This past Friday, I dropped my kids off at school for the first time this year, since I have to be in the office on Mondays and Wednesdays. Obviously it’s important to me to be present and active in my children’s lives at these early stages of their life, even when doing little things like taking them to school on the days in which I work from home.
Despite the fact that our au pair said that #2 didn’t cry at all on the first or second day, naturally she busts out crying when I drop her off; I’m guessing their general separation anxiety they feel with me from time to time kicked in, and I’ve got a crying child being escorted into school.
Anyway, I get home from dropping the kids off, and I step inside from the garage, and it’s suddenly eerily quiet. I told our au pair to take the morning off and relax, because I don’t want to be a clock watcher in regards to her working time, and there was little point for her to get up early for like 15 minutes when I was going to be the one taking her to school, so she was chilling up in her room, adding to the quiet calmness in my house.
It’s like I don’t think non-parents understand just how noisy and elevated excitement the presence of children are, much less two toddlers. Even when they’re doing something quiet and calm, there’s always this metaphorical sense of bated breath, that at any given moment, one or both of the kids can go off the rails, the thumbing of running footsteps, anything in arm’s reach is in danger again, and it’s back to high-alert for the kid watchers.
Last school year, only #1 was in school, and regardless of how chill #2 typically was, it was still the duty of parenting that made me or whomever was watching, to have to be on readiness for, needing to parent, to where it still didn’t feel like the complete sense of calm that was felt when I got home from dropping them both off.
With no kids in the house, it’s like even the house itself was taking a giant exhale of relaxation. The dog was chill, when our au pair came downstairs, she leisurely went into the sunroom to exercise. I brewed a cup of coffee without having to watch over my shoulder, and it’s like for the first time in a long while, I felt like I could actually relax in my own home for a little bit, and it was of course, a really pleasant feeling.
And now that I’m back in the office four days a week, I’ve noticed that pretty much nobody does absolutely any work at all on Fridays, which doesn’t bother me one bit. I haven’t had a Friday meeting in three weeks, and although I know that won’t always be the case, it’s been really nice not feeling tethered to my machine in preparation for a meeting. That being said, it adds to the general and fairly sudden influx of going from stressful, hands-full high workload to suddenly relaxing calm on Friday.
I think in future Fridays, I may use the lax atmosphere to try and catch up with things around and outside the house that I simply can’t get to, because I’m pretty much always on kid-duty when I’m not in the office. I got a chainsaw and a pressure washer for Christmas, and I haven’t been able to use either, and there’s a lot of shit outside that needs to be addressed that my landscapers won’t do unless I pay them moar, so it’s on me to try and do the other touchups around my property. I’ve also got frames to hang, shit to clean and general housekeeping that I’d like to take care of, and I might start utilizing some of these kid-free Fridays to try and tackle things like this, because fuck, I don’t know how to actually relax, and always have to be accomplishing something.
Either way, it was a very surreal feeling when I got home from dropping the kids off, and I wonder if this is a small glimpse into the future. And of course, there’s that emo-dad part of me that’s always melancholy and seeing every moment I’m away from my kids as a threatening sense of this is what it will be like when you’re empty nesting, no matter how much there are times in which I just want to turn off being on dad mode and just be by myself, staring at a wall and doing nothing. But at the same time, I’m looking forward to future Fridays, because of the potential there might be for me to actually get some shit done at the house without having to worry about the kids.
In conclusion, WFH Fridays with the kids in school = a good thing!
