the house seems blissfully calm and strangely still. Like walking out after a thunderstorm to find the sky still dark and gray but no wind, no rain, just silence.

It's not always easy having Justin gone so many hours out of the day. No, there are times when I want to scream at the top of my lungs, or just collapse into my corner of the couch and pull a velvety soft blanket over my tired legs. There are times when the minutes until bedtime seem to stretch into days, and no one wants to listen, or to put clothes on, or pick up toys, not even me. But for every pull your hair out, sob into your hands, scream into the cold night air type of day, there are ten more these-are-what-memories-are-made-of type of days to somehow, like a dusty chalkboard eraser, erase those bad days away, and start you off with a fresh clean slate.

And so here I sit on this stay under the covers type of Sunday, Justin away at work. One boy leaning into my sweatshirt covered shoulder on the couch next to me. The other trying his darnedest not to fall asleep in his swing across the room from us. The moon still hanging in the sky outside my window, a thin veil of wispy clouds falling across it's face. And when the moon is still out at 10am, I think that gives you a pretty good excuse to have a lazy day. After all, Friday and Saturday we burned the candle at both ends trying to make the most of Justin's days off. We had little cousins spend the night which involved large brightly colored puzzles pieces scattered across the living room floor and eager little hands reaching for just the right piece. And then there were craft fairs, pumpkin carving and music classes, and riding the spooky train dressed up like an astronaut (Wyatt, not me), and visiting Nana, and playing in the snow, and then crashing into bed, deflated like someone just pulled the stopper out and all of your air went whooshing out the back. Curling into the pillow and pulling warm blankets up under our chin. That's the kind of Saturday I can get behind. One that has definitely earned us the right to sit around in our pajamas and slippered feet.

This weekend also brought me a 4 month old! I have asked myself so many times, but for some reason I never get an answer, where does the time go!? He's rolling and laughing and smiling and coo-ing and awh-ing and being oh so can't believe this little boy is mine cute.





Life...you have been good to me lately.