I'm bitter. My husband is home sick.
Yes, it's Saturday, but that's the day I count on him going out. And taking our son with him.
I really hate saying things like that. It smacks too much of the people who tell us that they could never homeschool, because they couldn't stand to have their kids around all day.
The thing is, it isn't about having "me" time. Or even having alone time. I could go out if I wanted those, although I have developed a strong aversion to going out now that I have to go out so much now that I homeschool, and I hope some civilians are reading this and reassessing some assumptions about the homeschooling lifestyle.
No, the thing is that I have a very difficult time getting anything worth doing done when they're both around. We have a small apartment, and there's no extra room or yard I can just go out in and not be in anyone's way.
If it's just one of them, I still have a hard time really focusing, but I can get some work done. It's pulling teeth to get real cleaning done, because we have exactly enough rooms for everything we need so whichever one I'm cleaning is bound to be needed for something long before I've had time to finish.
But I can take notes for articles, or look at notes I've already taken and start putting them together, if just one of them is around. I can do the pre-clean straightening. I can do the ever-present laundry. (We all have allergies, so laundry tends to pile up around here like pizza boxes in a college student's dorm room.)
With both of them around -- I can't even try to get anything done.
I tried to try today. There are some emails that are really important to me that need thoughtful and rather lengthy answers, and I really wanted to work on them.
And I couldn't.
I couldn't exercise, I couldn't practice violin, I couldn't clean the floor in the front room, I couldn't write, I couldn't even read.
Because EVERY time I gave in to temptation and tried to do something of worth and value, it sent out a signal for one of them to come in and either ask a question or require something in the room I was working in.
It wasn't as if the noise level changed. The sound of me reading junk email is no different from the sound of me reading an article someone emailed me that has some substance and depth to it. The noise level of me idling through old newspapers is identical to the sound of me paging through Lies My Teacher Told Me.
But guess which one was guaranteed to send out a disturbance in the force?
True tale of terror: my son's in bed right now, but not asleep. I have to wait for him to fall asleep before I can exercise (I don’t usually exercise at night, but see above about today’s weirdness), because our apartment is too small and the noise keeps him awake; and I can't exercise outside any more, because I get sinus infections. And I can't just let him stay up, because he gets up early even if he was up late and then he's weird with tiredness the whole next day and I have to live with it.
So I was just sitting here being silently bitter about all the stuff I didn't get to do; and I decided, hey, why not write a HY-larious Mad Editor posting about it -- one that will have other homeschooling parents sighing in relief that they're not the only ones who go through this kind of thing?
I started writing. Identical noise level to my just sitting around sorting through my files and wondering what all this junk is.
Halfway through the second paragraph: "Mommy?"
I have learned never to let that kind of thing drive me to words I will regret, because the one time you tear in your child's bedroom of a late evening demanding to know what exactly couldn't wait until morning and why isn't your undersized offspring asleep already is the one time that said offspring will turn to you with tear-filled eyes and vomit on your shirt. So I very gently and reasonably asked what the matter was, and my son anxiously explained that he'd just started to fall asleep when he felt really weird for a minute, like he couldn't breathe, except he could, and then he felt kind of shaky.
I explained that it was probably just like when you're falling asleep and your leg gives that KICK that wakes you (and your spouse, and possibly the neighbors) right up again; or maybe it was that thing that even non-snorers get every now and then, when your breathing goes all funny for a second and jolts you awake. Or, possibly, it was because Mommy was sitting down and actually GETTING SOMETHING DONE, and he'd felt the disturbance in the force and responded to it.
At which point he rolled his eyes and sarcastically thanked me for the medical advice, and I came out here to finish this up. 'Cause it's not as if I'm going to get anything else done tonight.
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6 comments:
I've felt that way often, when my husband *and* the kids are home. When it's just the kids, I am the Enforcer, and I can set the parameters for whether they can bug me. But when my husband is there too, we have to decide *together* about everything, and unless I literally lock myself away and forbid anyone from coming in, I get nothing done. (Except cleaning, I can do that.) When I do lock myself away, I have to give my husband credit, he does understand and tries to keep away. But I still feel that I have to justify the time alone, in a way I don't when it's just the kids and me.
And then, of course, on the rare occasion when the kids are out at some activity and it's just him and me, he wants to take advantage of the time (ahem) and doesn't want me to work AT ALL.
On the other hand, Deborah, you've made me appreciate the fact that I live in a decent-sized house. So I'm going to go and appreciate it today, and use that as a motivator for getting some work done.
I can relate 100%. When my husband was home on leave for 10 days (he returned to Korea last Sunday), I was ridiculously unproductive for the very same reasons you list.
*sigh* Such is life, I guess.
Then again, "the boys" mostly stayed upstairs and I mostly stayed downstairs. So I had alot of "me time" to do research.
But the presence of hubby kills any creativity I have. Thus, I never get any writing done. :(
I's so glad I'm not the only one feeling guilt about similar feelings. My husband works from home, so we are ALL here ALL the time. When I drop off the kids for piano lessons, I go for a run by myself to relieve stress. Except, in my head, I sometimes feel as if I'm "running away."
Sometimes we just need time alone!
I feel your pain.
My interruptions come in fours (if not fives). I'll never understand why they can't hold a meeting and organize all of their requests in advance.
Yep, that post was spooky dead-on. I mean in a Seinfeld gets-you-exactly-where-it-hurts-standup kind of dead-on. We're in a very small house, and two teen boys and a hubby make it nigh to impossible to accomplish anything of any value well, ever. So thanks for sharing your pain. I needed that commisseration tonight.
I just found your blog Deborah but I had to comment about this post. I don't know how they sense the disturbance in the force but it is definitely true.
People ask me about the weird hours I keep or the fact it appears that I never sleep. During normal day light hours there is no way to get anything done. Any time I get a chance to work on anything, "Mommy!" "Hey Baby!". It is like a 6th sense.
It does make one feel better to know that my own family is not the only one with this additional sense.
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