The beds are made and there are no monkeys around here to jump and mess them up. Cody just started Kindergarten last week and I just sent Carter off on the little school bus to preschool. This means that four days a week for a couple of hours each day, I have a quiet house with clocks I can hear ticking and dogs I can hear snoring. Today is the first of such days and it is rather strange.
My little monkeys heading off to the school bus stop this morning.
How, might you ask, are you going to fill your newly found free time? Thanks for asking. I have been thinking about this for a while now and depending on when you asked me this you would get a different answer.
The nursing and/or pregnant with a child days: Sleep! I will sleep from the minute they are gone to just before I have to pick them up, I will sleep!
The chucking of baby food on the floor days: I will clean the house! I will finally have a clean house! And once I have cleaned then I will sleep.
The kids always fighting days: I will put myself in time out and do absolutely nothing but eat copious amounts of chocolate! And while I am there, I may just sleep.
The last month of summer before both kids go to school: I will organize! I will be the most organized person you have ever seen. I will be a meal planning, whiteboard writing fool. I will alphabetized my spices and color coordinate my closet – oh, it will be so grand!
These are all great answers and I will most likely end up doing all of the above at some time or another (well, except for the closet thing and maybe the spice thing too – I should save something to do for when they go off to college). But what I am really going to do is become one of those crazy parent helper type moms that you find lurking in the back of classrooms cutting out shapes or glueing googly eyes onto popsicle sticks. Yeah, I know. I couldn’t wait for the day when I would finally get some “me time” and I end up signing up to help in Carter’s classroom on Tuesday mornings and to be the room mom of Cody’s classroom. I have already attended a VPO meeting, the schools equivalent of a PTA, so it is official and everything.
I have never though of myself as PTA material. I would rather talk to my dogs than a bunch of random women (not trying to be sexist but the attending masses were 99% female) about how to raise funds for new gymnasium equipment. But the fact is that the school does need new gymnasium equipment, the budget cuts last year were harsh, I am part of the community, and well, I feel that as long as I am doing the stay at home mom thing, I can help out. Plus it is wicked fun to see Cody and Carter interacting in their classrooms with their new friends.
Well, I have a filing cabinet to organize and a chocolate chip cookie to eat before Carter gets home so I best get at it.
Shoes On The Wrong Feet 
At the very least, you should sit down and just relax even if only for a few minutes.
I commend you for helping out in the classroom and VPO/PTA is very important, still if you don’t make some time for yourself you tend to burnout. Take if from one who knows.
You will find things to busy yourself with and you will get use to having some free time. Sometimes it is a bit scary when we actually have a minute to ourselves, but you will find you like it.
I am quite excited to have plans to meet a friend for coffee tomorrow morning before going grocery shopping – ah the luxury of it all! In the rare moments that I am alone out in a public place I find that I am more self conscious than I used to be. Whatever free time I end up with will take a bit of getting used to.
That’s kind of how I stepped into homeschooling…I helped out as much as I could in Nathaniel’s kindergarten class PLUS taught music class since they cut it for the younger grades.
Sleep…I’ve been thinking lately if my kids WERE in school I think I would sleep.
Yeah, I find it pretty sad all the “extra” subjects like art and music fall in the face of budget cuts (I say they cut down on spending on sports but I don’t think that would go over very well).
Yes, sleep – I find that it is never be overrated.