Originally Posted by HeatherJ:
Before my son was born, I worked VERY long hours. I decided when I was pregnant with him that I was going down to 8 hours a day after he was born, and that is what I did. After I pick my son up from daycare, we go to the library to bring back books and we have about 30-45 mins to find and check out new ones. Or, we might go to the park for that amount of time, and there is a great little kids gym that we often visit for an hour at the most. When we get home, we have dinner (I admit that most of the time our dinners are from the crockpot. If I started dinner right when we got home it would take way too long). After dinner, he helps me load the dishwasher, we put a movie in and we either watch it or we drag out toys to the living room to play while the movie is on, but don't really watch it. 
About 7:30 or 7:45 I start his bath water and after bath he drinks a glass of milk and we pick up toys. Then it's bedtime by 8:30.
Now, sometimes we may skip the after-daycare/work activity because I've got to go to the bank or the post office, or the store. But usually that stuff can wait until the weekend.
I am up until at least 1:00am EVERY night. After he goes to sleep I take a shower, I find what clothes we will wear the next day and I pick up any remaining messes in the house. I do a couple loads of laundry and I may even scrub the bathtub and toilet or sweep and mop my floor. THEN I get to finish work from my job. Because even though I went down to only being AT work for 8 hours, my workload @ my job did not decrease, at all. It still requires that I dedicate 12+ hours per day to it.
Weekends I am in heaven. I make sure that I finish anything work-related during the week. If I have a huge thing going on at work, I may stay up EXTREMELY late during the week to get it done. I refuse to even touch that stuff on my weekends. On the weekends, we have a freaking blast!!! We will go eat pizza, play for awhile at the arcade there, we will go the science museum, we spent 4 HOURS at the lego store once. We both LOVE legos. We go play miniature golf, we go ride go-carts, we seriously party down on the weekends. We also do our grocery shopping and errands on the weekends. I don't have "me" time anymore, really. But my little boy is all I need. I KNOW he is going to want to hang out with just his friends when he gets older, so I am squeezing every drop of "mommy is my best friend" time I can get. I know there are so many moms out there like me. I don't see many parents that want to be without their kids.
I guess, really, I have a little bit of "me" time after he goes to bed on Fri & Sat night. I still have to clean and do laundry at that time, but I am so used to staying up so late, I will read a book or magazine or watch a grown up movie during that time. And I will just chill for a little bit.
I think parents really don't see the big picture. Their kids are going to get big, they don't wanna hang out with Mommy when they are teenagers. They need to have fun with their kids while they still can!!
We just got back from the pizza place for an early dinner/late lunch, we raced those big plastic motorcycles in a video game. It was so freaking fun. Here in about an hour or so we are going to the movies to see Puss in Boots.
Wish us luck with that, because last time I took him he whined the ENTIRE time and we had to leave before the movie was over. But I am trying it again, it's been about 8 mos since the last movie. I am not sure if he is really old enough to sit in a dark theater and watch a movie without interruption for 2 hours. He is 4. If it turns out like last time, we will just go home and watch a movie. But I REALLY want to see Puss in Boots so I hope he can make it thru the whole movie.
& see? I've scored about 15 mins or so of "me" time just now, & I used it to read this thread and type this up. He is playing with legos right beside me and talking about the arcade games, and it's all good & I absolutely love it
***NOTE: Living my kind of life requires several gallons of caffeine daily.***
Wow woman, you made me tired just reading that
! Sounds like you've got it pretty well pulled together, though.
That ability to stay up late will serve you well in a few years when you've got a teenager on your hands. I found that to be one of the best times to talk to my kids during those years - they would come home from where ever they had been to find me reading a book or watching TV and we'd end up having a nice conversation about anything and everything. Now if only I could break that whole staying up late habit...