By Christine
Fridays are meant for letting your hair down and easing off the full-steam ahead attitude a lot of us carry throughout the week. It is a time for relaxed homework rules, pending weekend fun, and a whole list of accomplishments made Monday through Thursday. It's about resting on your laurels for one whole day –- such as the square meals you cooked for your kids on all the other days of the week. Clearly, Fridays are Slacker Mom days.
At week's end, I find some way to toss my hands high in the air and surrender to the whim of convenience.
Recently, it was drive-through burgers and fries after school. What? No forcing your picky eater to down a handful of greens? No washing dishes afterward to the tune of whining children unwilling to fulfill their commitment to do homework, then play? As the torrential rains poured down around our family-friendly vehicle, I promised a fast-food meal if they promised to behave. Angelic heads nodded in the backseat. They got a toy along with their meal, then we whisked our food back to the house five minutes away. Except french fries at room temperature are less than appetizing. And the kids barely ate them. So what's a Slacker Mom to do? I ate them instead.
My daughter willingly completed her homework in record time, then joined her brother for an after-school video. The sting of french fry grease lay heavily in the air. In keeping with my Friday attitude, I shrugged it off and opened a window. While my kids sat mesmerized in front of the tube, I whisked away any evidence of my culinary sin and tossed it in the garbage outdoors. I even had extra energy to iron while watching the film with the kids.
Slacker Mom days are simply the best. I learn a lot from my alternate persona on Fridays. She is much more relaxed, less rigid in her routine, and she laughs more. She even playacts, speaking in accents stemming from the South to Siberia while storytelling to keep the kids entertained and instructed about right and wrong.
I'm beginning to love this person who takes over my house at the end of the week. I might just invite her in more often for a round of Uno and some fries.
Christine is an American author and freelance writer living near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children (Jackson, 5, and Sophia, 7).
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