A Bad Case of the Mondays

"Looks like someone has got a bad case of the Mondays!" Oh how gag inducing is that saying? Can't you just see it on a poster with Garfield hanging in your guidance counselor's office? In spite of its cuteness, the disease seems to be sinister. Its progress is all over Facebook and Twitter. Yeah I get it, from you working drudges. I used to bemoan going back to work myself (though my schedule was so weird that I could come down with a case of the Mondays any day of the week, sometimes twice a week. Lucky me.) but I am always astonished when these updates are from other SAHM's. Am I really the only one who kind of looks forward to Mondays?

Even on this Monday where i am dead tired (4:30 "I lost my pacifier" wake up followed by an especially early wakeup two hours later) I feel relieved when my husband walks out the door. Those hours between seven thirty and five are "my time". Everything is just a bit easier and there is no judgment. No one to make fun of my singing and Elaine dancing when "Last Night" by the Strokes comes on. No one to chide me when I let the girls watch a third YGG episode. No one to see that I let the girls have a bowl of cookies just so I could get five minutes to check my email. I can keep myself on schedule or spread the toys out everywhere and keep everyone in pajamas until four. No ones knows. At least until the girls start talking in English rather than twinspeak.

Don't get me wrong, my husband is great with the kids. In fact even using that phrase seems wrong, like he is so great with them in the hour I run to the store. He truly is, in every sense, a coparent. But there is a certain tolerance that comes from being around them 24/7 that can't be duplicated. The crying and whining doesn't affect me the way it does him. I know just from J's ruffled brow that while the orange shoes may have be the favorite yesterday today it would mean torture by screaming if you even attempt to put them near her feet. There are a million little nuances the primary parent picks up and my husband is missing out on all of them. I can't imagine how frustrating it is.

So I put up with the spontaneous weekend car trips that extend just a bit too far into nap time, the occasional ignoring of the poopy diapers, and the "how long until bedtime" whines. As long as he puts up with my slovenly ways and that sometimes I walk into our room and shut the door the second he gets home. And as long as he leaves on time in the morning.