The lupus dilemma: what to do with three spare hours

Deirdre started preschool last week. She goes two days a week, three hours each day, and she absolutely loves it. Here she is, "schooling" away:

Before school started, everyone told me not to get too excited about those three hours. "They go so quickly", my girlfriends said, or "you'll barely have time to get groceries and put them away before you have to pick her up." Well - I guess I'm still in the honeymoon phase, because those three hours seem like the most free consecutive hours I've had yet as a mom!

That said, in true overachiever/doer fashion, the week before school started, I was dreaming about what I was going to accomplish during that time. It wasn't just what I was going to do, it was what was I going to do first. I had those two mornings a week jam packed with stuff, my strategy planned out to the letter: I would drop off Deirdre in the morning, and take all of my "work" stuff with me so that I could just go from there to camp out somewhere with Internet access. Bernie would go down for a nap within about 30 minutes after I left, so I wouldn't feel bad about having Paola put her down. I wouldn't be missing much together time with little Bernadette because she'd be sawing logs, and what better time to get work done then when neither of my girls needed me? I'd work furiously, run errands, catch up on calls until the moment I had to pick up Deirdre, and I'd swing back on my way home to pick her up, and the Gorman girls would have spent their mornings just the way they wanted to.

But then reality set in. Or should I say, my husband got a hold of me. He caught wind of my plans for the whirlwind of activity, and he promptly intervened, reminding me what an opportune time those few hours would be to catch up on my sleep. (Bernadette's recently started getting up about an hour and a half earlier than she had been...sometimes even 2 hours, so I've been a pooped pup!) I told him that I didn't need a nap, that I was going to take one in the afternoon like always, and that I really needed to get my stuff done in the morning.

And then he looked at me, just as every husband of a driven, overachieving lupite should look at his wife, and I knew he was right. Of course I should capitalize on those few precious hours when I could catch some zzz's. That was the perfect opportunity to get back those extra few moments of sleep that Bernadette had snagged in the wee hours of the morning. A quiet house, 1 gal gone, the other off in dreamland for a good two hours - what better circumstances could I have? 

I didn't need to sleep for the entire time, but I at least needed to work it into the mix. Even 30 minutes would be good. Anything to prevent that whirlwind of activity from taking over - anything to break me of my tendency to overdo. 

So that's what I've been doing. It's only been three days, but I like where this is headed. I like the thrill of stealing a morning nap once Bernie goes down (and since I'm not rushing off to do book/blog stuff, I get to put her down for a nap myself. Bonus!) I'm sure as the holiday season approaches, and my list of to do's increases, I'll be tempted to skimp out on that morning siesta. And maybe I'll be able to at that point. Who knows? Right now, Darwin and I are enjoying our new morning ritual.