Freezer Fridays!

wordswithmrsh - 24 Jun 16

I LOVE Fridays. On a Thursday evening I almost start to feel a little giddy about the following day. Although my jubilation about the end of the week doesn’t quite start the moment I wake on a Friday morning. I still have the school/nursery run to negotiate but once that’s done, the countdown begins….

I make a low level attempt at some housework in the day but the bare minimum required – I clear obvious trip hazards, put a token wash on (there is a 50/50 chance this will make it out the machine immediately for drying so I keep it small just in case) and hide miscellaneous crap where I can find spaces to create the illusion of tidy. I spray a nice smelling air freshener to create the illusion of clean. I see no point in doing any actual housework when we will all be at home for the next two days, messing it up again.

I will go food shopping. This ensures that I do not need to think about ‘what we’ve got in’ for the rest of the weekend. This shop will contain the obligatory Friday treats we have become accustomed to as a family. A legacy of my childhood where on a Friday we were given a pound to spend on penny sweets after school. Treats include a chocolate bar or at the moment, football stickers, for the boys and most likely a magazine and bottle of something for mum.

Shopping done, house ready, I go and collect my boys. They love Fridays too. They get a treat and mum starts saying YES a whole lot more:

Can I put the telly on when we get in? – YES

Can we stay up to watch a DVD -YES

Can I play in the garden in my uniform – YES

Did I get stickers and some chocolate – YES

Can we go to the park after tea – YES

Brilliant isn’t it?! I love being able to say yes. And I can, because at the very moment we get home from the school run, we have nothing else to do. No clubs to get ready and go out again for, homework or reading to be completed, forms and payments to be handed in, no alarm in the morning and no lunches to be made. I swear by Thursday evenings if anyone even says ham sandwich to me I will not be responsible for my actions.

I make it a rule not to cook on a Friday. Please don’t take this to mean that I am slaving away in the kitchen the rest of the week – think things that you can make or boil on the hob which equates to cooking in our house. (Very specifically a lot of pasta based dishes). But on a Friday it’s the oven that gets its moment of glory. Dinner is what can be put on a tray, slipped into the oven and come out straight onto a plate. If you don’t want an oven dinner you can have crisps and dips, as I often do with my first glass of something purchased earlier. And don’t judge but I have on occasion been known to dish up oven chips or crisps and dips on a paper plate….

Apart from fully embracing my inner slob for a few fabulous hours, I also love Fridays because I know that we have two whole days off to enjoy. My husband from work, my kids from routine and me from coordinating all of our lives, whilst trying to ensure I have brushed my own teeth.

I will be able to shower with the door closed and uninterrupted because my husband is home to hear the baby wake and run crowd control with with boys. I can pop out, alone, for whatever reason, without bribing anyone to get their shoes on or threatening consequences if they don’t start to hustle when needed. I don’t need to ensure whatever activity I am doing in the day is over by 2:30pm. I will not make a ham sandwich.

We are unlikely to lie in but even getting up early is not so bad because we get up and then sit down again. Somehow with all of us home and a slower start, we will definitely be about 20 minutes late to anything we might have planned to do.

I do not worry or care about the mess and chaos in the house (I struggle to care within the week but will make an effort) because we are all home together having fun so who cares? We enjoy hanging out, being silly and being together without the pressure of having anything else to do.

At some point on a Sunday evening I will, and this is hard to admit, become a bit of a moody cow. I will start to think about everything happening in the week ahead and just having to get up and out the house on time the following morning and it makes me grumpy. I am never ready for the weekend to be over.

Whilst confessing to a friend a few weeks back my slack parenting ways by the time 3pm on a Friday arrives she said ‘ Our Fridays are like that too, we call them Freezer Fridays….’  

This is perhaps the best description ever of the beginning of the weekend in our house and how wonderful – Long live Freezer Fridays

wordswithmrsh

Mum of fabulous children, wife to one very patient husband. My blogs are about anything that has popped into my head as it occurs to me. I have aspirations to write more, that are slowly turning into reality. A lover of the simple things in life - good friends, good food, good wine and of course family.

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