Why I Insist On Working Weekends

Any sane person would advise that after spending eleven hours a day, five days a week, running a home daycare it would be sensible to take weekends off. I often say that to myself as well, especially when I look at the calendar and really wish that I had forty-eight hours or so to do what sensible people do. Like.... maybe watch tv or have a shower or get a haircut or get to that list of stuff that's undone or get the bedrooms vacuumed or make twenty thousand meatballs or defrost the freezer or join the gym.

Exactly.

Who would want to take weekends off?

Take today for example. I slept in until a shameful 7:20. I got up, made coffee, soaked the dishes that some ungrateful vagrants left lying around the night before, threw in a load of laundry, then took a fistful of hard earned cash and spent two hours spending it on cheerios and ground beef. That brought me to 2:20. Seven hours into my ten hours off. Better squeeze in some "me" time. I vacuumed the slimey excuses for bedrooms, scooped two hundred teeny-tiny lego pieces into some plastic drawers, threw out a creature made out of cracked egg shells, unearthed some petrified socks, and spent some time on google researching some women's group ideas. Time to go to work.

"Work" consists of one adult individual who requires my company and assistance in her home. There's a lovely warm fireplace, a fridge full of food that I did not prepare, a phone that rarely rings, and no toys. Not even one.

After enjoying a dinner that I did not prepare, loading a deliciously few dishes in the dishwasher, and helping with bedtime routines, I check the clock and tally the hours left on shift. Three hours to go. All the tasks have been completed. Looks like I'll have to watch some television. "The Notebook" is on, and I settle in with a hot cup of tea and a box of kleenex. The commercials provide that coveted time I've been craving for my mind to wander. The movie provides that catharsis I didn't know I wanted to cleanse my body of some toxins via my tear ducts. The fireplace and fleece throw make me cozy and warm. Its quiet. Every conversation in the movie is heard by me, uninterrupted. No one asks for a snack. No one wants company in the bathroom. Even the phone rests respectfully in its cradle.

And in two weeks..... someone is going to insist on sending me a cheque for all my unselfishness.

And, that's why I insist on working weekends.