Working Mama Wednesday - Mama's Night Out

For safety reasons I won't get into exactly what our family's schedule is, but I can say that it isn't "normal" and this really sucks sometimes.  It would be nice to do the "normal" family thing where we spend the usual family hours together, like weeknights and weekends.  We probably spend about 12-14 family hours a week, which works out to less than 2 hours per day and I'll say we don't have time together some days at all.  We make it work and truth be told this has always been our life since we were married.

There are benefits to having an unusual schedule though.  When we do have family time, we don't take it for granted and make sure it is what I call targeted family time - intentional time spent as a family and a married couple.  We don't really waste our time on things that some families spend their time on - typically our chores are done separately as are our individual hobbies.  This makes some chores difficult and boring - it's nice to have someone doing chores with you - but instead we play games and take walks and play with our kiddos.  It works out well.  My husband gets time away from the family to play the video games he likes; I get the time to do my schoolwork without feeling like I'm taking away time from my family (of course, that would be true if my son went to bed before 11pm). 

One of the benefits is that sometimes when it would be normal "couple time", like parents-night-out-type events, I sometimes get to take advantage of them for me time.  I haven't had the opportunity recently, but when my husband was on another schedule I used to get a Friday night off each month to do whatever I wanted to do.  My favorite thing to do was to go out and get Sushi from Kroger, baked potato soup, a large Coke from Taco Bueno and some cinnamon chips, then sit down in front of the tv watching whatever I wanted to watch while working on scrapbooking through the wee hours of the morning.  I loved it!  It was just enough of a break to help me recuperate from being a working mama.

Sometime soon I'm going to get a similar opportunity.  Not sure exactly what I'm going to do - maybe I'll go out with friends, maybe I'll hide out and do homework in peace, maybe I'll find something else to do - we'll see.  It's amazing what a working mama can accomplish in a few hours.

One thing I know - I'll probably get some sushi.