Sunday, September 18, 2011

I hate Sunday

Why is Sunday so hard? Everybody hates Monday - start work, school, blah blah blah  But I actually look forward to Monday's, because I hate Sunday's so much.  What do you do with a Sunday?  No one ever throws a party on a Sunday because the next day is - Monday.  It used to be almost everything was closed on Sunday.

As a kid Friday after school was a Hallelujah moment.  You ran out of the building squealing like summer vacation because in our small world, it was.  Sleepovers, Love Boat, Saturday Night Live, babysitter, or if you were lucky your mom and dad were hosting the get together.  There would be delivery pizza and great dessert then you went to bed listening to the muffled voices and cackling laughter of Mrs. Klosterman.  Creeping down the next morning to find the spoils of adulthood.  Mom would come down in her robe and with a very heavy sigh, start cleaning.  Dad would be awhile later.  There went another Sunday.

Soon the anticipation turned to panic as Saturday night became date night.  With all it's peer pressure, hairspray, and thirty four phone calls - to your BFF.  If you weren't on a date you were relegated to babysitting which meant actually watching the entire episode of Saturday Night Live.  Sunday morning was spent listening for hours as your BFF described every detail of the two hours spent alone in a theatre with "him".  Then spending the next 4 hours wondering why "he" wasn't interested in you.  There went another Sunday.

By the time Saturday night is no longer a blurr due from beer goggles, wings, and smoke filled bars it has become, just the prelude to Sunday.  (OK, so there is a middle- after you are first married before you have children while you are still frisky but it's so hard to remember because it's sandwiched between beer goggles and sleepless nights.)  There goes another Sunday.

Sunday is the end of the weekend, the travel day, the cleaning day, the bill paying day, the - I have a presentation, book report, mammogram tomorrow day.  Sunday is a goodbye day.  Sunday is a stressful day.  Sunday is the blues: soulful, reflective, melancholy.  Sunday is suppose to be the ultimate day of relaxation thus causing the severe anxiety to hurry up, relax, and enjoy the day. 

Sunday makes me feel like a failure because things are always left undone: the laundry, the toilets, the grocery shopping.  And things just left: the homework, the roast, the hike.  Instead we loafed around, nobody went to church, we made pancakes and played Lego's for four hours in our PJ's.  We watched the one quarter of the football game then all fell asleep in a pile on the couch.  Then we ordered pizza.

Maybe I do like Sunday?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Gene Pool

With summer now officially over and the weather turning quickly to cold, I am already longing for lazy easy days at the pool.  Ahh, the pool.  Got me thinking about just how much parenthood is like the pool.  Call it the Gene Pool.

Getting pregnant is taking a big chance, diving into the deep end before you really know how well you can swim.  You hope for the best.  Funny how two people get together and what comes out is neither him nor her, but the funniest combination of both.  With a side of grandparents, parents, and siblings.

While you are pregnant you dream about a little mom, or little dad.  And all of us, and don;t say that you didn't, have silently prayed that that they don;t get the dreaded...something.  Dad's crazy hair or big second toe, mom's buck teeth or red hair.  Whatever it is once you're pregnant you start to put the children together.  Wouldn't a girl with my hair, your skin color, my eyes, and your height be gorgeous?

Funny though, when the child arrives no matter whose toes or hair they have you fall in love immediately and there is no turning back.  Which is good because by one year-old you start to realize that not only do they most certainly have dad's crazy hair, but they also have his stubborn streak.  That's when you realize the pool is soooo much deeper than you thought.

From then on when relative, friend, or stranger says "Oh he looks just like his dad!" It's hard not to add, "Yeah and he's just as freaking stubborn!" Or "Oh my, she's is going to look just like you." You bite your tongue not to say, "And she's gonna be just as awful when he's 16."  Because even though we hate to admit it, we know darn well the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.