Some people say TGIF. But for me, it’s definitely TGIS.
After a crazy week of hunting for the lost mittens and shoes required to get my girls out the door in the morning – and trying to get in all the activities, homework, piano practice and dinner after school – I am thrilled to say goodbye to the weekdays and hello to Saturday morning.
It’s the only day of the week I can sleep in. Sometimes that means snuggling up with whichever daughter may have staggered into our bed. Other Saturdays, when the bed becomes too populated with wriggling kids, hungry, meowing cats and my snoring husband, it means wandering from bedroom to bedroom, looking for a quiet place to snooze an extra hour or two.
Saturday is mom’s day off. Dad gets up and makes breakfast. The kids eat and play video games, or with dolls, far from where I’m burrowed under a pile of blankets. When I finally do get up at a scandalously late hour, say 8:30 a.m., I don’t have to chase the girls around begging them to get dressed. On Saturday we can hang out in our jammies, oftentimes until much later than I care to admit.
Usually the most strenuous activity of the day is getting one of the girls to a birthday party or going to Grandma’s house (where she makes dinner – yay!).
And if we stay home the whole day, that’s fine, too. But don’t come and visit us. I take my day of rest pretty seriously. The girls’ hair often stays a bit straggily, dishes pile up in the sink, laundry gets sorted but not quite into the machine. I can deal with all of that on a day when I’m on the run. Saturday is a mini-mom vacation. And I intend to take full advantage.
The girls seem to like lazy Saturdays as much as I do. They have Dad at home to wrassle with (and beat at video games), I’m calm and smiling, and their toys are all around them. Bliss! If I start the day by telling them we have some big activity to do on a Saturday, they actually seem annoyed.
So I know in some families, Saturday is just as activity-packed and crazy as the rest of the week. But I highly recommend that some Saturdays you sleep in, stay in your jammies way too long and proclaim our anthem: TGIS!
