You know how Mondays go - easing back into the work week, remembering all of the things you put off on Friday, and sharing "happy talk" with coworkers about what you did over the weekend. I work with a smattering of single people and hear their weekend exploits and it goes a little something like this:"Yeah I didn't really do too much, we went out for drinks on Friday night and then went over to this club and ran into a bassist I knew in this samba band. We went back to his loft with a couple dozen people and ordered $400 of tapas and feasted on the sweet meats until 4AM. Saturday we just cruised on my friend Theo's yacht and did some whaling. The weird part is that we met up with some Mer-people and they took us to this sunken ship where we found gold coins and precious gems. After that, we hot-air ballooned back to shore and walked across hot coals, straight into a trance-Goa rave. Sunday was super low-key, we just had brunch with Obama at The Hague."
As these people are talking, I'm trying to think back to the weekend and tally up all of the cool things I did. Let's see - looked after Benjamin, maintained my home, went to church, ate 7-9 meals and didn't get enough sleep some how.
Ta-da!!
Ordinarily my shoulders slump a little bit after we do this exchange, especially when their response is something to the effect of, "Oh, well that sounds fun too...(ahem)...(shuffling of papers)"
But things shifted into perspective for me Labor Day weekend. We got back to the office on Tuesday and I'm hearing of people riding on wild unicorns and circumnavigating the Earth on the Concorde, and I thought to myself "Man! I had a great weekend!"
While these people were ticking off things on their Bucket List I was able to hang out with Benjamin during the sweet "play time" part of his day. We had family walks, kicked around a ball at the park, got in a work out, made and ate some delicious meals at decent times, went swimming with cousins, had a night away with the Missus, saw a movie IN the theatre, and still got some stuff done around the house.
I didn't get into detail when so
meone asked what I did that weekend, because I think they would still give me the "you poor suburban schmoe" look. But I truly think I had the better weekend filled with laughs, baby hugs, naps, some more first words, kissing of boo-boos - all thanks to Emily and Benjamin.
So next time you feel like you're getting big-timed by someone comparing weekend feats, just conjure up a little moment in time where your
little one put their head on your shoulder, laughed at your antics, or just splashing around during bath-time. You've got them beat, hands-down.
