It’s been a very long time since I wrote about my Mondaze. I originally titled the series Case of the Mondaze because of my son’s nickname “Case”. Now that I have two, I’ve swapped Mondaze with a word that embraces my daughter’s nickname “Zades”. I’ve long loved Mondays as being my off-days. I have decided I will continue the trend of setting up my work life to have Mondays off. During their young years, I will dedicate Mondays to my kids. It’s our “family time”. Mostly, it’s a humbling sort of experience – trying to get through a Monday with two young children. Today in particular was a harrowing one. Casey woke up crying because he slept in and didn’t get to say Bye to his dad. I can tell right away that his cup is empty today. On days like that, the crying comes fast.
At breakfast, he refused to eat cereal with a spoon. In his hands went, digging at the milk as if it’s something tangible. Of course, it’s not. So I swapped the cereal for banana bread, which I was able to bake this morning before they woke up. Actually, my morning was stellar since I got a workout in, cleaned the floors and got myself dressed. Which goes to show that no matter how prepared you make yourself for the day, you just never know. Anyway, the banana bread ended up being a mutilated piece of dough as my son tried to select the chocolate chips out of it. His face looked like he ate mud. I eventually succumbed to giving him a popsicle. It was at least made of greek yogurt, fruit and honey.
After lunch, I washed his grubby hands and face. And then went back to the dining table to clean up the milk, mud, and ice cream. He pretended to fall on the floor and proceeded to cry, telling me he wants me to play with him instead. I explained as calmly as I could that I would, once I cleaned up the mess, to which he thrashed himself around and cried some more. Eventually, an invitation to help me clean up got him past his woes. I could tell he just needed some love and attention.
So we read books with his little sister until she got quite upset. It was her naptime but as I went to set her down, I realized quite quickly it was going to be a losing battle – for me. She was not interested in being held or going to sleep. I gave up after five minutes since I already knew, and I had no more will in me to fight battles for the rest of the day. Besides, swim class was in an hour. The nap was going to be short anyway.
I plopped both kids in the car and drove to the bank where I went to withdraw cash for the swim class. We arrived early so that Case could muck around the splash pad. During swim class, Case did not want to be on his back. GREAT. The instructor told him it wasn’t really a choice, as he fought her and said “No thank youuuuuuu” at the top of his lungs. I guess that was fun somehow because when she brought him over to me and he said “Bye” he started to cry because swim was over. Yikes.
Home we go. I asked if he wanted pesto orzo or yaki soba noodles. He said “green rice” so I made the orzo for him and noodles for Zades. To which he immediately screamed saying he wanted Zades’ noodles. She didn’t complain about the orzo, thankfully. He also ate my prawns which were spicy, just to prove a point I guess. Afterwards, I thought it would be a good idea to decompress by reading books. Turns out, he didn’t want Zades to even LOOK at the same book as him, let alone sit next to us. So he got mad and pushed her away, and my Scorpio daughter defended herself by screaming at his face which led to him crying because the screaming was overwhelming.
Eventually I got them down for their naps, and as I was cleaning up the toys downstairs, I realized that based on how today was going, this is my only chance to rest. I snuck a thirty minute nap in before my husband came home early to WFH (because he was sick) and Zades decided to wake up from her nap (because she was over-tired). I praise my foresight on the nap. Basically, I feel like a genius and ended this half day on a WIN.
How about you?
Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash
